Day of Dialogue - A great start.
Note: During this week and the next, I will post questions related to diversity that I hope you will answer.
Welcome back, UIS! This probably would have been more poignant if I had posted this a week ago, but nonetheless, welcome back! This semester is my last one here at UIS - unless something goes terribly wrong. With that said, I have a lofty agenda ahead of me.
It took me a semester for me to realize the real opportunity I have to share some thoughts with you. In the coming weeks, I will be writing articles that will hopefully be uplifting, motivating, and sometimes... enraging. I want you all to take a read and post - either through Facebook or my blog, and let me know what your thoughts are on certain topics.
The first set of my blogs will be dedicated to diversity - not just the normal melting pot of cultures, but also creeds and lifestyles as well.
This first blog is a retrospective on the Martin Luther King Day of Dialogue that transpired on January 19th. It was quite exciting to see so many fellow students - graduate and undergrad alike - sitting down and discussing issues of how we have come so far from the days of oppression, and how we are so far behind on where we should be on making this country - this state - this city - this university a safer place for all cultures, creeds, and lifestyles.
I feel that this Day of Dialogue is important. However, I feel that the Great Room at LRH should have been filled to the brim with students who wanted to talk and learn about diversity. I know we can't force feed you diversity, it won't take. But imagine sitting down with people of different cultures - cultures you may or may not know anything about - and just discussing your comments or concerns! Learning that people aren't just stereotypes helps us mature and grow in ways that enrich our very lives.
At my circle, I was lucky to have such an amazingly diverse group. Among the group members were two other UIS Bloggers, Shana and Shannon. Just hearing perspectives from everybody at the group made my pulse quicken with excitement. Imagine if we all just aired out our frustrations about perception!
Be honest with me for a minute. Not just because I'm a minority, but I was thinking back on our civil rights era.
Why was there so much oppression? It's preposterous to even imagine something like this happening today, but it is.
Our discussion group came across this answer: People are so in love with the status quo, having something upset their sense of normalcy shakes them to their very core. Is this right? Is this fair? No. Does it happen? Yes. I am appalled that we treat people like second class citizens.
Our country is plagued by stereotypes... the same stereotypes that make people shudder when I walk on an airplane, or some people to lock their doors as their driving when they go into a neighborhood where blacks and other minorities are present. We are plagued by social injustices where we ignore the travesties and tragedies of racial and lifestyle oppression.
We are all human. Why is this so hard to comprehend?
Why can't we hold hands with our Caucasian, African, Latino, Indian, Asian, gay and lesbian brothers and sisters and persevere through life together?
How can our society, our species, advance if we're so caught up in the oppression of people, just because of their color, creed, or lifestyle?
I want to see the eradication of tension between people because of their race, creed, or lifestyle. I want people to just be people.
I want us to be like children playing in a sandbox. I want us to not know what hate is. I want us to accept each other for the content of our character rather than the amount of money in our wallets.
I want us to be able to get a job based on our merits.
I want us to be able to fall in love with whoever want.
I want us to be able to afford quality education rather than being barred because of monetary restrictions.
I am living the American Dream, and I want all of us to feel that we're living it too.
Like Dr. King, I can't just be a dreamer, I have to put actions to words.
Can you?
Stay tuned this week for questions. I want to hear what you have to say. From this point forward, this UIS blog becomes about you.
-S
6 Comments:
Suraj,
I completely agree with you about the Day of Dialogue and the many conversations that we should have with each other to change the way each of us looks at life so that we may all see each other as human. I want each of the things you want, and I think that it shouldn't be impossible for each and every one of them to become reality. In some strange way, this reminds me of the mantra of Ubuntu, which was adopted by Canonical, Ltd. for their Linux distribution. The best description of Ubuntu is from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, "
A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed."
I wish this could be our goal.. to achieve a society where everyone serves to better everyone else, knowing that by doing so we are actually bettering the whole, which benefits each of us individually.
We should also stand up against stereotypes that rip apart the humanity of the whole. We, each of us, should have the responsibility to maintain our integrity as well as the integrity of those around us.
A wish, a dream? Whatever we call it, it starts with each of us working together to care about each other..
and like you said, we have to put all this into action to mean anything at all...
That's where we can do something! :)
Thanks for you post,
-Dan Collins
Suraj-
I think one of the reasons our society stubbornly holds onto stereotypes is because it is so segregated. Money - a huge cause of segregation - determines where we live and who we go to school with. It isn't until college that many people are exposed to a diverse group of people. What do you think?
Thanks, Anonymous,
I would have to say that I agree. But I also believe in some situations, it just takes one person to change an entire community. I used the be the only person of color in my grade school, then high school. I faced severe adversity those first 8 years, then it became amazingly simpler because as people matured, they realized that color is just that - color.
But to the crux of the matter. Yes, I would like to say that income (per capita) is a big divider. In poorer white and minority populations, there is little education and too much hatred. The lack of real education - and by that I mean equality education - means that the idiot parents or caregivers give their children the wrong kind of knowledge. The knowledge of hate.
The middle class is today's battleground. The heart of our nation resides here. If normal kids of normal upbringing can learn to accept each other, we can all do it.
I hope we do this sooner than later, and I'm doing whatever I can to help. I hope you can too!
Thanks!
-S
Suraj-
I think it is too easy to say that parents pass on the "knowledge of hate." It doesn't allow people to take responsibility for their own thoughts, their own actions. I certainly don't believe everything my parents do. Do you? I am constantly reassessing what I "know" with new experiences that challenge that knowledge.
You're right when you say we are all responsible for creating the society we live in. I for one want to see a society that celebrates diversity.
Dear Anon,
Well, I'm glad people are reading my comments! I agree that people should take responsibility for their actions. However, because hate is ingrained at such a young age in those cases, today's ignorant population has a harder internal battle within themselves to erase their prejudices.
I would say we're part of the privileged few who have moved on from our childhood upbringings and made decisions on our own.
The thing is, when a person grows up ignorant, they can hold on to their ignorance or let it go and face disapproval from their ignorant friends and family. In this case, a reverse education needs to occur where the younger generation fights to create an opening of equality in today's world.
If you want to discuss this further, please don't hesitate to drop me an email!
-Suraj
Suraj-
I think you are exactly right when you say it is a choice to hold on to their prejudices.
It may be difficult dealing with people close to you who feel otherwise, but if no one had ever done it we wouldn't have made the progress against discrimination that we have in this country. Anyway, that's how I feel about it.
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