Alexander Lee
Staff Writer

Last month during an advisory day, both the freshman and sophomore classes watched a spectacle: the diversity panel. We watched attentively for fifty minutes as students of various backgrounds shared information about their cultures.

We, the student body, certainly do not doubt that the panel was thoroughly educational, for it gave insight into cultures which otherwise may have remained alien.

However, we are still wholly unconvinced as to whether the panel, by broadcasting itself to the world, is able to sincerely benefit the minorities. Is it realistic for the school to expect humans to both entirely embrace and then completely accept others’ differences?

Being a minority myself, I firmly believe that although the concept of a “separate but equal” sounds promising in theory, but this proposed utopia always falls severely short in reality due to the human-tribal instinct.

People naturally fear all they cannot understand because things which cannot be comprehended could possibly be dangerous. This phobia, in turn, transforms into dislike and even hate.

The only cure for this otherwise inevitable animosity is time. If various factions live among each other long enough, they will both gradually grow to accept one another.

Rather than a goal to be both present and noticed, the committee should strive for minorities to be present but also to be taken granted for- we should aim to be indistinguishable from one another despite what now seem like monumental differences.

Again, we are not asking that the diversity panel dissolve, but rather that it reform, rather that it accomodate to the realities of both human nature and our present circumstances. The panel has good intentions, but now in order for it to bear its hoped fruit of equality, it must act upon realistic yet just as great expectations.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 at 1:13 pm and is filed under Opinions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.