|
Friday, 09 December 2005 08:08 |
| Matt Mittan
|
How do you define diversity? Let me restate that question... How do you measure diversity?
Some at UNC Asheville are currently feeling troubled over what they see as a lack of diversity at the school. That??s why they??ve created ?®The New Diversity Task Force.?∆
The student newspaper, The Blue Banner, reports that students and faculty are questioning what can be done about this ?®growing problem.?∆
I??ve visited the campus many times myself, even given speeches a few times for one event or another. I always thought that there was a wealth of diversity at the school and on the grounds. The mere fact that I??ve been invited to speak at the university several times validates that point.
So how is it that there??s such a problem at UNCA and I somehow missed
it? I turned again to The Blue Banner article by Melissa Dean about the
proclaimed diversity crisis.
I think I found my answer in a quote by Eric Gardner, a senior
philosophy student. He said, ?®There are students here that identify
themselves as queer and we also have many different religious groups.
But the most important part of diversity here isn??t in terms of these
lifestyle choices made by subsections of the upper-middle-class white
part of the population.?∆
Now I see... This is a racist issue.
Many in Academic America are riddled with ?®white guilt.?∆ To deal with
this intellectual disorder, they resort to measuring diversity not by
ideas, not by philosophy or moral values, not by any means other than
the one category that we as a society ought to be working very hard to
move away from.
Academia is only willing to look at the color of a person??s skin when measuring failure, accomplishment ?? or
even diversity itself. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. died trying to move us away from this line of thinking.
What is being asserted in The Blue Banner article is essentially that
all black people think, act and live one way and all white people
think, act and live a different way. How sad is that? No matter how
different everyone is at UNCA, too many people are white. That??s the
complaint in a nutshell.
So what should be done about it?
Liam Luttrell, a member of The New Diversity Task Force, says that the
only way that this can be resolved is for students, especially white
students, to rise up and publicly challenge, question and ?®make noise?∆
against the administration of the taxpayer-supported university.
Mark Gibney, a political science professor at UNCA, goes as far as
claiming that the faculty isn??t able to teach effectively because it??s
too white. Gibney was quoted as saying, ?®Classes are hard to teach
because you only have a white perspective.?∆
What exactly would that ?®white perspective?∆ be, Professor? Is math
different for black people? How about science? Do the laws of nature
change based on the color of your skin?
UNCA??s students and faculty who are currently suffering from white
guilt could cure their ailment with one simple dose of this: Measure
diversity by the broadness of ideas, philosophy and beliefs, not solely
by the color of a student??s or teacher??s skin. Determine a man??s wealth
by the depth of his character and the abilities he has to live for
himself in his own way.
The way I see it: These people all bent out of shape at UNCA over the
over-whiteness of the campus need to drop out of school, quit their
ineffective teaching jobs, close all their bank accounts and give
everything they own to the first non-white person they meet. Either
that or they can start looking at people as people, and not as a check
mark on some twisted and demeaning social checklist.
Run this commentary in the student newspaper, then The Blue Banner
publication of UNCA would have TRUE diversity, not the artificial one
made up in the minds of people unaware of their own bigotry.
?ÿ
EDITOR??S NOTE:
This commentary is reprinted by permission of Matt Mittan, its author,
who read it Dec. 1 on ?®Take A Stand!,?∆ his daily radio talk show aired
on WWNC (570-AM) in Asheville. His show runs from 3 to 6 p.m. Monday
through Friday. He may be reached at matt570-at-clearchannel.com.
|
