Last week, a hateful campaign was leveled against
individuals on campus. As is common in times of crisis, there has been a
widespread outpouring of support for those involved.
Sadly, following traumatic events, communities quickly fade
back to business as usual, and those not directly involved remain unaffected. When
racism is involved, individuals with dominant identities move on most easily,
able to ignore daily inequities around us.
For people with subordinate identities, “business as usual”
has a different connotation. It means constantly
explaining your “differences,” being expected to speak on behalf of entire groups
of people, and often experiencing bigotry first hand.
This semester we are asking, “How did you come to be here?”
Not surprisingly, many people of color readily respond with cultural stories,
and understandings of how their lives have been shaped by these
identities.
In contrast, white people often lack cultural self-knowledge,
and don’t recognize how identity has influenced their life’s paths. This is
largely because we as whites are not made aware of our whiteness on a daily
basis, while people of color are faced with their “otherness” everyday.
As a university, we have a responsibility to examine how systemic
inequities frame our experiences. This means not only exploring how “the other”
is ill served, but also how privileged individuals benefit from the system.
In the classroom, this means exploring how cultural biases influence
our disciplines and impact our learning.
On an individual level, this means learning how our own stories
influence, and are influenced by the stories of others.
Equipped with a deeper sense of self, we allow others’
perspectives to exist on their own merit, rather than only in the context of
being “different” from our own. The
result is a stronger community, which becomes inclusive of all people,
experiences and perspectives.
-Danny Frank
FYE/SIT Coordinator
QASU Adviser
CEHSP Doctoral Student
Danny, thank you for sharing your very articulate and powerful opinion article here. What we have seen (in the incident last week) is how digital and online media can be abused to perpetuate hate and misinformation. What you show here, using your blog, is how these media can also be used to educate and to challenge injustice and misinformation (I wrote more about that, too, in my blog on cyberbullying (http://2techie4me.blogspot.com/2011/09/cyberbullying-we-have-to-speak-out-and.html)
ReplyDeleteWhat you have written is so helpful showing the connection between what happened last week to the ongoing sharing of "how did you come to be here" stories at UMD and the systemic inequities that so dramatically influence people's experiences. I hope that your article -- and your sharing it here in your blog -- provokes widespread reflection about these issues.
This is great Danny.
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