The Whitworthian

Issue date: 10/9/07

Diversity. It's one of those words we feel obligated to blurt out whenever possible to appear politically enlightened. It is the nation's buzzword. I don't think anyone could get elected to public office anymore without pandering to the D-word.

Diversity doesn't do what we want it to do anymore. In fact, I think it's starting to do the exact opposite. While we're trying to unite people under this happy halo of diversity, diversity itself is dividing us.

In its truest form, diversity is other people. Nothing more. Diversity is you and diversity is me. I don't care if I'm white and you're white, we are still diverse. We could have the exact same ethnic makeup and we'd still be diverse. No two peoples' experiences or history is the same.

These days we're all supposed to be celebrating our heritages and pointing out how different we are. Every time I see some sort of diversity celebration I can't help but feel like people are boiling themselves down to some stereotypical image. They celebrate their African-American heritage, their Hispanic heritage or they celebrate homosexual orientation, but as soon as they start parading around their ethnicity or orientation I feel like that's all we are supposed to see.

I want to see the person. I want to see who they are regardless of a cookie cutter image. I realize sexual orientation, gender and ethnicity all play into who we are as human beings, but I want to get to know them and see their pride in their heritage in how they live and act.

Not all African-Americans have had the same experience in this country; not all Japanese-Americans have had the same experience; not all women have had the same experience. All this focus on diversity gives the impression that if we are familiar with some people groups' general experience we can automatically impose that generalization on someone who belongs to that group.

You are infinitely diverse. You are diverse to the point of no one else in the history of the world having been like you. Someone's heritage, gender, or sexual orientation, has immense value in that it makes people who they are at the deepest levels. I am just not willing to distill that person down to a stereotype.

If we all just treated each other like the valuable human beings we are there would be no need for this word, "diversity." Diversity is a god Americans pray to in order to appear holy by the standards of society. We bring offerings of ethnic celebrations, rainbow flags and burned bras to the altar of public acceptance. What if we all stopped going through these rituals and just valued people because they're people?

With all this emphasis on diversity I'm still astounded to hear stories about racism and sexism occurring in this country. Even more astounded when I hear about it happening on campus. For all our million-dollar campaigns to celebrate diversity, human nature has a way.

Diversity is other people, that's all. If we would stop clumping into little groups of somewhat similar-looking or feeling humans and step out of our comfort zones to experience those other people maybe we wouldn't have to even have a word like "diversity." We may be stuck with it for now, but that doesn't mean we have to worship it.

Elizabeth Johnson is an opinions columnist and a junior majoring in art. Contact her at elizabeth.johnson@whitworthian.com.

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