Well…
I got the interview. I found out over Thanksgiving. It was the best letter I have ever received in a long time. I’m now 1/2 of the way there to fulfilling my dreams, and as soon as that interview is over, I’ll be 2/3 of the way there. Veterinary school, here I come!
old stuff | Comment (0)Rob brought this one up…
So on Rob’s blog, he keeps talking about his sensitivity towards other people, and I found it interesting that he can’t decide if he’s sensitive, and if he is, is it an appropriate reaction (in the case of trying to help his Arabic students). The reason I find this interesting is because recently Joey and I have been discussing the value and trouble of multicultural education. Which I think for the most part fits nicely in with the recent ongoings at my University concerning racism and free speech and whether or not the whole thing was blown out of proportion.
The other day when I was at Joey’s for lunch (which was quite delicious) - I noticed a book on his kitchen table called, “Multicultural Education in a Diverse Society.” And to me, this seemed like a ridiculous thing to write a book about. For one - multicultural education is (in my opinion) much easier to come by in a diverse society - you don’t need a teacher to teach is because you are living it. Secondly - it would be much more prudent to write a book about multicultural education in a white-bread society because according to every PC institution we have out there - homogeneous societies need to get off their butts and be more inclusionist (either that or subscribe to their PC-euphemistic way of life by covering up real problems with non-confrontational terminology).
This fits perfectly at my school. We are majority white people, many from rural Texas towns, where the only “diverse” populations encountered are on single farms with herds of Brangus and Santa Gertrudis. Apparently we have to be more inclusionist because this will “benefit” us in some manner, because according to the powers that be, heterogeneous societies are inherently better than homogeneous ones. Everyday there is something in The Battalion about a diversity forum or a diversity hearing or minority recruitment is up. And yet at the same time - there is something in the paper everyday about how we don’t have enough diversity, how we don’t have enough minorities, how our schools hates non-whites and that we beat them up (which is probably true). Everyone is lumped into two catagories - minority group people and everyone who hates minorities. There are no places for ambivalent people like me.
The thing is, what I think people are failing to see - is that it is not failure on our part to attract a more diverse student population. I’m a firm believer in the theory that people want to be around people like them - and if you are a smart young black person, do you want to go to one of the nation’s black colleges or do you want to go to some predominantly white school? People say that this is flawed logic - that we want these other people to come to our school, that we need these other people at our school, that without them our educations are fundamentally flawed and we will not be able to function in the real world - because without minorities or what have you, we will all become evil racists who hate anyone not like us (inherently untrue). What this really means is - we won’t be able to attract a majority of the good athletes to our school because these people are traditionally minorities.
I fully believe in having a good, diverse education. Studying abroad was one of the best things I have ever done for myself. Learning a second language was also a great way to be more than just a science and math person. But I can’t say that any of these decisions were influence by having/not having a diverse student body at my school. In fact, most of the time, some of these people really turn me off to the whole cultural sensitivity issue. Which is where this post was originally going.
This world is so PC these days, and it really annoys me. We all have to tread around on our tiptoes (especially if you are white) because anything and everything we say is more than likely to be taken out of context and misconstrued as some kind of attack on another group. Now, I’m not saying what those students did in that video was right, or even that is should be protected under free speech (even if it was their original intention; it was still a gross error on their parts to keep such a thing around); but what I am saying is that everyone just needs to relax a little bit and not be so uptight. People say to stop perpetuating stereotypes - but what they really mean is - don’t make fun of me because I behave this way. I mean, really, the reason we have stereotypes is because there really are people out there (a large majority) who act in that manner. It’s okay to make satire about everyone else - but the moment you make a satire on a certain “group” of people - it’s hate speech, it’s criminal and everyone gets uproarious about everything. Society is in general, in my opinion, overly sensitive to this whole cultural thing. I, frankly, am sick and tired of all of this, and I have become extremely desensitized to the plight of groups who want to be included but refuse to modify and assimilate and are unable to poke fun at themselves. Really, stop taking yourselves so seriously.
Joey also brought up another interesting point about something that he read about heightened levels of cultural “awareness” (I don’t know if that’s really what its called, but it seems like an apt term to me). He said that he read that people who “don’t see color” or “don’t see inherent differences between people” are lower on the cultural tolerance level than people who can see the differences, but be culturally sensitive enough to “respect the inherent differences in people.” I thought this was an interesting connundrum because everyone always says We’re all people and even though we’re different colors, we’re not really different. So the question is - which is it then - should we be “color-blind” as they say, or is it better to be “color-aware” (this terminology not applying only to black people, but rather all non-white people in general)?
One last thing I want to mention is about instituting mandatory multicultural education classes and training at the University. I really think that this is probably the worst idea anyone could ever come up with. A 1-hr seminar class in why we should be respectful is really not going to make people be respectful. I’ve also personally had diversity training and basically it was an overview course that wasted my time and tried to teach me all the happy euphemistic terms I’m supposed to use rather than the actual words which are better descriptors. I think if anything, making such classes and training mandatory will only exacerbate the whole diversity and tolerance issue even more - no one is going to want to take these classes because they waste the time you need to actually get your real degree, and no one has four hours to spare to sit in front of a computer and learn to say “International visitor” instead of foreigner. I think that the fundamentals of tolerance and inclusion have to be taught at home and at an early age - not when it’s too late and we’ve already formed our biases and developed our cultural “filters”.
There is a lot more I could write about on this topic, and maybe I will if I can organize my thoughts into a logical, coherent discussion. However, in the meantime, while Rob wonders if he should be more sensitive to the plight of his poorly educated Arabic students, I will sit here and know that I could not possibly be any more or less sensitive to other people. I really just think that society needs to buck up and get on with life and that people just need to be a little less sensitive overall - they need to care less about being picked on, they need to worry less about what other people are thinking and doing, and they really need to just calm down when it comes to the issue of diversity. Sure, some sensitivity is called for in this matter because we need to be respectful of everyone and their own cultural idiosyncracies, but this is life and it sucks, so move on with it and be a better person for it.
old stuff | Comments (6)Culinary update
I put up a new recipe for Blackened Chicken Alfredo in case anyone was interested.
old stuff | Comment (0)