So, in order to further expand my mind and broaden my views, I go through a weekly process of "liberalification."
Once a week, I liberalify myself by reading and watching heavily biased books and videos. And it makes me think. I try to have an open mind and absorb what the work wants to convey. The majority of the news I watch is liberal, but I am becoming so conservative that I decided I needed a little more liberal in my life. Hence liberalification. My new hobby.
But my liberalification project this week horrified me. In fact, it was so far left, it wasn't left. Tell me what you think:
I signed up for the Diversity Conference the State of Oregon was putting on for all employees. The conference was broken up into three sections-- one large gathering (there were about 500 people there), and two small break-out sessions. During the large assembly, I heard the following stories:
The first speaker talked about how similar she was to the friends that she grew up with: they watched the same TV shows, read the same books, did the same activities, etc. Except she was black. When she became more educated, she realized that her white friends were holding her back because they did not treat her like she was black, they treated her like she was one of them. Thus, by accepting her as one of them, they made her forget her heritage and not appreciate her black skin. They also (the white culture) taught her that celebrating Thanksgiving and Columbus Day were OK, even though those holidays are racist.
She then went on to say that she worked for an NGO in Arizona, and loved its diversity because it had no white people.
The second speaker, truth be told, was pretty good. She taught us about paradigm shifts. But she did say some crazy things... like she was at another diversity conference, and the speaker divided everybody up-- black women over there, white males over here, Asian women over there, etc-- and then had each group talk about how similar they are to each other, and how different they are from the rest of the groups. She had a white male friend that came in late and asked her (the second speaker) what was going on. She told him that they were separating into groups, to which the white male responded "I didn't know I was in a group." And she was shocked that this poor white man did not know he belonged to such an apparent click.
There's a name for an acitivity like that. What is it? No really, it's on the tip of my tongue...
Segra...
Segre...
Oh that's right, segregation! But wait, isn't
that what we're fighting with these conferences, not promoting?
Oh, and she also taught us that one way we know we are not racist, and truly culturally diverse, is if we feel
guilty about our individual demographics.
...
And then I went to the last break-out session. The speaker there told us about how they need to help the minorities of his County. The minorities are down, because the system (created by the wealthy) keeps them down, so we need to create a system that doesn't. So, I asked a really, what I thought to be, innocent question. And this is exactly how I phrased it:
"I know this is a very sensitive issue, so I want to be very careful. In your opinion, how much of these statistics is explained by there not being enough opportunities for minorities in the system, versus them simply not taking advantage of the opportunities that are available?"
And I was heckled.
The guy looked at me like I was from Mars. Granted, after his recovery he was very polite. He didn't really answer my question, but did go on to explain how the county received a federal loan to build a 50-mile bike-path, and he fought tooth and nail to not put any of the bike path (there were only 10 miles of it in dispute) in the white neighborhood because "they already had too much already."
...
I simply don't know how to respond to all of this. I got in the car and was so disheartened. We are a lot further from being a non-racist society than I thought. Is there racism? Sadly, yes. And truly, I was subjected to nearly 4 hours of it. I guess my idea of racism and their idea of racism are very different. And usually, in situations such as these, I try to justify the other side, try to find their point of view. But I can't. It's so entirely wrong, counter-intuitive, and void of logic. To emphasize race as a mechanism to decrease racism? To so resolutely separate people based on race as a means to promote cultural exchange? To categorize, group, and pigeon-hole everybody according to their race and sex is so utterly wrong. I don't care what the gender, race, religion, or whatever, of the other individual may be, they're different from everybody else. I could be more similar to a Latino man than to another white woman. That's entirely possible.
My idea of diversity is to listen to everybody. I am not going to focus on their age, gender, disability, sexual orientation, religion, race, or whatever, as a means of passing judgment or preference. Everybody has valued positions, because everybody has lived life, gone through trials, and has learned something. That's diversity.
Oh, and I would like to dispel two myths, two assumptions, if you will that this conference was founded on:
1) Diversity comes in more ways than just differences in race-- there is also diversity of religion/value systems, gender, age, sexual orientation, nationality, language, culture, and so on.
2) There is such a thing as poor white people that need help. I know, it sounds crazy. But if you live a long time, you might be able to spot one.
If you have great ideas for future liberalification projects, please leave them in the comments section below.
Gracias