Word: racisms
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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This year Harvard required incoming first year students to participate in discussion groups on diversity. And while this new approach better fulfills the University's responsibility to promote awareness of racism, it also highlights the limits of any institutional approach to promoting discussion on diversity. Asked to discuss a topic as emotionally charged as racism (couched in the safe term of "diversity") in an official setting of proctor groups and surrounded by peers who are still strangers, first-years could not be expected to engage in truly candid discussion. Even if important issues were discussed, they were probably not discussed...
While fear of offending others may inhibit honest discussion of race, a misguided belief that racism doesn't exist here can be even more harmful. While many people believe that the KKK thrives "out there" in some uncivilized part of the country few are as willing to believe that racism exists in the Camelot of Harvard. Yet I was shocked by what was written on some desks in a Harvard library--things that I would expect to find on the walls of my high school's bathrooms...
...racism does not have to be concrete before you recognize its presence. If people recognize that at least some group will be treated unfairly in any setting, whether it is a rural town or a university campus, then they can move on to talking about how to end racism...
...Racism is not a concrete problem that is somehow only understood by minorities. Minorities are not immune from having prejudices against people of other ethnic backgrounds. Any one who has felt prejudice or hatred because of their ethnicity will have strong feelings on the issue, but they do not have a special right to dictate what is said about racism and what is done about it. Even among people who abhor racism, there is room for differences on what should be done about...
There may be no step-by-step solution for eradicating racism, but one definite step towards ending racism is to move it from the realm of academics to the realm of a real-world problem for which we all share some responsibility for solving. At Harvard, honest discussion on racism and diversity has a place in institutional settings but it also has an important place in the everyday discussions of students...