The students at the University have been hearing voices again.
During the second week in September, one by one, we filed into the narrow rows of seats in Old Cabell Hall, sinking deep into the plush cushions to hear voices -- the voices of our classmates, our suitemates, or maybe even our roommates. The Voices of the Class of 2004.
But all I could hear was the sharp sound of a ripping seam.
I cursed myself for having had that second bowl of soft-serve ice cream at O-Hill and checked to make sure it wasn't my cushion that was split in two.
It wasn't the cushion. In fact, it wasn't a ripping seam at all. The tearing sound I had heard during the performance was the sound of segregation. And I wasn't the only student who noticed it.
In today's culture, our theory on race relations reads much like a bumper sticker: "Celebrate Diversity." While it's true that variety is the proverbial "spice of life," there is also something to be said for similarities. But we're almost taught to look for the differences first.
When the admissions office put together an essay topic that asked the Class of 2004 if racism still existed, an applicant could have simply answered, "Yes, because of questions like that." When Voices of the Class brought the admissions essays to life, they also personified the tendency for students to say, "We are so different" rather than "We have so much in common."
And the problem seems to be an epidemic: my friend at a Florida university recently told me her professor asked the (multi-racial) class to verbalize racial stereotypes and differences among cultures. After a great deal of squirming around in his plastic seat, one student began to recite the banal descriptions we often hear in songs or pop culture.
Needless to say, he received offended glares from about 20 sets of eyes and a few negative comments about his own race. The teacher still didn't understand how uncomfortable the atmosphere was and asked other students how to characterize a "black person," a "Hispanic person" and a "white person." When no one would answer, the professor resorted to assigning the question as an essay topic about racism in our society. Sound familiar?
When my roommate and I met each other for the first time and started forming our relationship, we never asked questions like, "How is your family different than mine?" or "Because you're black, does that mean you only listen to Dr. Dre?"
Instead, we decided on foods we both liked, so our refrigerator would be well-stocked. We pored over our CD collections and came up with three discs to keep in the stereo she brought. We coordinated activities we both enjoyed and decided we would make regular trips to the AFC to avoid the fateful "Freshman Fifteen."
My roommate and I are not cookie-cutter images of one another, nor would I want us to be. I love hearing about her experiences living overseas, the church she attends each Sunday, and the newborn baby they brought into her child psychology class. I have never been overseas, nor am I Catholic, nor am I in psychology. But these "differences" highlight who she is and bring us closer when we discuss them. Diversity should make us interesting, not isolated.
Yet some people continue to view the world like a chessboard: white and black pieces on separate sides. Even when they mingle, they remain rigid and fixed in their own square. It never occurs to some people to be both different and similar at the same time.
Such is the debate surrounding titles like "African-American" versus simply "American." Even the individual titles themselves are misconstrued: a classmate in my media course told me that a white, South African friend of his almost lost an "African-American" college scholarship when the scholarship committee found out the student was a white African. Sadly, the term African-American is now more about skin color than heritage.
To use an analogy every Virginia student will understand, I turn to the aforementioned O-Hill soft-serve ice cream. If the choice was only supposed to be one of two flavors, we'd be left without the swirl -- the best-tasting option. Remember that, but be sure to watch exactly how many bowls you have, or that ripping sound may very well be coming from your seat cushion.
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