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Diverse opinions, backgrounds make for a richer classroom experience

As I sit in my English Literature class discussing "Uncle Tom's Cabin," I can't help but feel as though there is something a little too comfortable about discussing literature depicting the outrageous cruelty of slavery in a classroom constituted of students and one professor who all have one thing in common: whiteness. Diversity is something that is oftentimes denoted as an enrollment statistic that can be found somewhere on a college's respective website. Some skim over the information without a thought, and for others it invokes some degree of concern, or at least of interest.

Some colleges pridefully display the level of diversity on their campus websites, take Stanford University for example. After boasting that undergraduates attending Stanford stem from every one of the 50 states and 90 different countries, it states: "The Stanford community embraces a broad range of socioeconomic, religious, cultural and educational backgrounds. We believe that the best education can develop only in a vibrant, diverse community that actively affirms both the differences among its members and the numerous points of concern."

Miami's website, on the other hand, barely goes beyond stating the number of student representatives attending Miami University from each race or ethnicity. This only displays Miami's stark lack of diversity (out of the over 15,000 students enrolled at the Oxford campus, whites make up over 12,000, while blacks and Hispanics, for example, constitute around 500 students).

It is in the classroom that I am reminded, once again, of the great consequence of diversity to academia. It is not a matter to be met with shrugged shoulders, as I'm sure it often is by many of the white students who constitute most of this university. The lack of diversity on campus should trouble us students who have taken one more step into the "real world," a place filled with people that we are unfamiliar with and situations that inevitably cause discomfort in the hearts of those who have previously been constantly surrounded by people who are relatively similar to themselves.

When interpreting any text in a classroom, a variety of perspectives are necessary to ensure a sufficient degree of understanding. As members of the white race, the students in my English Literature class, for example, can not comprehend nor explain an experience that can compare to that of people of color, historically or currently. To reach the level at which understanding even begins to occur, a variety of voices must be heard in the classroom. The expression of opinions, thoughts, interpretations, etc. by people from differing backgrounds and points-of-view could certainly provide for an uncomfortable environment, but discomfort in this case sheds its negative connotation. Discomfort in this sense provides for growth of the intellect and maybe even of the spirit, depending on the attitudes of those who listen.

From the campus as a whole down to individual classrooms made up of 20 students, the inclusion of people who identify with a multitude of ethnicities and backgrounds would aid in the people of one race learning about the experiences of another.

Conversely, from the idea that a significant degree of diversity can only have the potential to cause discomfort, I can imagine that having multiple representatives from each race engaging in dialogue with each other in a classroom would make each member more comfortable to speak about their own experiences because of the idea of being surrounded by people who are familiar (along with those who are unfamiliar) with their experiences as far as they have been influenced by race.

This could also aid in the de-normalization of whiteness. As long as the majority of students in a classroom, for example, are white, it will continue to constitute the image of normalcy in the minds of students, whatever the age group (though it could be of especial importance at a young, and therefore to a greater degree impressionable, age). The way in which a person of one race expresses his or herself can not be considered valid so long as it resembles the model which the race that makes up the majority has, sometimes consciously and other times unconsciously, structured.

Difference must be embraced, celebrated even, for genuine attempts at understanding and real, meaningful, long-lasting progress to occur both inside and outside of the classroom setting.

If people of one cultural group only respected the people of another cultural group, if the people in the latter group conformed to the cultural norms of the people in the former group, has integration really occurred?

The inclusion of people of a variety of races in discussion implies the integration of differences, and is not a process of people entering into a society made primarily up of the people of a particular set of standards and "living up" to those standards; it does not stand for the embodiment of the majority.

Emily Westerfield

westerec@miamioh.edu