Maybe I just don’t want to do my stats homework, but I was thinking of this the other day. Back when I lived in the dorms, I was understandably sick of how much diversity was “shoved down my throat.â€Â This is distinctly because a lot of UW Housing activities and activities for underclass(wo)men really are designed with the purpose of emphasizing diversity. A good number of these activities were mandatory. I spent two years living in UW housing, and by the end of my time there, I was very, very tired about hearing about diversity. I had heard it all before.
Whether or not the issue is simply that the UW atmosphere that I was living in was oversaturated with diversity messages I tuned them out like a commercial, or that education based programs regarding diversity always fail, I can’t say.
I can say, however, that I don’t think that diversity should be the end all, be all justification for everything. Let me clarify with the distinct example I had in mind. In my fourth and final semester in housing, it was announced that the Lakeshore dorms (Cole, Sullivan, Sliechter) were going to produce a play. As a developing forensics and debate coach, I was interested. In fact, my odd associations with theater long ago are what started me in forensics eight years ago. And at one point, I produced a “variety show†that raised a significant amount of money for the forensics team. My interest stopped, however, because the selection of the play was one that I was not at all interested in producing or directing. The Laramie Project was chosen.
The Laramie Project falls into a category of plays that I can’t stand. Similar productions include: The Diary of Anne Frank, If I Never See a Butterfly, and Sophie’s Choice. Each of these plays are usually produced for reasons of what the play does to people, rather than any evaluation of whether or not the material itself is worth of any value. Instead, all of these pieces are awarded an important status simply because they deal with a rough subject that’s representational of a true tragedy. Very little acting or imagination are required – these are real events that are really depressing. If I’m going to work on or go see a drama – it would be nice if that drama involved an element of fiction instead of being a history lecture.
When Housing announced that it’s reason for selecting the piece was “encouraging diversity.â€Â I was more disappointed. People who were interested in drama chose an uninteresting (from my theatrical perspective) piece for the purpose of education. This isn’t to say that drama can’t educate. But drama’s are not likely to change viewpoints at the extremes, in the same way that watching the O’Reilly Factor is not likely to change my political viewpoint. From every perspective, investing in this activity would be a waste of time. Not much could be accomplished in terms of learning to act or learning to educate.
I’m a diverse person, perhaps not as diverse as others, but I know I am diverse because I have been exposed to different ideas and different people. Diversity for me is all about the experience. I’m not diverse because of things that I’m taught. I know of different cultures, races, and sexual orientations because I’ve met people from each of those three categories and learned new things from all of them.
With this idea in mind, I think it might be interesting to evaluate how people form their perceptions of diversity (or opposition to diversity). Do people largely form experiences from meeting and inter acting with others? Or is it from education? Or is it from a combination of the two? What’s the most effective way of really encouraging diversity? I don’t know. But if I were conducting this experiment, my hypothesis probably would favor life experiences only. What do you think?
