10.08.2007

Cultural Diversity?

I walked by the Door of Discussion (DoD) today and saw a ripped out piece of the October 5th center spread on Cultural Diversity marked up with words like “Everyone on this page is white!” and “Cultural diversity means nothing at APU. If I am not rich and white, I am not normal.”

I cannot express in words how much this pisses me off. (Well, I could do it in cuss words, but I am choosing not to).

The purpose of the article, if it had been thoroughly read instead of immediately judged, torn apart and pasted onto the DoD, was to talk about something OTHER than ethnic diversity. If this article had been read through, the person who ignorantly attacked it on the DoD would have read “Culture is a lot more complex than looking at race because race can go more off of physical appearance… Unlike the external nature of racial diversity, cultural diversity is more of an internal thing. It includes things like values, religion, social and community responsibilities, political values and issues of sexuality and sexual preference.”

So, far all YOU know, my dear friends who felt like immediately turning a judgmental eye on a university newspaper staff that sits in the office for a good 25 hours in a 2 day period to get the paper to you every Friday and works very hard at covering issues previous staffs have overlooked, the ‘white’ people represented in the side bar could be atheist, homosexual, youth workers, Azusa residents, Democrats or Republicans. It isn’t about race!! And it isn’t ALL about an African culture of Asian culture of a middle eastern culture. It is about the cultural diversity at APU. (Which I realized, no one believes exists).

So, lets all look at some numbers. Of the 8,128 students enrolled at APU, 7,639 of them are US citizens. Of the 4,722 undergraduate students enrolled during the 2006-2007 school year, 3,202 of them are classified as ‘white.’ This means that almost 93% of the student body is considered a US citizen, and 67.8% are white.

That’s just it. That is our culture. And for those of you who feel like you stick out because you aren’t white, or you aren’t rich, I apologize that you feel that way. But the truth of the matter is that a majority of the people who live in the US are white and a good percent of the Christians in the US are white and rich. Again, that is just how it is. And a private Christian university is going to attract that majority.

The Clause does a lot to make sure that a wide range of people are represented in the paper. But as brothers and sisters in Christ, we cannot keep immediately jump down each other’s throats just because we disagree with each other about the way things are handled.

2 comments:

Amber Woods said...

I agree Jill.
Cultural Diversity and Racial Diversity, are two very separate things. And, people coming into APU know what are ethnic percentages are...so they shouldn't just base diversity off of the color of one's skin. It should be based off of several avenues of what you mentioned. Values, religion, political party etc. There are much more differences in these areas--but we will never see them if we all make judgments from eachother's outer appearances!
Well said.

Michelle Juergen said...

well-said. It has always bothered me that people push for diversity, but only do so by color and race. You could run a photo of three people, one black, one asian and one mexican. But they could all be from the same neighborhood, from the same economic standing, be the same religion, etc. but they're diverse because they look different.
NUH-UH!
put up a picture of three white people and you can get just as much diversity. (even racially, because techncally there are divisions, per se, of "white").
anyway, i'm rambling now.
but yeah...i agree. guess i could have just said that.