[11818] in APO-L
Bridges Of Understanding (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Riz Shavelle)
Tue Apr 4 13:15:38 1995
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 1995 13:12:47 -0400
Reply-To: Riz Shavelle <shavelle@ICG.STWING.UPENN.EDU>
From: Riz Shavelle <shavelle@ICG.STWING.UPENN.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list APO-L <APO-L@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
| The following piece was written by Allison Winn, a columnist at
| Penn. I thought it might be appropriate to repost here. It brings up
| some interesting parallels in connection with minority representation
| in Alpha Phi Omega.......
|
| "Bridges of Understanding" by Allison Winn, Daily Pennsylvanian columnist
| A strange phemenon has happened in my four years at Penn. Somehow in my
| time here, my learning curve on a certain subject has become stunted. I
| have excelled at history, mastered marketing and gotten a relatively
| decent grasp of psychology. Yet my understanding of race relations, of
| people other than myself, has ground to a steady halt, and instead of
| becoming more knowledgeable, I think that I have come to know less. I
| always thought that college would broaden my horizens and open my eyes to
| new experiences. Yet in my final semester, I have come to recognize that
| blinders are still very much a part of my vision. So I went to a COLORS
| (Campus Organized Lectures on racial sensitivity) forum to learn if I
| was alone, to learn if my perceptions of the race problems on this campus
| are justified, and to learn if there was anything to do about it.
| I came to Penn from Seattle and because of its liberated atmosphere, I
| could not have asked for a better place to grow up. I came to Penn a
| politically-correct, environmentally concerned, racially tolerant, nubile
| freshman. But I'm not sure this is how I'm leaving. And now, I'm
| wondering if I could have done anything about this transformation, or
| whether or not I have really transformed.
| I am embarrased to admit that I do not know more than five black
| people on this campus. I'm not sure why this is so. Is it me or i it
| them? If it is me, then that is something that I can resolve alone. If it
| is them, then perhaps it is something that they can resolve alone. But I
| have a feeling that the problem lay somewhere in between the two. And
| because of this, neither one of us can resolve them on our own. Yet
| we haven't really tried to resolve them together either.
| True, the University has proposed several reforms to increase
| interaction among the races. But forced housing will not neccesarily
| work. "Forced" anything will most likely not work because the students
| themselves are the ones who have to be ready to accept the problems,
| accept their prejudices, and most importantly, accept people who are
| unlike themselves. But in order to make these acceptances, we first have
| to learn about each other, so we can become more confortable both with
| whom we are and whom everyone else is.
| At the COLORS forum, I learned things about the problems on our campus
| that I had never before known. I learned that essentially, there are two
| campuses within one at Penn, and between these two campuses sits a wall
| that manny cannot or choose not to hurdle. I did not know that many black
| people do not participate in Spring Fling. I did not know that many of
| them feel uncomfortable in our Greek system. And I did not know that many
| of them are just as concerned about the blatant racial divisions as I am.
| I think it is very easy for me, as a white woman, to look at the black
| people on this campus and place the blame on them. I think it is very
| easy for me to say, "they alienate themselves, they have their own Greek
| system, they have their own housing." But really, I don't think this is
| an issue of blame. Pointing fingers will not make the problems go away.
| Slandering our peers because they are a different color will not make
| them invisile.
| Rather than an issue of blame, I think it is an issue of
| responsibility. I don't know any blacks on this campus, and it is my
| responsibility to the whites, to the blacks, but mostly to myself to
| branch out. But the problem is I'm not really sure where to begin my
| expansion. Just as many blacks might feel unwanted on our campus, I feel
| unwanted on theirs. Maybe this discomfort stems from my own insecurities
| with the issues of racial interaction, but maybe it also stems from the
| fact that, just as doors into the white world were not opened for blacks,
| doors into their world are not opened for me.
| I know many whites on this campus who want to open those doors and
| start breaking down the walls between us. I am sure that there are many
| black students who want to open those same doors, I just do not know who
| they are because I have not had the chance to meet them. I sincerely wish
| that I had taken the steps toward opening them before my last two months
| at penn. I sincerely wish that I had not ducked my head and rushed
| through every step-show I saw in the high rises. I sincerely wish that I
| had been motivated down to Franklin Field for the Penn Relays to see what
| all of the excitement was about.
| And I sincerely wish that I had gotten to know some black students
| during my time here, not because they are "black". But because they have
| undeniably, attended a different school than me, and I believe that
| through knowing them, I would have grown as a person, and through knowing
| me, they too might have learned something that they did not know before.
| Until we learn about each other, the problems will only self-perpetuate.
| The less understanding that we have of each other, the more uncomfortable
| we will feel. The more uncomfortable we feel, the less likely it will be
| that we seek greater understanding.
| So I am leaving Penn perhaps not having learned all that I should have
| in my college years. BUt it is never too late or too soon to take steps
| towards building bridges of understanding. Four years later, maybe this
| column is my first step towards building them. And maybe it will trigger
| just a few people to sit down and think about the divisions. And maybe,
| once they've thought long and hard about these walls, they'll hopefully
| decide to take some action to tear them down.
|
