and some people like to judge other people on the color of their skin.
It’s not fair, is it?
” The brown-eyed kids at the tables, many of whom were black or Hispanic and had therefore, as minority student leaders, probably been forced to endure at least one of these simulations before, mostly shrugged and finished up their baked potatoes. “You are free to introduce yourselves to one another. Talk about what you’ve learned.”
The topknots made a beeline for the black kids, with speeds that tested the integrity of their scrunchies. “Is this what it’s like for you?” “You guys, I am so sorry!” “Can I touch your hair?” Baby steps toward enlightenment.
“Diversity: Isn’t That Special?” continued along these lines. The next day, we were given a standardized test comprised largely of questions about jazz and basketball, to illustrate the cultural bias of the SAT. Too bad for Debi and her people, I was deep into an Afro-centric, Tribe Called Quest–inspired phase that summer, and had a huge crush on a college friend who talked a lot about sports, so I scored a 1540. The topknots got their poor numbers back, learned the point of the exercise, and shook their heads
no
with faces of steely determination.
Have you heard about this systemic racism?
their faces said.
Well, we just did, and it’s bad.
Right around here was the first time I ever even began to view my homosexuality as an asset rather than a liability. Maybe if I came out to some of these administrators, they’d view me as less of an oppressor. Maybe if I let them know I was actually a minority, too, we could actually have a constructive talk about what I was going through, in real time, right then. So in a small-group discussion about sensitivity to gay and lesbian issues (alas, the
B
and the
T
were not yet invited to the party), I piped up: “You know, I’m actually gay myself, so…” and the facilitator squinted her eyes, made her lips disappear, tilted her head at a perfect 45-degree angle—the international symbol for You Poor Thing—and interrupted me. “So brave,” she stage-whispered, and then got right back to her spiel about campus safer-sex programs. It went that way with each facilitator I came out to: the squint, the lips, the 45-degree head tilt. No dialogue, no “How are you?” no inquiry as to whether anything they were saying was resonating in any meaningful way, just a condescending look. I was being treated like a box of fragile glass figurines, or Cousin Geri from
The Facts of Life.
The more sensitive among us hadn’t really learned any constructive ways to vent our negative emotions in 1993;
Jagged Little Pill
was still two years off. Instead, Clemson, UVA, and I chose to express our frustrations through the medium of drinking. There was an Applebee’s across the street from campus, and once things got to be too much, one of us would give the high sign—index finger making quick circles in the air—and one by one we’d disappear. We’d grab a table on the patio and smoke cigarettes and laugh and drink things that were blue. I came out to them, and they said “Okay,” and we discussed it a little bit and then got on with what we’d been talking about, which for the record is exactly the way it’s supposed to go. By accident, this conference was teaching us all something.
There was a farewell banquet on the evening of the third day, and as student leaders of all eye colors finished up their steak and potatoes, the administrators fired up a slide projector. And there it was, up on the silver screen: a greatest-hits compilation from “Diversity: Isn’t That Special?” Slide after slide of white girls crying on patient brown shoulders, set to carefully selected hits of the day: “Free Your Mind” by En Vogue, “A Whole New World” by Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle, and then, finally, “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding.”
Except it was the version from the soundtrack to
The
It’s not fair, is it?
” The brown-eyed kids at the tables, many of whom were black or Hispanic and had therefore, as minority student leaders, probably been forced to endure at least one of these simulations before, mostly shrugged and finished up their baked potatoes. “You are free to introduce yourselves to one another. Talk about what you’ve learned.”
The topknots made a beeline for the black kids, with speeds that tested the integrity of their scrunchies. “Is this what it’s like for you?” “You guys, I am so sorry!” “Can I touch your hair?” Baby steps toward enlightenment.
“Diversity: Isn’t That Special?” continued along these lines. The next day, we were given a standardized test comprised largely of questions about jazz and basketball, to illustrate the cultural bias of the SAT. Too bad for Debi and her people, I was deep into an Afro-centric, Tribe Called Quest–inspired phase that summer, and had a huge crush on a college friend who talked a lot about sports, so I scored a 1540. The topknots got their poor numbers back, learned the point of the exercise, and shook their heads
no
with faces of steely determination.
Have you heard about this systemic racism?
their faces said.
Well, we just did, and it’s bad.
Right around here was the first time I ever even began to view my homosexuality as an asset rather than a liability. Maybe if I came out to some of these administrators, they’d view me as less of an oppressor. Maybe if I let them know I was actually a minority, too, we could actually have a constructive talk about what I was going through, in real time, right then. So in a small-group discussion about sensitivity to gay and lesbian issues (alas, the
B
and the
T
were not yet invited to the party), I piped up: “You know, I’m actually gay myself, so…” and the facilitator squinted her eyes, made her lips disappear, tilted her head at a perfect 45-degree angle—the international symbol for You Poor Thing—and interrupted me. “So brave,” she stage-whispered, and then got right back to her spiel about campus safer-sex programs. It went that way with each facilitator I came out to: the squint, the lips, the 45-degree head tilt. No dialogue, no “How are you?” no inquiry as to whether anything they were saying was resonating in any meaningful way, just a condescending look. I was being treated like a box of fragile glass figurines, or Cousin Geri from
The Facts of Life.
The more sensitive among us hadn’t really learned any constructive ways to vent our negative emotions in 1993;
Jagged Little Pill
was still two years off. Instead, Clemson, UVA, and I chose to express our frustrations through the medium of drinking. There was an Applebee’s across the street from campus, and once things got to be too much, one of us would give the high sign—index finger making quick circles in the air—and one by one we’d disappear. We’d grab a table on the patio and smoke cigarettes and laugh and drink things that were blue. I came out to them, and they said “Okay,” and we discussed it a little bit and then got on with what we’d been talking about, which for the record is exactly the way it’s supposed to go. By accident, this conference was teaching us all something.
There was a farewell banquet on the evening of the third day, and as student leaders of all eye colors finished up their steak and potatoes, the administrators fired up a slide projector. And there it was, up on the silver screen: a greatest-hits compilation from “Diversity: Isn’t That Special?” Slide after slide of white girls crying on patient brown shoulders, set to carefully selected hits of the day: “Free Your Mind” by En Vogue, “A Whole New World” by Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle, and then, finally, “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding.”
Except it was the version from the soundtrack to
The
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