More than three years later, I remain struck by Duke convocation speaker Maya Angelou’s insight that, “Nothing that is human can be alien to me.”
This concept, though, is too often distant from race relations activism on campus.
The race relations banners on the West Campus Plaza for Purple’s Social Activism week were a case in point. Apparently, having students share why they are “proud to be white,” “Middle Eastern,” “East Asian” and various other arbitrary ethnic and racial classifications is a critical step in improving race relations.
Although relatively harmless in and of itself, and no doubt well intentioned, Purple’s race relations displays are symptomatic of a larger trend of “celebrating difference” as the way to improve racial interaction. A more serious approach should focus on celebrating individuals, not categories.
After all, the supposed goal of improving race relations on campus is not merely to encourage interactions between people of different races and claim success as such. That would be a superficial victory. True change will come from helping people overcome the paradigm of race and recognize each other first and foremost as individuals.
Instead, the strategy employed by race relations efforts is too frequently to emphasize and oftentimes to sensationalize the perceptions of alien-ness which (falsely) divide us. Perhaps the reasoning behind these efforts is that by making people more comfortable with their own racial identity, then they will be more comfortable interacting with people of a different background.
Such a strategy is flawed, however, for the simple reason that it accepts as its first operating assumption the very idea it seeks to rebut: that race has inherent value in an individual’s identity. If the ultimate aspiration of race relations-targeted efforts is to free individuals from the oppressive stereotypes and expectations of social conduct implicit in their skin color, it hardly seems logical to trumpet the categories themselves as the cure.
The implication of celebrating race as the basis for difference is to suggest such labels can substantively and categorically speak to the experience of individuals. This is dangerous to say the least, and threatens to embolden the very stereotypes we seek to combat.
Some will respond that “racial pride” for individuals is often about reclaiming their racial identity from its historical association (either in America or elsewhere) as a source of shame. I can certainly sympathize with this impulse. Race should never be a cause for shame, and the fact that it has been is a stain on American history. But as we move forward, one must wonder whether many are beginning to forget that the motivating force behind the nation’s racial progress was the belief that race should mean nothing at all.
At Duke, with our student body full of individuals with richly unique experiences and perspectives, the goal of any effort to improve campus culture should be rooted in the basic desire to help students come to fully recognize the diversity of their peers as individuals.
Perhaps some wish to personally define themselves based on racial categories. But the danger with these categories is that you can choose to be ethnic, but you can’t choose not to be ethnic. The affirmation of such identities inherently creates social expectations for other people who happen to look the same way and inevitably threatens to legitimize and promulgate stereotyping.
People can celebrate and recognize their own family histories and cultural lineage while at the same time accepting that their experience is necessarily unique to themselves. Ultimately, our connection to any cultural heritage is mediated by the choices of our families, making each person’s experience distinct. Before this reality, racial categories are utterly inadequate.
Our ultimate aspiration should always be to understand each other as individuals and resist the temptation to think that we know who people are simply by looking at them. When we celebrate racial difference, we accept the flawed premise that our race necessarily makes us different at all.
To Purple’s credit, their race-relations T-shirts sent exactly the right message, reading: “I am HUMAN.” As Angelou said, there are no aliens among us. We would do well to keep that in mind.
Vikram Srinivasan is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Thursday.
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