[Vision2020] Diversity 1,2,3 [note: this is long!]

[Melynda Huskey]

Dear Rodney,

Where to begin?  To answer your last question first, the Office of Human 
Relations and Diversity is not responsible for student groups of any kind.  
Students may form organizations more or less at their own sweet will.  Those 
organizations may be "recognized" by the Office of Student Affairs, if 
students request that status and can meet certain basic structural 
requirements.  Thus we have religious, cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and 
thematic clubs--hundreds of them.  If students wanted to form a chapter of 
the League of the South, they could, and they could ask for rso status.

None of our campus-funded organizations exclude members on the basis of 
identity:  there are active white members of FASA, active straight members 
of the GLBTA, active AAPI members of AAA.  So none of the organizations you 
mention are exclusionary.  Anyone with an interest in the subject may join.

But on to your real question, which is:

>So, why is this?  Why is “racism” so one-sided?  Is it something that can 
>only be committed by the bland people against groups that are more exotic?  
>Doesn't this hint at a latent missionary ethic?  Or does it simply have to 
>do with that “dominant culture” thing?

Personal acts of intolerance can be committed by any person against any 
other.  Racism is a self-perpetuating and systematic privileging of one 
socially constructed group at the expense of others. Racism in the U.S. 
confers unearned power on "white" people at the expense of others.  Peggy 
McIntosh's "Unpacking the Knapsack of White Privilege" is a good 
introduction to this idea:

http://www.utoronto.ca/acc/events/peggy1.htm

The League of the South exemplifies some of the systemic aspects of racism 
quite nicely.

The Anglo-Celtic heritage of the South?  Tell that to Louisiana or Florida.  
What about the Native people who lived there first and are still there?  
Have African people had no influence on Southern culture?  Anglo-Celtic (a 
construction that would have been rejected with horror by the English, who 
didn't consider Irish people white or Welsh people human) is a code word for 
White and Protestant.  It's simply historical and sociological nonsense--and 
racist nonsense at that.  The reason for identifying "Anglo-Celtic culture" 
as Southern culture is to justify white supremacy:  blacks, Indians, and 
Latinos are on notice in the League's own words that they have contributed 
nothing to Southern culture, and are welcome to remain *only* if they remain 
subordinate.  The LOS website is very clear about that.

As an anti-racism educator, I spend a lot of time encouraging white people 
to think about and connect to their own ethnic and cultural history.  We 
call ourselves "the bland people" because we know so little about our own 
cultures.  But we've got to know our real history, not a made-up mess like 
"Anglo-Celtic."  What's your heritage, Rodney?  Where have your family 
members and ancestors come from?  What ethnic and cultural heritage has made 
you who you are?  What were the real-life experiences of those ancestors?

Melynda Huskey
who doesn't feel the jackbooted legions of Power at her back enforcing her 
every word




Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Burnt Norton, T.S. Eliot

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