Throughout the week, the University of Wyoming will be celebrating the Martin Luther King Jr. Days of Dialogue. There will be a host of topics and issues discussed during this time including things like immigration, racial microaggressions, talks on books and films and the role of education. It promises to be an enlightening experience for anyone choosing to take part in these talks and activities. So it just seems strange to me that I should feel left out of the proceedings, like an outsider, in a week that is supposed to be all about coming together and celebrating diversity.
The problem is that no one schedule on the list of talks seems to be interested in talking about bringing people together, only on how we are continued to be pushed apart by different forms of long-standing bigotry and hate. Discussions like that are perfectly fine when they come to a point on solutions and how we can achieve more balanced racial peace. What would be even better is if the Days of Dialogue actually were the solution.
I remember an interview Morgan Freeman did for “60 Minutes.” In it, he expresses his dislike for Black History Month because of the way it relegates black history to a single month and separates “black” history from “American” history when those things are one and the same. Days of Dialogue falls into a similar pitfall where we’re talking about separation instead of bringing it all together.
What keeps us separated, and is also a major factor as to why racism continues to this day, is ignorance. Ignorance of other people and cultures, ignorance of the lives of other races, and ignorance of how we are all alike. So why can’t the dialogue be about the good parts of diversity? Two of the core goals in the MLK DOD mission statement are to build a sense a community and celebrate diversity. So let’s do that.
Celebrating diversity is about, to me at least, celebrating culture. Let’s fight against ignorance and see talks based around sharing African, Central and South American, Asian, Pacific, Middle Eastern and even European cultures. White people shouldn’t get “excused” from diversity week. Everyone should have the opportunity to share their cultures with the community. We are more than the negative qualities that society places on all of us. We all deserve to be more than disparaged criminals, notorious alcoholics, starving children, bad drivers, unfit parents, lazy immigrants, corrupt cops or religious extremists.
I can’t see why the dialogue cannot be about both racial issues and celebrating culture. I don’t doubt that the talks already scheduled will do some of this, but it would be nice to have something offered on the schedule that does that from the get-go. And I don’t mean to insinuate that what the MLK DOD people do isn’t important or significant, but the event could be so much more than what it is.
