Letters to the Editor

Series on race raises issues of equity, equality and definitions of minority status

We compliment the work of the reporters at The Daily Princetonian for pursuing the goal of chronicling the way race is lived at Princeton. The stories not only provide a snapshot of the present, but merge the past, present and future through the fabric of race relations on our campus. What comes through in the personal stories are the dilemmas and triumphs that impede and encourage the social progress of our community and our nation.

Our particular charge — to have a sympathetic and empathetic ear in listening to issues of race on campus — allows us to see the daily impact of race, whether it is in the classroom or in the workplace. As the office charged with listening to concerns of fairness, we are concerned with both equity and equality as the basis for fairness. Concerns of equity take into consideration the historical, legal, psychological, social and cultural aspects of a complaint, whereas the equality requirement is more concerned with issues of symmetry and similarity in the way people are treated.

The complexity of racial inequality and multicultural pluralism, as seen through the eyes of our visitors, has a layer that is not understood by most people who care about race and equality. Both issues evoke accumulated, and sometimes suppressed, feelings for people who experience racial discrimination. The cumulative impact of disadvantage is not only within one lifetime, but it is inter-generational as well. Every day, people are treated differently in stores, workplaces and classrooms. A student of color who works in an academic office may be treated differently than a student who is white. While some students describe painful discriminatory experiences in the classroom and in social settings, others do not voice experiences that feel shameful. Staff and faculty, too, come forward with issues and complaints of race, gender, age and disability, as the basis for unfairness. The accumulated disadvantages, perceived or real, must be addressed as part of the social give-and-take of our daily interactions, where there is also a lifetime (even inter-generational) accumulation of advantage through education.

One difficulty that must be addressed in our discourse is finding the right language to accurately describe and characterize the issues of race and ethnicity. Our experience is that the use of the word "minority" is, in itself, often problematic and that it can sometimes obscure rather than clarify the problem. The term "minority" can be used both to convey a statistical or numerical idea and to describe a social or cultural phenomenon. Used in the former sense it means that one is part of a group that is smaller in number; used in the latter sense, it means that one is part of a group that is distinct from the dominant culture and its values.

Discriminating between the two uses of the term shows us that being part of a statistical minority may or may not mean that one is part of a minority culture. In our society, for example, women are sometimes seen as part of a minority culture, when in fact they are part of a statistical majority; white males may be viewed as part of the majority or dominant culture, when they are, in reality, part of a statistical minority; African Americans are most often viewed as part of a minority culture and are a statistical minority.

When we use the term "minority" in a social sense, we are talking about the experience of a minority culture in relation to the dominant culture. We are talking about people who, as a group, feel they do not have the ability to affect what happens in the larger culture, who feel that they don't count and do not have standing, that they are somehow set "apart" from, not part of, the prevailing culture. It is important to understand how the behaviors of members of the dominant culture are perpetuated, as well as to understand the group dynamics of the dominant and minority cultures, if we are to change long-standing behavioral patterns.

We thank and congratulate the 'Prince' for its part in creating a community dialogue about race at Princeton. Anu Rao University Ombuds Officer Michael Ann Walstad Assistant to the Ombuds Officer