The worthy goal of diversity

(This column is in response to Pete Hegseth's recent article about diversity in The Tory).

If we wish to define diversity simply as "differing view points" we are deceiving ourselves. Today, in America, even at Princeton, diversity has everything to do with race, whether we care to admit it or not. And the point is we must admit it if there is to be any improvement in race relations on this campus or in our country. Fellow Princetonian Harold Saunders, one of the authors of the Camp David Accords, is also the author of a book called "A Public Peace Process: Sustained Dialogue to Transform Racial and Ethnic Conflicts."

I am a member of Sustained Dialogue on campus, which is one of the groups Dr. Saunders helped begin. Though it may seem to some that discussing race relations is merely an extracurricular activity, quite the contrary: it is becoming fundamental to the way we interact with an increasingly diverse world. People of color are still often defined and labeled by skin tone; race still matters in our country; we simply cannot claim otherwise.

Amy Gutmann, current Provost of Princeton University and co-author, along with K. Anthony Appiah, of "Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race," writes, "Racial injustice may be the most morally and intellectually vexing problem in the public life of this country." Gutmann also quotes Arthur Ashe: "Race is for me a more onerous burden than AIDS. My disease is the result of biological factors over which we, thus far, have had no control. Racism, however, is entirely made by people, and therefore it hurts and inconveniences infinitely more."

Because "this University represents [Mr. Hegseth's] only experience with gratuitous glorification of diversity" I am a bit concerned with what might happen when he comes across a real experience of conflict due to diversity. Although Princeton tries, in many ways, to address "diversity," in my opinion, we should be doing substantially more. As white people, Mr. Hegseth and I are in a position of privilege in this American society because we are not primarily labeled by our color as so many other people still are. We don't have to think about our race if we don't want to, and as Mr. Hegseth suggests, we don't have to think about the general concept of "diversity" if we don't want to either. Therefore, we can delude ourselves by choosing to label diversity as a "distraction" or "discussion topic" and think we've gotten away with it. I agree that the word "diversity" has become trite and loaded with implications of a multi-cultural group holding hands and making peace. But call it what you want, diversity is very much an integral part of American life and cannot be ignored or shoved under the table any longer, not if we are to continue to exist or to survive together.

I was relieved to read, "I am not declaring Western values the only thing worth studying, nor do I believe that America is a perfect country." Mr. Hegseth is right, America is far from being a perfect country, and we have much to learn from the rest of the world. I wonder if Mr. Hegseth has ever lived outside of this "great Western civilization?" And is he certain that "the emergence of the United States as the leader and protector of the civilized world" means that we have little to learn from countries, cultures and peoples outside of Western civilization? In this era of globalization, shouldn't our hope be for a global, diverse education — especially for an institution that helps shape the minds of "America's elite" (and believe me, I warily use that phrase, even in quotation marks). In regard to race, Toni Morrison has written: "It is there in the construction of a free and public school system; the balancing of representation in legislative bodies; jurisprudence and legal definitions of justice." When we begin to deny that race does not factor into the construction of these institutions, we are consciously stepping backward into a shadow of self-selected ignorance, because we fail to see that diversity is immediately and critically relevant not only to academia but to the world in which we live.

William Cowper once wrote, "And diff'ring judgements serve but to declare/That truth lies somewhere, if we knew but where." Let us not be afraid of these "diff'ring judgements" but let us find "truth and excellence" among, between, against and in dialogue with them. So Mr. Hegseth, I, on the other hand, strive to defend the pillars of diverse, yet common humanity against the distractions of Western civilization. Sallie Langston is a anthropology major from Charlottesville, Va. She can be reached at langston@princeton.edu.