Ledger

Issue date: 5/18/06 Section: Opinion

There are two common words
used every day and everywhere
that have lost their meaning.
These two words have been
misused so often that if you were to ask a typical person
their meaning, a generic answer would epitomize how many
of us have come to misconceptualize the words.
What words are they? Diversity and Minority.
In a world where many of us are raised to believe that
being different is encouraged and nothing in life is perfect,
there still exists a fear that is spawned from insecurity and
breeds feelings of hate.
Like the most frightful of scary movies, what we don't
see or understand tends to scare us the most. More often
than not, we don't know how to respond to such a "threat."
This causes us to feel vulnerable and react defensively
because we are ill-prepared to accept a situation out of our
control.
But surely times have changed and our present-day society
has learned to be more accepting. Right?
Okay. So nothing is perfect and there are going to be
exceptions. There are always going to be those dolts out
there who are afraid of what they don't know and act out
their insecurities. At least most of us have adapted to the
new millenium and understand that in one way or another,
"we all have to get along."
My thought for everyone reading this, however, is just
how much better does "most of us" make our society?
Lately, the majority hasn't protected all of our interests.
At the town hall meeting on the Seattle campus a few
weeks ago, several minority students vocalized concerns
that their voices were not being heard by the school
administration. They felt uncomfortable at their own
university. Yet the white student speakers didn't voice
concern over feelings of inadequacy. In fact, the collective
concern by several of them focused on confusion about
the undergraduate program.
While white students are rightfully dealing with academic
problems at the university, many minority students

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