Dear Editor,
Nothing is as tiresome as professors crowding in on a student forum–the Star is (among other things) a place for students to share opinions, and I have many other channels which I can use to share my thoughts with students. Still, in Raisa Dibble’s opinion piece she raised a question about Praxis that only I can answer. “I don’t think it’s fair,” she writes, “to only have African-American speakers highlighted. Racism and ethnic prejudice happen to millions of people in so many different countries around the world…Why were only African-American speakers brought in?”
Raisa is rightly concerned with drawing the circle wider–this is one of her many lovely and admirable qualities. And she raises a fair question: because reconciliation is obviously complicated, why invite only black speakers? Here was my reasoning: the divide between black and white in America is an unusually difficult one. There is ugly history there, and it’s very personal for all of us who grew up in America. People who looked (sort of) like me brutalized and enslaved people who looked (sort of) like many of our black students. This means we have a complicated history together. Because we feel ashamed, many white folks run away from this history. Black folks cannot escape it.
If we are to be a reconciling people, we need to do more than just educate people about how much racism really exists in the world. Such knowledge is debilitating if we don’t feel like the tools we have to address the racism right in front of us. Simply, if we learn to listen well in this very thorny relationship, we are better equipped to listen well to the many victims of racism around the world.
I don’t intend to dominate the dialogue, but just to answer Raisa’s question. Students can (and should!) debate about whether it was the right decision–and that’s what college is for, thinking critically about the problems we all face. I trust you to debate that fairly and well. I should add that I hope that this decision has not hurt the feelings of non-black students of color, or seemed to trivialize the difficulties that they face. I honor them and hope that by teaching our students to listen to one group in depth, they learn to listen to all groups sympathetically and with an ear to repentance, change and growth.
Love in Christ,
Mike Jordan (’99)
