Memory Lane: October 13, 2005. What I Thought About Minnesota Diversity (at the time)

i meant to write about the following issue alittle while ago but i wasn't able to, because it took a little more mental capacity then my usual useless pieces of work. everynow and then (like only once) i feel that rather then waste your time and mine by writing about something without saying anything, i should actually try and get a real point across. so here i go.

a few weeks ago, i had the amazing opportunity to have dinner at the dean's house. that's right the dean of the law school. i don't think i can really describe how cool i felt that was, considering that the only time i ever came in contact with the dean of university of toronto was during the convocation of what would be considered the very last day of my undergraduate career. to be cracking brews and talking about sports at the crib of the leader of the law school (not the leader of the new school) is something i did not take for granted...but if you are wondering what the scenario is... i was afforded this great opportunity by default of being a minority student. and on this day, that was the only qualification i needed to get through the door.

the university of minnesota is doing its best to improve the diversity of the school. but im not sure i understood exactly what it is that made me a minority. in its simplest terms, i guess that would be the color (no more u) of my skin. but isn't that just a product of where i was born. would a chinese person in china be a minority? i'd say probably not, but what about a white person in china, now is that person a minority? if the answer is yes, then you can essentially change your status as a minority citizen by moving country to country taking advantage where you see fit. but i kind of figure it has to be something more then that. maybe my background is what makes me a minority. and that usually leads me to more confusion. when i get asked this question, my usual response is that i'm south african, being that my parent were born there, their parents were born there and i think their parents were born there. but i was born in canada, so that has to come into play. fact is, very few canadians actually consider themselves canadian, rather people describe themselves as greek, italian, chinese, indian, etc. so therefore, why should i not be south african. so thats fine, but then the next question usually goes something like "oh i thought you were indian" that poses another issue of sorts, cause i'm sure my ancestors from way back when were from india. i guess my skin tone makes me indian color, but other then that, my ties to india, and my awareness of indian culture amounts to the double zero.

what i take from any of this is that i figure being a minority comes down to shear numbers. but in that case, why say a person is a minority based only on skin colour/background? are males or females the minority, and doesn't that change depending on where you are? what about things like religion, culture, ethnicity, so on and so on. if you please, label by label, you can break it down into majorities and minorities. what i'm basically saying is that we are all minorities and we are all majorities, it just depends.

growing up in a multicultural city such as toronto, you don't really think about it much. infact, spending the last year in south africa, the former home of apartheid, i didn't wake up one day ever thinking, "hey i'm a minority" so its interesting to have to consider all these things. coming from a place such as south africa, which was home to a blantantly racist government, got me thinking. it wasn't all that long ago, that people were separated and treated solely on their skin color. in south africa, stores, schools, hospitals you name it, were built separately for white people that would display signs on the outside that say "whites only". some would have entrances around the back, with a separate entrance that stated "blacks and coloreds allowed" interestingly enough, during my last trip to south africa, my cousin took me to the south african apartheid museum. i found it interesting, because it is clear that apartheid was a problem that they were not trying to act like it never happened.

i tell this little anecdote, because there was something that caught my attention. there was an official document on display during the time of apartheid that went something like this: 18 blacks are being reclassified as indians, 8 indians reclassified as colored, 5 asians as colored. to some degree the race that you were classified gave you more or less rights (but obviously still not equal rights to whites) and here, it is not like a person actually woke up one day and their race changed. rather, some government official for whatever reason decided to change the status of someone's race. for those that might not know, people were required to carry identification (something like a passport) that clearly listed what race you were, and that was as common as listing if you were male/female. so to see things like that, you do hope things get better. but really one would hope that all this is something that ceast to becomes an issue.

the other day while taking a small break from the abundance of law school reading, i turned on the television and caught an interview with thierry henry, arguably the best footballer (soccer player for the americans) in the whole world, and he was discussing the disgusting aspects of racisim in europe. i'm not going into the details of the interview but i was actually shocked when i heard him say some of the things that go on. so clearly this is not a north american problem, its something that extends worldwide, but i guess i was a little shocked that a superstar athlete such as this experiences these kind of issues as well. as a quick side note, mr. henry and other soccer players have since established a campaign "stand up, speak up" against racism. if you see black and white rubberbands intertwined, its in support of this cause. check it out.

i guess some people just don't know any better. so i understand why there is a concerned effort by the school to increase diversity and awareness. i've been fortunate, i've been in a situation where i've been able to learn from my asian friends, learn from my white friends, learn from my black friends, etc. and i have learned that we are all as similar as we believe we are, and we are only as different as we are led to believe...let me know if that makes sense to you. we are all equals, but i guess for now i'm a minority.

but i think what everyone is really trying to say with this whole diversity issue can best be summed up by chris rock "i don't think i should get a job over a white person if i get a lower mark on the test, i don't think i should get into a school if i got a lower mark then a white person...but if there is a tie, then f'em..cause you had a 400 year head start"

peace (cause that is what i mean, when you see me throwing up the deuces)