Your Daily Dose of Diversity
Texas and Chicago Aren’t as Far Apart As You Think
While I was a junior in high school, I had a big lesson in race relations.
I’m from West Texas, a conservative region in a conservative state that
didn’t fully integrate our schools until the ’80s. I attended Robert
E. Lee High School. We were the Rebels. Our mascot was General Robert E. Lee.
Our school band played “Dixie” and the Confederate flag was waved
proudly at football games.
It wasn’t uncommon for me to be the only Mexican American, or one of
two or three “minorities,” in my honors classes. “God those
Mexicans are dirty,” I heard. And stupid. Can’t speak English. Etc.
The kind of things you don’t believe people say anymore, but they do.
I would stand there, dumbfounded, and then my “friend” would say,
“I don’t mean you. You’re different.”
During the spring of that year, all of the African-American students sat out of classes to protest the flag under the direction of a preacher whose son was in my class. They got radio, newspaper, and television coverage, and caused a tremendous brouhaha in school and around town. The argument against change was simple: tradition. These are our traditions and no one should be offended. The counter-argument was equally simple: we are offended.
Unsure of the best approach, the school board decided to let the students vote on whether or not to keep the symbols. In my English class, the girl who sat in front of me, a white girl I had known since junior high and had always been friendly with, turned and asked me how I planned to vote. “We should change it,” I said. “What do you think?” She didn’t answer. She simply turned around in her seat and never spoke to me again.
The school, which I would guess was about 60 percent white, voted to keep everything the same. This was not surprising to me; I knew whom I went to school with. But there had been too much heat, too much attention. The school board then decided to vote themselves and their vote would determine the outcome. Out of nine members, only two voted for change — an African-American man and a Mexican-American woman, the only two non-white members of the school board. Again, no surprise. I sat in the auditorium that day, when all of the members held the public meeting and lifted their hands to the “yay” or “nay.” I sat next to my best friend in high school, a girl I had known since second grade and the only other Mexican girl who was likely to be found in any of my honors classes. “We go to a school filled with rednecks,” I said. “And all of their parents are crackers,” she added. This wasn’t how we normally referred to our classmates, or their parents, but our frustration was evident in our words.
The preacher did not give up. Neither did the students. Before the school year ended (the students, in a wise move, had waited until after the football season was over), somehow an agreement was reached. The school would change the flag and the mascot and the band would no longer play “Dixie.” You still see a few flags at games — the old die-hards bring them. On a fan site, I found this statement: “The ‘official’ symbol was removed from Lee, in the 1990s because of the wave of ‘political correctness.’ Long live the Rebel tradition and may the stands once again show the sea of support that reached its zenith in the 1980s.”
You could say a lot of things about a conservative town in Texas. I have. But what I didn’t realize was that I might say some of the same things about this school in Chicago. I had high hopes for the School of the Art Institute, finding its home in what I thought was one of the most diverse cities in the U.S. I had come to the land of Lincoln!
I had high hopes until I walked into my first class. Ever since junior high, I have been unable to walk into a classroom without taking an informal demographic survey. There are few “minority” students in any of my classes and I don’t expect this to change in the year it takes me to finish my MFA degree. It’s not as though it’s much different from most of the schools I have attended.
There is no Confederate flag waving at SAIC, but it isn’t only overt racism one needs to worry about. I hear silly misconceptions — for example, a white student telling a black student that one of the characters in her story simply has to be black because “white people don’t say ‘ain’t.’” (I got to tell you, honey, that just ain’t true.) But worse are the assumptions that if minority students are admitted, it is because of lowered standards and that there is a treasure chest of financial aid set aside for such people (there are only a handful of “minority” scholarships). In general, there seems to be confusion about the difference between diversity and affirmative action (along with the ever-popular concept of quotas), which are entirely different things.
Consider this: according to the 2000 U.S. Census, in the city of Chicago, whites make up 31 percent of the population, African Americans 36 percent, Hispanics 26 percent, Asian/Pacific Islanders four percent, and Native Americans less than one percent. Comparatively, at SAIC, according to the self-study for re-accreditation and the Office of Multicultural Affairs, out of 120 full-time faculty (no stats are kept for part-time instructors), the stats are quite different. The faculty is 82.5 percent white. Among students, the gap is a little narrower: 64.5 percent white, 3.4 percent African American, 6.4 percent Hispanic, 8.3 percent Pacific Islander/Asian, and 14 percent non-resident internationals.
The school numbers clearly do not reflect the city we live in. An educational institution has a duty to give something back to the community it resides in, especially when the school receives city funding. Diversity, and the exchange — in art, politics, education, religion, and life — that comes as a result affects everyone.
As an undergrad student in Texas, I had the good fortune of attending a very diverse university, in contrast to my high school experience. Because of this, I became friends with people I wouldn’t have met otherwise. I talked about separatist politics with people from Quebec, the Basque region in Spain, and Puerto Rico; I learned how to dance salsa from those whom had left their home of Cuba for a myriad of complex political reasons; I tried to explain grunge music to Mexican (nationals) students who did not understand Nirvana. I learned as much outside the classroom as I did inside from the friendships I had with people who were different from me and had come from different life experiences.
It’s the different perspectives that help us all — as artists, writers, teachers, and as people. It concerns me that while the school seems to be trying to make changes through a diversity initiative, both faculty and student meetings are poorly attended. There is a dialogue, but not enough people are participating, perhaps because they do not feel this topic relates to them. I hope that is not the case. What’s worse than the lack of diversity itself is the attitude that diversity will help only the “minority” students. Perhaps that’s the biggest misconception of all.