Opening the Dialogue on Race
By: Benjamin Mumma
In recent years, diversity has been a high-priority issue for President Gast and Lehigh’s administration. The issue took center stage with the well-publicized incidents and subsequent town hall meeting last semester. A theme at that town hall meeting, and the subsequent Council for Equity and Community (CEC) meetings, was the role that Greek Life played in thwarting the construction of a diverse and accepting campus. In addition to that, a series of letters to the Brown and White this semester have accused Greeks of being cheaters, racists, bigots, and rapists 1 2.
Given all of that, it should be a huge deal when one of these Greek organizations spends a considerable amount of money to bring a speaker to address the issue of “How Race is Lived in America,” the title of the speaker’s Pulitzer Prize winning series which was originally published in 2001. As a Harvard Graduate and professional reporter for over 35 years, Michael Winerip was able to provide an intelligent and balanced lecture on the role race and racism play in America today. Such an event should have drawn a huge crowd, especially if diversity was as big of an issue at Lehigh as it was portrayed last semester.
However, the administration met the event with complete silence, and the Brown and White just managed to tuck an article on Mr. Winerip’s lecture onto page five 3. Those who did attend were treated to an enlightening view on race relations from a man who spent an entire year studying how race affected the interactions of an undercover narcotics unit in New York City. Even though his speech focused around the articles he worked on eight years ago, many of his comments were timely today, both for the United States and the Lehigh community.
Introducing the issue of race, he brought up Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent comment that “though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been, and we, I believe, continue to be, in too many ways, a nation of cowards4.” Mr. Winerip said that he had “a lot of empathy for what Mr. Holder expressed,” and used the example to show how truly universal issues of race are in the world today. Winerip also brought up the often forgotten fact that problems with race are present everywhere, saying that they are “universal and worldwide.”
While discussing affirmative action, Winerip noted both the positive and negative aspects of its implementation. He noted cases which he had seen as someone involved with the admission process at Harvard where affirmative action policies either favored a minority candidate too much, or cost a worthy candidate his or her place. Even with that, he supported the continuation of affirmative action to some extent, saying that “three hundred years of history [of slavery and discrimination] aren’t going to be wiped out in 40-50 years.”
In the United States, Winerip sees racial problems as more of a class issue than one of bigotry. This is not a new idea. Many studies have shown the extremely negative effects that poverty has on someone, regardless of skin color.
He was also optimistic about the progress being made on the issue of race. He sees both parties working on the issues of class and race “from different perspectives,” and that there have been “tremendous gains in his lifetime.” The most important thing, according to Winerip, in continuing this process is open dialogue and integration. He said that “integration is a tremendously important thing” as it “builds empathy,” which allows for an open dialogue on issues of race.
At Lehigh, this description closely fits the CEC’s mission statement “to create an environment where all members of campus work together, transcending racial, cultural, and other boundaries, to build a stronger community and create a richer educational experience for all5.” However, the CEC has not lived up to this mission. So far, the CEC and the conversations at the town hall meetings have focused around attacks of various groups around Lehigh and suggesting additional requirements that students do not want.
This has made race even more of a taboo topic of conversation here at Lehigh. The CEC has turned many students away from the discussion process, and created animosity between groups of varying opinions. The recent exchanges between Greeks and Non-Greeks in the Brown and White illustrate the difficulty of addressing such issues reasonably.
Mr. Winerip’s lecture was very valuable, and went further toward creating an open dialogue than anything the CEC has done thus far. Sadly though, the event did not generate the interest that it should have. The events of last semester drew front-page coverage, campus-wide emails, and the attendance and comments of President Gast herself. Despite the value of the event and the accolades of the speaker, this event drew none of the above. While the CEC will probably continue to create more problems than they solve, hopefully more organizations will bring intelligent speakers as Phi Sigma Kappa did with Mr. Winerip.
Sources:
1 Letters to the Editor. The Brown and White, 2/03/2009.
2 Letters to the Editor. The Brown and White, 2/13/2009.
3 Russial, Martina. Speaker Addresses Race Relations. The Brown and White, 3/31/2009.
4 Barr, Andy. Holder: ‘Nation of cowards’ on race. Politico.com, 2/18/2009.
5 The Council for Equity and Community. www.lehigh.edu/diversity/
