March 2, 1995
Several weeks ago, another student approached me and criticized a column I had written. He told me that because I didn't have the cultural understanding and perspective of his people, I had completely misinterpreted his friend's ideas.
Fear welled up inside me.
"But look at me," I finally said to him. "How could I have that perspective?" I told him, if you don't explain it to me, I won't understand.
As I said that, I was afraid he wouldn't understand what I meant.
After we spoke for a while, my fear dissipated, and I realized that we could move beyond our differences to discuss the issue.
But it isn't always so easy.
I came to San Francisco State University for the ethnic diversity. After growing up in a small, affluent, white suburban town, I wanted exposure to a reality that I hadn't seen at home. I wanted to learn more about issues that my parents would not discuss or even acknowledge.
To some degree, I found that here.
But the more I learned, the less confident I felt in communicating my own ideas. I became afraid that because I didn't always understand, I was likely to offend someone of a different background.
I stopped speaking out in class.
When the professor assigned my Black Studies English 214 class to write an essay about a personal experience of oppression, I froze. Who was I to write about oppression? I didn't know what it meant to be oppressed. I never wrote the essay.
As I continued my classes, I realized that unless I spoke out, I would never have the opportunity to question or have my own ideas questioned; I would stop learning.
On this campus, we are such a diverse group. Here we learn not only about others, but also to discover about ourselves and our own heritage.
But so often it seems that we become so concerned with our own perspective that we ignore the ideas of others, immediately discrediting anything that appears to conflict with our own.Instead of moving toward a greater understanding, we remain separated by differences.