Diversity speaker Steve Birdine told a large group of UNM students Tuesday night that the answers to racial problems are as simple as being nice to each other.
“The biggest problem we have in higher education is that we have a lot of experts who can’t communicate and have politicized diversity to the point that people aren’t honest with each other anymore,” he said. “If people just followed the golden rule — do unto others as you want them to do unto you — we would have no trouble getting along.”
Birdine is the coordinator of Diversity Programs at Indiana University and president of Creative Diversity Communications. With racial tensions flaring up at UNM following an incident with a swastika being taped to a black student’s car while she was illegally parked outside of a fraternity, a variety of campus leaders sponsored Birdine’s visit.
He told the culturally diverse group, consisting of mostly of students, that kicking those involved in racial incidents off campus wouldn’t solve the problem and asked the audience to walk away from his speech with at least three basic principles in mind.
“The first is that normal is relative,” Birdine said. “I am a 42-year-old man from the inner city of Chicago. That doesn’t make me any less normal than a 21-year-old from Albuquerque, New Mexico. It just makes us different, and different isn’t bad.”
Birdine then told the audience that if it hoped to break down barriers, it must be open-minded.
“You must understand that my way is not the only way — that your individual way of looking at things in this world isn’t the only way,” he said.
His final point was that people must agree to disagree and respect each others’ differences.
Birdine stressed the importance of honesty, adding that people need to be given room to fail without being ostracized. He said that often people are dubbed racist based on mistakes they made that are rooted in ignorance.
He talked extensively about the role of stereotypes and had the audience give him a list of generalizations made about men, women, gay and lesbian and overweight people. Birdine then used the list as a starting point for discussion about the idea that it is impossible to make accurate, broad statements about large groups of people.
“The reason we use stereotypes is that people are lazy and don’t want to take the time and effort to get to know each other,” he said. “We all fear the unknown, but until we have meaningful interaction, we cannot break down barriers.”
Birdine said it is natural for people to hang out with people they have things in common with, which is why different racial groups tend to stick together.
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“I once was on a panel with a member of the Klu Klux Klan who asked why I had a problem with his organization supporting white people, and I said, “I don’t have a problem with you embracing white people, I just get upset when you put others down in the process,’” he said. “It’s not bad for different groups to stick together, I just encourage white people who ask why all the black people sit together why they don’t sit with the black group. Don’t expect others to have the courage you don’t have.”
He added that minorities should not be afraid to hang onto and embrace their culture, but remember not to fall into the trap where the most oppressed people later become the biggest oppressors.
Birdine said he knew speaking to groups about diversity was like preaching to the choir because only those who already care show up, but added that all choirs need practice.
“People go to one or two diversity workshops and think they’ve got it down, but after 50 trips to the golf course, no one calls Tiger Woods and says they’re ready to take him on,” he said. “Like everything else in life, this takes practice.”
One of the questions about other races Birdine read from notecards that audience members submitted asked if he thought his presentation made a difference.
“I hope so,” he said. “I would not have come all this way if I did not think it would.”
