A Multicultural Pacifier

Tuesday's Takaki speech was another reminder of the administration's attempt to keep race cemented in campus dialogue. Conversations of race and ethnicity, coupled with fear and presuppositions, almost beg for misunderstanding and diluted conflict. Hence, an administrative push for outward racial conversation and accountability is a remarkable step for any multiracial institution, even Oberlin, which has built much of its national reputation on being a forerunner in eradicating racial domination. But how much of this seeming care for racial diversity and understanding is intended or fleshed out as a multicultural pacifier? Grand speeches by renowned intellectuals, clever phraseology and even editorials like these, though well intended, don't create an Asian-American or Ethnic Studies department, don't fill tenure track positions, nor do they darken or diversify the administration or the board of trustees.

It is imperative that we, like Takaki, ask President Dye and ourselves why him, why Cornel West, why now? Maybe the arch? Kwame Ture? A lack of Ethnic Studies? Our two convocation speakers, represent two large and vocally unsatisfied racial minorities on campus, African-Americans and Asian- Americans. Demanding diversity and representation in the classrooms and curriculum is important, but also safe for the administration. Whether conscious or not, paying these race-conscious speakers upwards of 7G's to speak about race and activism creates the guise of administrative action on pertinent racial issues. What about the lack of diversity within the administration or the Board of Trustees? An incredibly white administration and white board of trustees make decisions that move all of us, including those regarding curriculum and tenure track positions. Is it plausible to demand and expect change and diversity in the curriculum without demanding change and diversity in the curriculum-setters and creators? Possibly not.

This, however, does not imply that racial identity is fixed, though there are many complexities and subtleties peculiar to each racial group. White administrators can make wonderful decisions that purposely and positively affect white and nonwhite students. The question is ... do they?