Oh, how I yearn so badly to return to my homeland of Caucasia. That mythical and magical land, full of my fellow Caucasians. What a splendid country it is, full of homogeneity and blandness. There, we have no “culture” to speak of. We have nothing unique and exciting to share, except our ability to come to America and check “Caucasian” on our job applications.

Here lies the hypocrisy in the current American ideology of “diversity.” We have been brought up to believe that only race and ethnicity outside that of the “Caucasian” race is worthy of being labeled diverse. While this has been a wonderful tool to shed light on minority cultures in America, it presupposes that Caucasians do not have their own individual and unique cultures.

We Caucasians are not some bland, unified race as so many questionnaires and applications lead people to believe. Take me, for example: my family is German. Never, however, have I been referred to as a “German-American.”

Alternately, not every black man or woman in America is an African-American. There are numerous ethnicities outside of Africa that include blacks. So why do we have this ethnic labeling of Americans? Why are we not all just “Americans?”

I suspect that at the heart of this diversity issue lies something sinister. I believe part of this so-called diversity effort is nothing more than another way to judge people based on something so trivial – skin color.

I want to tell you a story about a man I once knew. This man was born and raised in Africa. He lived there for 42 years until he decided to become a U.S. citizen and attend college in Texas. While still in Africa, he applied for scholarships and grants through the mail to fund his education. He was awarded a great sum of money from an organization because he was an African coming to America. He was going to become an African-American. However, upon arriving in America, the entire sum of money he was awarded was taken away. Why? Because this African-American happens to be a white man.

That’s right – he is “Caucasian.” Even though this man was born and spent more time in Africa than 90 percent of this country’s African-Americans, he was not eligible for an African-American scholarship. Because of the color of his skin, he was rejected.

I was under the impression that one’s skin color did not matter in this country. Apparently it does, and not only in the way everyone likes to talks about.

This man’s hardship shows clearly that this scholarship was not based on his being an “African-American” – it was based on his being a black man. The scholarship to promote ethnic diversity was a lie. It was a scholarship based on racism. The color of one’s skin should not matter – and it still clearly does, on both sides of the fence.

It is the year 2007 – it is time we put this issue of race behind us once and for all. I am keenly aware that racism still exists in this country; I do not deny it or try to hide it.

But much like a childhood bully that knows you hate to be called names, and does it more because he knows you hate it – racism is being fueled by our constant attention and over-sensitization to it.

We absolutely need to embrace and cherish every race, creed and ethnicity in America. This country was founded on immigrants and will continue to be fueled by them. However, we must learn to all come together and unite under our differences, not split because of them.

The more we try to segment and label every single ethnicity in this country, the more we actually divide ourselves. It is one thing to be aware of the cultures around you, it’s a whole other to pretend we are not actually of the same culture – American.

&#8212 Chris Potratz is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Dallas, Texas.