In the fall of 1891, a young black kid registered for classes at Iowa State. George Washington Carver became the first African-American to enroll at Iowa State University. As students, we are all tied like a sticky thread to that history, or to any history, because we live in an inter-connected world.

We live in an interdependent world, with our goals intertwined and our destinies and histories woven together. The effects of slave trade, segregation, the civil rights movement and relationships between races are all woven into one garment that we all have to wear. We have all gone past slave trade and segregation, but how far have we come?

On June 7, 1998, three white men dragged a black man to his death on a lonely country road in Jasper, Texas. James Byrd, a 49-year-old man, was attached to a truck by three white men and then dragged three miles until he died.

In 1993, Colin Ferguson, a black man from Long Island, committed a similar act of hatred.

He boarded a commuter train and used it to run down several white passengers, killing 6 people and wounding 19.

At the time of both of these incidents, I thought nothing of it. I was still in Nigeria and oblivious to such acts of hatred because they didn’t affect me directly.

On the ISU campus, however, I am affected directly by the resentment, misunderstanding and ignorance that we all occasionally have to deal with.

Hatred. Sometimes it doesn’t happen consciously; it isn’t something that we can touch, hold or easily define, but it exists even here at Iowa State.

A survey done by Sue Rankin, senior research associate at Rankin & Associates Consulting, showed that 50 percent of white ISU students and 47 percent of students of color claim they have been harassed because of their race. No one is born to hate a certain group of people, yet subconsciously people still do. Why?

Psychologists agree that we all tend to displace our undesirable personality traits to others, which causes us to dislike people who are different. Over time, we all develop prejudices about people who are different, and we come to accept it irrationally as the truth. How can we get rid of these stereotypes? How can we fight ignorance, resentment, hatred and fear?

Somehow, these features affect all of us, directly or indirectly. Here at Iowa State, the ideas that we go out to the real world with are shaped by these features.

Ignorance, resentment, hatred and fear are poor chisels with which to carve out our lives.

Therefore, at Iowa State, this talk about diversity is not only important to minorities; it is important to all of us.

Diversity is a light that can guide us all away from resentment to equanimity, from hatred to love, from fear to understanding.

Diversity is more than just a large number of minorities in a particular institution, however. Diversity is the exchange of ideas, opinions, and experiences between races. One way of encouraging such exchange is to attend minority events.

Unfortunately, many people in leadership positions here at Iowa State don’t understand the importance of real diversity.

ISU President Gregory Geoffroy can spare 15 minutes to talk about the longest word he can spell and the kind of toothpaste he uses, but he can’t spare 15 minutes to give a speech at the opening ceremony of the Hispanic Heritage Month, an event that he was invited to nine months in advance.

It just makes me wonder if he cares about diversity beyond the things he can put on his resume, like the Multicultural Center.

The minority population in America is growing every day. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, in the year 2025, about one-fourth of the total U.S. population will be living in states where the minority population exceeds the non-minority population.

Even in Iowa, the minority population is growing. From 1990 to 2000, the minority population in Iowa increased by 97.4 percent. We are coming to a point where tolerance will no longer be a choice but a necessity, and the ignorant will no longer be thought of as simply unaware, but foolish.

As leader of Iowa State University, how is President Geoffroy preparing us for such a future?