I have never believed in Beardshear’s propaganda on diversity, but what disturbs me even more is a rather narrow view of diversity among my minority colleagues.

Recently, Asian American Students on campus organized a lecture by professor Takiki from UC Berkley. Professor Takiki spoke eloquently and beautifully about diversity related issues on campuses. Takiki’s discussion encompassed everyone (or so he thought): Asian Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, Japanese Americans and Hispanic Americans. Unfortunately, like many of my colleagues, he never failed to qualify various groups to be included in the debate on diversity by adding “American” at the end of each. Somehow, if you are not a numerically significant minority with American citizenship, you are not included in diversity.

Does it ever occur to my friends running the diversity campaign that they are missing out on someone? Actually, they are missing out on the whole world: their very roots. Do they realize that every day the decisions made by their rulers in Washington in the name of “American way of life” and “values” spell havoc for millions around the globe, and yet there is no desire to understand them and know about their plight? I am afraid the diversity being sought is exclusive, elitist and ethnocentric.

I am often slammed with the argument suggesting that somehow diversity discussed within American context does not have to include the “whole world.” Diversity, like freedom, is a universal concept. It requires us to be fair with our fellow human beings, to empathize with them and respect their cultural aspirations, irrespective of borders around them. Diversity cannot be regionalized. Those who think otherwise must remember that diversity outside of the global context will always remain a paradox: an “ethnocentric diversity.”

Rehan Mullick

Department of Sociology