Patricia Russel-McCloud, one of the keynote speakers for this year’s Big Eight Conference on Black Student Government kickoff event, said diversity is a celebration of differences.

“Diversity means that there is an appreciation for your constitution. Diversity means that you are better because you have looked at those differences and have not just tolerated them, but have celebrated those differences,” she said to the crowd in the Scheman Building on Friday.

Russel-McCloud, recognized nationwide as one of the most dynamic speakers in America, discussed issues of education, diversity and social values to an audience of about 250 people on Friday morning.

Russel-McCloud downplayed the concept of diversity as a law and emphasized the principle of acceptance.

“I would advise you that you have a responsibility to get past the concept of diversity as being law,” she said to black student leaders of each of the Big 12 schools and 40 other universities of the Midwest. She said the importance of speaking the mind is the main ingredient to having a first-class mind.

She also discussed the downfalls of jumping to the majority just to be accepted, or siding with the minority just to be different.

“A third-rate mind is only happy when it agrees with the majority. A second-rate mind is only happy when it agrees with the minority, but a first-rate mind is only happy when it speaks.”

Milton McGriff, spokesman for The September 29th Movement, introduced Russel-McCloud to an applauding audience in the Benton Auditorium.

Russel-McCloud began her speech with an “X and O” analogy on people being accepted and speaking their mind.

She named the X’s the mainstream and the O’s the minority. She then explained how the O’s, with hard work and determination, will rise to the top — comparing it to the struggle black people must face to achieve their desires.

Russel-McCloud also spoke about the examples the leaders at the convention must make to help those that are “hopeless.” She said black men must help these people who have no hope and teach them the proper ways of life.

She said, “Boys will be boys, but boys will not be boys if we have our men to tell our boys what it means to be a man.”