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Why it has to be a challenge: Tolerance isn't enough
Published: Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 7:49pm
To advertise for the first of the two Black History Month movie nights, I put up a few signs around the school. The signs feature a painting of the four little girls who were killed in the bombing of a church in Birmingham (the focus of the movie "4 Little Girls") and some text.
The signs said:
- Tolerant?
Diverse?
Accepting?
Prove It.
In honor of Black History Month Uni’s very own movie night:
Completely free unfiltered
Knowledge.
It continued on in detail about the place and time. On my way back from English I noticed a note drawn on in pencil that said, "Why does it have to be a challenge?"
I took the question as a legitimate one, and one that needed to be answered in a way that was more formal than simply writing a note back on the paper. My answer would be this:
I wrote the advertisement in the form of a challenge because that's exactly what it is. There are a lot of students at Uni who talk about how we need to be more diverse and how we need a more tolerant environment (tolerant of things ranging from homosexuality to race to religion). I personally agree, but those same students need to be willing to create that environment.
When there isn't the promise of free food or missing a class, how many students are actually willing to go to something for the purpose of learning about a culture that isn't necessarily theirs?
Of course for all of those students who think that we need to create a more tolerant environment there are those who think that our environment is perfectly tolerant and that nothing really needs to be done. To these students I say that if our environment is so tolerant and inviting to minorities then people should care about the issues and history that surround these different people.
Actually, if you think about it, we should be striving for more than just tolerance. Tolerance is simply not objecting to the Black History Month signs in the second-floor hallway, tolerance is not making a fuss about the luncheon, tolerance is what many of us have been practicing for far too long.
Tolerance is unacceptable. In order for us to encourage a cohesive society, regardless of race or other things, we need to gain knowledge and rise above tolerance.
So here's your opportunity to practice more than tolerance. Here is your opportunity to learn something. Here is your opportunity to step out of your comfort zone.
- Movie Night 1: Friday, Feb. 15, after school at 1:30 p.m. Go out to eat, come back, watch a great movie!
- Movie Night 2: Thursday, Feb. 21, at 7 p.m.-ish (time still flexible)
- Luncheon: Wednesday, Feb. 27, at lunch — free food for all, great performances (more details later)
Comments
The fact is, some were still
The fact is, some were still offended by your telling us we need to prove something. We at Uni don't need to "prove" anything. Going to your movie night after seeing these posters doesn't mean we're tolerant, it just means that we cave in whenever some guilts us into feeling bad. The fact is, it didn't "have" to be a challenge. The same people will show up regardless. And then, you have people like me who decide not to show up because of said challenge.
More for the knowledge base
Watch for developments in the current displays inside and just outside the library. Natalie has put out some fabulous books that are otherwise kind of hidden in our stacks. She's also preparing some interesting materials to keep everyone's brain cells churning.
Comfort Zone
I especially appreciate your characterization of going beyond tolerance, of stepping out of one's comfort zone to learn something about a different culture.
A few things I'm curious about
"Actually, if you think about it, we should be striving for more than just tolerance. Tolerance is simply not objecting to the Black History Month signs in the second-floor hallway, tolerance is not making a fuss about the luncheon, tolerance is what many of us have been practicing for far too long."
I consider myself a tolerant person. I don't object to Black History Month signs in the second-floor hallway, I didn't make fuss about the luncheon, and tolerance is what I've been practicing for almost as long as I understood what it was. As far as I can tell, my tolerance has never had a detrimental effect on anyone. I think that if everyone had a live-and-let-live attitude (like mine) the world would be just fine. Unfortunately not everyone does.
I'm curious about why tolerance is not enough, and what specifically we should be doing instead. "Gaining knowledge" is kind of vague. Are you saying that everyone should study "other" cultures? (I don't want to derail discussion here, so I won't go into my cultural differences spiel.) If so, why is that better than live and let live? I can't learn everything in my life, so some cultural knowledge is going to remain unlearned by me in favor of other things. I don't see how not learning about people is going to make me less tolerant of them. Or is tolerance not the goal now, considering that you did say it's "unacceptable"? Is the gaining knowledge goal a part of the tolerance goal, or is it an object in and of itself?
If people must be so insistent on pigeonholing everyone and breaking everything down into racial or cultural groups, what's so wrong about these groups just ignoring each other? Better yet, we could stop insisting on grouping everyone together in semi-arbitrary ways based on race. Aren't we all Americans? Aren't we all citizens of the world? Aren't we all humans? I would rather I and everyone have the option to ignore anyone and everyone else if they wanted to, and anyone and everyone could ignore me.
In conclusion, I don't accept your challenge. I don't have to care about someone to tolerate them. I'm a skeptic in most matters, this one included. You won't get people who aren't tolerant to become that way by challenging them, and you won't solve the problem that they create through their intolerance by getting people who already align with your basic views more fired up about them. In then end, all I see is polarization, and a distinct lack of any common ground or attempts to reach the people who still act on discriminatory thought, which is the real problem. (Not saying you can't have discriminatory thoughts; thought is free from all restriction. It's on the actions that cause problems.) If people want to learn more about other groups/races/cultures/etc, I congratulate them. There is no question that more knowledge is a good thing. I'm explaining why I don't feel the need to devote myself to that study.
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