Friday, September 05, 2003
Thinking! Run!
So, I'm going to take a break from baseless accusations based on out-of-context quotes to try to make a meaningful rebuttal of Michelle Myers's "Spread Too Thin" column in today's Daily Cal. I'll resist the urge to do a line-by-line argument, and address her major ideas.
Her claim, overall, is that there aren't enough black people at Cal. Nothing new, of course, BAMN has been screaming it for years, and the number whores of the "diversity" camp have, too. My thesis is that Myers is incorrect in her assessment, and that there are not too few blacks on Cal, at least not for the reasons that she states.
The general thread of Myers's argument is "black students who are here are overworked, underpaid, and struggling to carve out a separate niche and a unified community."
Overworked: Myers complains of the difficulties of both doing her classes and engaging in all sorts of external activities with various groups. This complaint is ill-placed, as the obvious answer is "well, why don't you just not participate in all those groups?" (In the same way that if I complained "Geez, I just don't have enough time to maintain a blog and do my classes, life is so hard for me," any reader would quickly point out "Hey, dumbass, quit your blog. It's not like you're contributing to intellectual discourse or anything.")
Myers actually answers this question, with the idea that as a black person, it's her duty to help create a unified community and help change public opinion of blacks in general. While that's fine, she has no right to argue that she's forced to be overworked as a result, because that perception of duty is her own construct. Any student, black or otherwise, who comes to Cal can just completely ignore the world of "organizations" and just worry about classes. No one cares. No one will care. She could get a degree, run off and try to find a job, and if she doesn't make a huge deal about her race (which is what Myers does), potential employers probably won't care, either.
Instead, Myers pursues extra-scholastic activities with a great fervor, every single one of which is completely optional. My sympathy for her "overworked" status knows no lower bound.
As a somewhat sidenote, Myers mentions the "subverted racism black students experience in chemistry, engineering and business classes where we (black students) are phenotypically outnumbered." Being a minority and being subject to racism are not equivalent. This is a huge logical leap which Myers makes very little effort to justify. Especially in classes as impersonal as chemistry and engineering, nobody gives a damn what your race is, how many of your race there are, or any such. The racism she refers to is that "black students must present ourselves in a positive light for our classmates." I don't disagree, but that's hardly unique to black students. Everyone has to present herself in a positive light to others. I do. You do. We all do. It's not a uniquely black struggle. No one looks at me and says "well, that guys a dick, smells bad, and has poor manners.... but he's white, so it doesn't really matter."
The other major point of Myers's column is that of community. She claims that blacks have a duty to make a unified black community. To which I say, "Why?" Again, Myers doesn't really address the question. Why does one need a unified racial community? Each individual is unique, and is part of the whole college community. To try to class a person into a particular racial unified vision is an absurd destruction of the individuality an individual has. Blacks can do just fine without a "unified black community," especially in an independent college setting like Cal, away from homogenous regions which are predominantly black, and where not being part of that community is not an option. I've seen it work. I've seen the difference between "community" blacks and "just happen to be" blacks, and can assure you that a black community in a setting such as Cal is anything but beneficial to blacks.
Myers closes with some "The university's job is to encourage diversity, and we should get paid for doing it" thoughts, which I don't really feel like addressing. But in summary, my advice is if you don't want to do something, if it's unrewarding and too difficult...... DON'T DO IT.
Okay, that wasn't as thoughtful as I had hoped. Well, nevermind. Points are: Community unnecessary, minority isn't discrimination, and voluntary overwork your problem. None of these points are addressed in the column, and none of them seem obviously false. Myers needs to state and defend her assumptions (that the unified black community is necessary, that being a minority is the same as being subjected to racism, and that the fact that her choice of working too hard is the university's problem) much better.
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