Diversity

Last week we had an ice cream social with a speaker about diversity. I enjoyed having the change of the way things normally run. I had never heard her talk but she presented with a practiced degree of proficiency.

One thing I took out of the class was that not everyone responds to "jokes" in the same way. As, what I would describe, a normal white, middle class American from the Midwest, I figured my response of memes and jokes would be normal. I tend to let things bounce off. A joke is a joke. There has to be either a true degree of blatantly hurtful words or actions to really get a rise out of me. Only other time would be if someone close to me issues offenses that I find hurtful. Those people should know the boundaries between right and wrong and if they don't, they will hear about it. I guess it's more of a assume good will from others type of perspective.

I learned from this lecture that not everyone feels this way. One thing I was not expecting was her take on the Daily incident. I know there was something printed which was (hopefully) unintentionally offensive. What I didn't realize happened was the disregard for the victim's feelings. The Daily most definitely should have been better proofread and after the incident, published articles that helped students see the hurt it caused those ISU students.

One thing that really bothered me about this lecture was student's responses to the picture of the woman and the man. Excuse me, but I thought the extremely negative submissions were absolutely uncalled for. The question asked "How would this person describe themselves" and people were posting statements that, had the photo been of myself, I would probably have left the room crying. It was hurtful to see those things posted. It's an interesting psychological question that should be asked, what makes individuals respond in such a way?  That social experiment makes me wonder, what responses would people post of me (if no one knew me like no one knew her.)