To the Editor:
Many students have been talking about "the need to improve and maintain our diversity."I could not agree more.Student Assembly presidential candidate Phil Ferrera '96 has stated that he supports not only the furthering of affinity housing but the establishment of gender exclusive housing -- for women only.
The problem is that Ferrera completely misses the point.He is promoting " diversity"whose practical effect is segregation.Although I hope that this is not what he wishes, the consequence of these poorly thought-out actions is segregation.
Having been the senior class president at a high school whose student body was 33 percent black, 30 percent white, 20 percent Latino and 15 percent Asian (mostly Cambodian and Vietnamese), I know first hand the benefits of diversity.But more than that, I know what it means to be integrated.This only occurs when all racial and ethnic groups make conscience efforts to interact, not to live across campus from each other.
Diversity without integration is nothing.Unless the different racial and ethnic groups on campus are mixing and interacting, there is no diversity. I ask you, are they interacting?Do people at Food Court sit in racial groups?Does the Office of Residential Life take into account race when doing supposedly random roommate assignments? The College even sponsors race based visitation weekends for prospective students.
It is naive to simply call for increasing diversity through affinity housing. That is separatism, not diversity.That is the exact opposite of integration.
I am still in support of affinity housing, as a necessary evil in the process of true integration.People must be made to feel comfortable in their surroundings and to have contact with other members of their racial or ethnic group.However we must stress that students go beyond these narrow confines as opposed to what Ferrera advocates, which is separatism.
If this campus and the campus leaders truly want to make progress, they will deal with issues such as self-segregation, the lack of inter-racial dating or friendship and ignorance about other cultures. I am waiting for a candidate to tackle this issue intelligently, which already narrows down the field before I vote.
