The Speech I Didn't Have the Balls to Give Tonight

P. S: It's the second half of spring semester senior year, expect lots and lots of postings in the near future...

I was asked recently to speak tonight at the Office of Multicultural Affairs Year End Banquet. This is auspiciously an honor, bestowed on graduating (!) seniors who've had some part in diversity on campus. I guess its just funny, because while diversity is extremely important to me, particularly in a setting like this one where I am so very privileged, I don't really feel like I've been a part of diversity at Lewis & Clark. Maybe thats because I'm a white woman from a relatively well off background. Maybe its because I feel like diversity is so ridiculously self-explanatory and transparent. Maybe its because no matter how many meetings I attend, how many seminars I listen to, how many classes I take, how many all-college forums I sit in the back of and rage quietly about yet another horrifying transgression on campus in which we should have known better, I feel like its never enough. I could have always done more. At a place like LC with so many good intentions and well meaning people, and great opportunities it's never enough. There is still so much work to be done.

I think the biggest thing I've learned about diversity during the last four years of my life and of college, and in particular through my however tangential involvement in OMA activities, is that diversity isn't a matter of getting it right, or of doing enough. It's a matter of listening and sometimes knowing its ok not to speak. It's a matter of truly opening your eyes and opening your ears and struggling to understand, more than just paying lip service to the progressive ideas that most of us have been hearing since grade school. Diversity at LC for me has been the revolutionary act of not assuming I'm as enlightened as I hope to be, of listening, of showing up in support and solidarity, and of learning to become an ally for the causes and people that I care about.

Though I found the homogeneous nature of our college community stifling, and nearly transfered at one point in search of a more transparent and open community, I made the decision to stay and make a commitment to creating space on this campus which is vibrant, open, inviting, supportive, and inclusive. Two and a half years after that decision, I've seen and taken small parts in the creation of the ethnic studies minor, the opening and doubling in size of the LINCs program, the sometimes divisive and all the more necessary dialogs in the monthly Speaking on Diversity series, the sadly now defunct white privilege discussion group, great strides in recruitment of students faculty and staff of color, and the creation of the Ray Warren Multicultural Symposium.

We have made great strides towards social justice on this campus in the four years that I've been here, but there is still work to be done. I'm hear tonight to thank each and every one of you for the things that you've taught me, the hard lessons which you've guided me too, the chances to confront my own inhibitions and biases, the space and the place to ask questions, and the chance to learn about difference and privilege in my life.

No, it's never enough, but you have to start somewhere.