In the column “Western perspective is not culture,” (ODE, March 2) the author — whom it is not my intention to disparage — made the argument that education at the University is perpetuated through academic media that assume a “Caucasian perspective.”
The author states that, “College should be a place where students learn to identify with and understand many different people; only looking at the world from the Caucasian point of view (my emphasis) doesn’t challenge them enough to achieve this.”
He also states that, “Caucasians will receive a multitude of lectures telling them how to avoid being racist and how to cope with guilt, but the African-Americans, harbored by feelings of anger and oppression, the Latinos, tired of political alienation, or the Native Americans, demoralized by the near-depletion of their people, most likely will never receive any first-person acknowledgment or advice.”
In both of these supplied quotes, the author demonstrates a mentality that is simultaneously racist and frankly somewhat offensive in its audacity. I would like to posit a simple question: What is a “Caucasian perspective?” Is the author truly asserting that by virtue of a shared skin color, the University student born and raised in Oregon shares a common, inherent “perspective” with the University student born and raised in South Chicago? Is this not a racist assertion?
To maintain that skin color in and of itself bestows a “perspective” upon those who bear it is not only utterly fallacious and nonsensical, it is racist. The same is true for ethnicity. The author does not only imply this connection for Caucasians, he also audaciously groups African-Americans, Latinos and Native Americans together, assuming that, for example, the fact of being African-American means a student must be “harbored by feelings of anger and oppression.”
To think in such ways dissolves the uniqueness of the individual. It in fact alienates the African-American who may have always been respected by his white contemporaries and who does not harbor feelings of “anger and oppression.” It alienates the Caucasian who, having grown up in South Chicago, became intimately acquainted with racism directed at him, and who, by virtue of this background, may actually understand the effects of racism better than his African-American contemporaries. There is no such thing as a “Caucasian perspective,” and to posit the existence of one is an offense to white students who do not wish to be lumped together with all other whites in society simply because of something as trivial as their skin color.
Respect for the uniqueness of the individual is the essence of diversity. While the author seems to take issue with teaching styles that are executed with a “Caucasian” or “majority” perspective, I find myself at a loss to understand what exactly these perspectives are. Would he care to explain what he thinks is the “Caucasian perspective?” Does he deny that this is racist terminology?
I write a response to the article because, as a citizen of society, it pains me to see such thoughts expressed without challenge. Mankind is not composed of arbitrary groups whose superficial similarities connote inherent “perspectives” or world views. Mankind is composed of individuals; though some think alike, it is certainly not true that all who share certain physical characteristics can accurately be said to have a common “perspective.” Thinking of this type is virulent and ironically gives rise to a dampening of diversity, rather than amplification of and respect for the concept. I hope students will continue to write in and challenge views expressed that are offensive, even if they are espoused under the guise of liberalism and tolerance.
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