Best Friend of Hate is Silence

This October, I had the opportunity of attending a Student Diversity Leadership where I learned a lot of things through Diversity Focus.

Some background info about Diversity Focus:

About Diversity Focus:
Diversity Focus is a non-profit organization devoted to enhancing the diversity of the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City Corridor. The goals of the organization are:

Communication
Information Clearinghouse
Program Enhancement

About this Conference:

Many of us travel on diverse paths, but in our communications and our world we share a spirit of hope for a brighter tomorrow. We can achieve this dream through understanding, celebrating, accepting, and working together. The Student Diversity Leadership Conference will provide participants with the knowledge and resources to be more successful leaders in their schools and communities.

The best part of this Conference, in my opinion, was the Keynote Presentation by Dr. Eddie Moore, Jr.

Background info about Dr. Moore:

Dr. Eddie Moore currently serves as Director of Diversity at the Bush School in Seattle, WA. He earned his Ph.D. in Educational Social Foundations from the University of Iowa. His research is on the educational experiences of African American football players at small colleges in the Midwest. Eddie is an ex-student athlete and remain committed to the influence of athletics and academics in the lives of all students. Eddie is a dynamic and personable diversity consultant and public speaker. Dr. Moore has also been a workshop presenter/facilitator and trainer for various organizations and at national and international conferences concerned with Education, Diversity, Privilege, and Leadership. Eddie's presentations are interactive, fun, challenging, and motivating.

I've been an active participant of my school's Cultural Diversity club for about two years now, but never have I been fully committed to my job. I've just been there for namesake; I take part in activities to make my resume look good. However, this time I had the urge to make a difference at my school through the club. From where did I get this sudden inspiration? Dr. Eddie Moore's Keynote speech.

After the Diversity Focus conference, I felt a change in my perspective of diversity. Until then I thought that diversity meant the incorporation of different cultures, which is true, in all the activities that takes place at my school. I found out that I take part in club activities that help me and my ethnic background the most. I felt that I was being prejudiced towards other cultures, by being self centered. After listening to Dr. Moore's speech it struck me that I haven't been promoting diversity in the most effective way; I've been just been spreading the Indian culture, not the tolerance of diversity (which is the major focus of our club). I felt disgusted with myself.

Dr. Moore started out his speech by saying, "The best friend of hate is silence." It means that being silent or ignorant or indifferent to racist comments or even slight acts of prejudice is fuel for hate. I learned from his speech that stereotypes fuel to racist comments as much as colors do. To be a much better community, we need to first bring down the barriers that stereotypes create. Through his speech I realized that identities are not static, they are fluid. It dawned on me that my generation is very pessimistic at times. If something doesn't work or if they don't get something they want, they loose faith and approach life in a negative. This creates hatred towards each other. I learned that to be successful in life, in this case anything, you have to have a positive approach to life.

I would say that the most important thing I learned from this conference is that diversity is more than incorporting all the cultures. Diversity means to be considerate of other's thoughts and feelings. If we see discrimination, we have to get to the source and stop it. If there are stereotypes, breat it.