To most university students in the U.S., it is no secret that perspectives and ideas vary in different regions of the country, from the conservative South to the liberal North, or from the innovative urban centers to the traditional values of rural towns.
Views on different people also vary by region. The same people who are embraced with equality in American cities may face intolerance and discrimination in smaller towns.
We've all heard the stories, those horrors of small town America: tales of a student whose classmates will not work with her because she is not American, and her teacher refuses to help; a Muslim woman who becomes the targets of threats or hatred because of her religion; a man who is rejected by a Christian community for being homosexual.
These are some of the nightmares of intolerance that exist in small town America. And, perhaps, it's understandable. Citizens in rural settings are not often exposed to fantastic education systems or people who are different from themselves, so perhaps this level of xenophobia is natural?
It might be, if that were the case. However, each of these scenarios didn't happen in the "conservative south" or "rural America" – they each occurred at UB, and each within the past few weeks.
This type of blatant discrimination baffles me. My time in college has led me to travel abroad and spend a good deal of time with refugees in the U.S. My favorite part of interacting with the international community is being reminded that people are so utterly the same. We all fear, love, joke and learn in similar ways. Human character does not vary terribly much between races and religions, and yet so often we focus on our subtle differences and insist on rejecting "the other."
Is this really the type of behavior that a few of us are willing to enact, and more of us are willing to tolerate, on a university campus?
Buffalo, as the second largest city in New York State, has been trying to reclaim its former rust-belt glory. Really, there is no reason that it shouldn't: Buffalo has a fantastically diverse population, accessibility to education, and some wonderful research institutions.
With the numerous universities and resources that Buffalo has to offer, the city has the potential to prosper as a center of progress and research.
But what progress can be made without tolerance? Does not the liberty to live one's life as he or she sees fit, with the basic freedoms of being able to practice one's own religion, choose the person he or she loves, and take pride in his or her ethnicity, represent all that political freedom must guarantee? How can a community or society take pride in itself if it neglects the basic human rights of its people?
Additionally, in ignoring the thoughts and ideas that are different from our own, we lose diversity in perspective. Narrow-mindedness does not make a good avenue for progress.
UB is a wonderful institution, full of students from diverse perspectives and backgrounds. Everyone at this institution is given the advantage of education and exposure to different people. These advantages could contribute to a progressive and open-minded university community if we are willing to reject intolerance.
In the twenty-first century, xenophobia is not in, and it is the young generation of future professionals who need to embrace diversity and refuse to tolerate discrimination in any form.
Email: mdeckard@buffalo.edu
