This is really bothering me, even after a few hours of being home and trying to let it go.
This is really bothering me, even after a few hours of being home and trying to let it go.
Today two of our communications instructors and five students (including myself) went to a media conference at a state college about 30 minutes away. The college is very heavily attended and staffed by minorities, which is super refreshing to me. I grew up in a town with no diversity and really enjoy being around people with different cultures and lives, it's much more interesting.
Anyway, I digress. She worked her way up in the entertainment industry, starting as a staff writer all the way to producer of the spin off series to Moesha. Lots of experience under her belt, super impressive! But she spoke of how important it was for everyone to have equal opportunities no matter race or gender. The rest of her address was very interesting and motivational. Great stuff.
However, the second part of the conference offered two topics. One was about how black males are treated in the media and ideas on how to fix it, the other was about women in the media and how to navigate in a very male dominated field. Both interesting.
My fiance wanted to watch the women's media one. He feels very strongly about women's rights and equality. Truly an advocate, I've never met a man who has such strong opinions on it, for the better. My instructor, who is a woman, wanted to see the one about black males in the media. A few minutes before the women's event started, she came back to our room and said she was kicked out of the men's event because she was a woman. A few minutes later, Alton was approached by an older woman and asked to leave. I didn't find out what exactly was said until a few minutes ago, and I really, really don't like it.
But the point..
Having a keynote talk about acceptance and equality and inclusion, only to have the staff pretty much segregate the viewers by gender is counterproductive. Women in the media know it's hard, and if they want more information on how to be more sensitive to the subject and unfair stigma that follows black men, then she should be able to go and learn from that. If a man wants to learn first hand about the challenges faced by women who try to break into a male dominated field, he should be able to do that.
There needs to be less "us" and "them" and more "we." We need to stop separating ourselves and be happy that others want to learn from us, to better themselves, and better the world. Separation only divides.
What the school did felt backwards, and as I waited with my frustrated fiancee outside of the school for an hour and a half while the others were watching their speakers, I realized that life isn't always fair. That sometimes we must push back. And that having a completely honorable reason and desire for learning isn't always welcomed in the way it should be.
We all know how it feels to be excluded, some in more extreme ways than others. The opportunity to learn was there, but there was still a need to divide, completely unnecessarily. Completely counterproductive.