A second look at VCU’s ‘diversity’

Being someone that tends to stay away from large groups of people, I find myself watching how other people work more than anything. Fractioning is very prominent in high school, obviously. You have the cool kids sitting with cool kids, the jocks sitting with their kind and the nerds sitting alone.

So how does all of this work in a university setting like VCU? Once you get to college, none of this stuff matters anymore – supposedly. But we see them sitting outside of Shafer all the time: the emo and scenester kids. And you know as you walk by that they are judging what you’re wearing, how you look, and they know that you’re listening to old-school *NSYNC on your iPod. (How do they know? I don’t know, but they know.)

This is only one example of the fractioning within VCU’s “diversity.” There are many others.

None of these micro-cultures is any less important than the others. Sometimes students are divided by race, but never segregated by race – these groups were created by choice, not by force. We often see members of the Muslim community having their fellowship upstairs in the University Student Commons. And if you venture below the ground level of the Commons, you will find the Asians in Break Point playing pool.

“It seems like diversity here is sometimes little more than a change of scenery.”

So why do they split into these little groups? As a culture aren’t we supposed to be integrated? We’re not. What do you do when you come to a new place? You find people that look like you or seem to be part of your previous social group, and you cling to them like grilled cheese on the ironing board.

There isn’t a thing wrong with this. Even when they were writing the Constitution, our forefathers were afraid of factions forming in the government. They created amenities to prevent this but to no avail.

It is universally true that when lots of different people are in a strange area, they cling to what or who is familiar. VCU claims a population of all sorts of people. We have a large spectrum of religions, lots of different races and a lot of people of different tastes. Most of the conflict any of these groups are going to find is between the people of different tastes.

The Beatles are the greatest band ever, hands down. When you read that, what did you think? “No, the Clash is,” or “No, Wu-Tang is”? Well if you said Wu-Tang, you’re wrong. But if you said anything else, this is an example of how different tastes can cause conflict. Before this conflict turns into fighting, the two parties are more likely to fracture off into little groups.

This is good in some ways, but it can be a bad thing, too. It can cause arguments between the groups and lead to violence. And it can stop the people in these different factions from ever experiencing real diversity.

That’s the funny thing about VCU and all of its boasts of diversity. Sure there are all sorts of people here. But how often do these people interact with people who are very different from them? It seems like diversity here is sometimes little more than a change of scenery.