Loading ...Oregon must embrace its growing diversity
Several weeks ago, after having a wonderful time at the Eugene Scottish Festival, my family and I passed a van with large, professionally printed signs stating: “Diversity Equals White Genocide.” My wife and I were absolutely dumbfounded. Did we just witness such a blatant statement? Is it possible that such attitudes exist in our city of Eugene?
We are of Druze heritage — a 1,000-year-old protestant Islamic sect that believes in the teachings of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Vedic scriptures. In addition to being a professor of theater arts at the University of Oregon, I am affiliated with CoDaC, the Center on Diversity and Community. I also identify as an Arab-American. Diversity is part and parcel of my very identity.
Seeing that sign here in Eugene, thinking about the heinous slaughter of nine members of Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, and watching the rise of the Islamic State and al-Qaeda threatening our Druze brethren in Syria and Lebanon, I felt it was time to speak out about the pernicious and savage effects of racism, xenophobia and hate speech that I have seen recently.
The Druze know far too much about genocide. After declaring their faith in 1017, they were savagely hunted down and slaughtered by those who considered them apostates. Since settling in the Levant, they have mainly kept to themselves. Now, intolerant forces are again persecuting minorities such as the Kurds, Yazidis, Druze and Arab Christians in Syria’s and Iraq’s tireless civil wars. The Islamic State and the Al-Nusra Front both fear religious diversity and are willing to take unimaginable measures to stop it.
In Dylann Roof’s so-called manifesto, the alleged killer of nine churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., explains his grievances with African-Americans, Jews and Hispanics in the most demeaning manner possible. He also discusses the “Northwest Front,” or the idea that racists in the South can go to the Pacific Northwest to get away from those they deem lower than themselves. I was unaware that such a belief exists. After reading Roof’s twisted ideology, I began to feel much like minorities in Syria and Iraq must feel — that no place is safe from hatred of “the other.”
Oregon is also a state with one of the fastest-growing Hispanic populations. Here again, we have a group of immigrants who are struggling to find their share of the American dream. When Donald Trump recently declared his intention to run for president by verbally attacking these individuals with his bitter nativist diatribe, he only alienated those of us who believe that the United States is better for having a multiplicity of cultures in our midst.
At the UO I have met some of the most outstanding students, faculty and staff — of all backgrounds — who are working diligently to change our world for the better. These people are not to be feared; they are to be respected for trying to make the UO, and Oregon itself, a more welcoming and equitable place for everyone. My daughter was born at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Springfield. We are raising her to be bilingual and bicultural. We want her to grow up proud of her American identity, but also proud of her ancestral Druze culture. We believe that she can coexist and thrive in both worlds.
Is it wrong for us to want this diversity for our daughter? Should she grow up in an environment that refutes her very existence?
I need not tell you about how Oregon’s diversity is perceived elsewhere. I also needn’t tell you about the high turnover rate by those faculty of color who work at Oregon’s universities. We should encourage those from other cultures to be part of the fabric of the Oregon experience; we should encourage those faculty members to stay.
Mutuality is the only way forward. We need to strive to accept and understand one another. Fear will be our undoing. History and our unfortunate present have shown that intolerance can lead to the most dreadful consequences. Let us hope that we learn from these lessons, and that we can build a better world working together.
Michael Malek Najjar of Eugene is an assistant professor of theater arts at the University of Oregon.
Source: registerguard.com