I had a very angry title to this but dan says to put 'teddybears and ice cream' instead.

I wrote an opinion piece for the campus newspaper, but then some kid took out a hundred words without asking so the published version I don't like so much.

Anyway. The backstory here is that students at the exclusive school where I teach celebrated someone's birthday by having a 'South of the Border' theme party, dressing up janitors and gang members. Here is my response, unabridged:

I’ll be honest. I think it is unbelievably disrespectful to dress up as janitors and pregnant teenagers to represent Mexicans. But it’s not hard to see where those images come from. Just watch half an hour of Comedy Central.

There is a difference, though, between using stereotypes to create comedic cultural commentary (like Carlos Mencia and Dave Chappelle), and using them in real life. Real life people will be affected in ways a TV audience will not.

In real life stereotypes hurt because they are simplistic and negative. My people, the Swedes, are either depicted as quiet and boring, or blonde and sex crazed. When I hear others laugh at a Swedish joke, I want to leave. I have no interest in getting to know anyone who jokes like that about my people.

And I think that is the real danger: Disrespect breeds indifference. And indifference makes for voluntary segregation.

People have wonderful abilities to get along with those different from themselves. But it doesn’t happen by itself, and it sure won’t happen if additional distance is created by off-putting jokes.

I have taught ethnic studies courses in the Department of Communication for seven years. One memorable class started out divided and hostile. The right side of the room was white, while the left side of the room was brown. There was a lot of glaring, and very little listening.

The class was diverse in every sense of the word. It was 50% non-white, included members from seven athletic teams, and leaders from the MCC and Gala. It had a total of four African American students, which is way above the Santa Clara average.

One intense discussion concerned the word ‘exotic’. To a white woman that word is a compliment. To a woman of color it is not. To her, ‘exotic’ stresses that she is different, and that white is normal. To her, that is not a compliment. So should the Latina just get over it and agree that if the intent was to give her a compliment she should be happy?

It really comes down to the same issue that has been raised by the theme party. In my classes, I teach that ‘intent’ is beside the point. Just because you intend something to be a compliment, or a harmless joke, doesn’t make it so. Once the word, or action, is out there, the meaning will be created by whoever hears it. Their interpretation is as real to them, as your intent was to you. To accept diversity is to accept the fact that there is more than one truth.

History and experience shape our interpretations. Words and actions mean different things to different people. In this world, we have to take that into account.

At the end of the quarter a young man in the class I mentioned was attacked because he was gay. His classmates, all of them, fiercely rallied around him. Not everybody accepted homosexuality, but everybody had learned enough about his life to be emotionally affected by what was happening to him, and to understand the bigger picture of oppression.

It’s not a question of whether people can do it. The question is whether they want to. Disrespectful jokes push people away. Respectful listening draws them in. It’s as easy as that.