COLUMN: Bridges of Understanding

From Allison Winn's "Allison Wonderland," Fall '95 From Allison Winn's "Allison Wonderland," Fall '95A strange phenomenon has happened in my four years at Penn. Somehow in my time here, my learning curve on a certain subject has become stunted. I have excelled at history, mastered marketing and gotten a relatively decent grasp of psychology. Yet my understanding of race relations, of people other than myself, has ground to a steady halt, and instead of actually becoming more knowledgeable, I think that I have come to know less. I always thought that college would broaden my horizons and open my eyes to new experiences. Yet in my final semester, I have come to recognize that blinders are still very much a part my vision. So I went to a COLORS forum to learn if I was alone, to learn if my perceptions of the race problems on this campus were justified, and to learn if there was anything to do about it. I am embarrassed to admit that I do not know more than five black people on this campus. I'm not sure why this is so. Is it me or is it them? If it is me, then that is something that I can resolve alone. If it is them, then perhaps it is something that they can resolve alone. But I have a feeling that the problems lay somewhere in between the two. And because of this, neither one of us can resolve them on our own. Yet we haven't really tried to resolve them together either. True, the University has proposed several reforms to increase the interaction among races. But forced housing will not necessarily work. "Forced" anything will most likely not work because the students themselves are the ones who have to be ready to accept the problems, accept their prejudices, and most importantly, accept people who are unlike themselves. But in order to make these acceptances, we first have to learn about each other, so we can become more comfortable both with whom we are and whom everyone else is. At the COLORS forum, I learned things about the problems on our campus that I had never before known. I learned that essentially, there are two campuses within one at Penn, and between these two campuses sits a wall that many cannot or choose not to hurdle. I did not know that many black people do not participate in Spring Fling. I did not know that many of them feel uncomfortable in our Greek System. And I did not know that many of them are just as concerned about the blatant racial divisions as I am. I think it is very easy for me, as a white woman, to look at the black people on this campus and place the blame on them. I think it is very easy for me to say, "they alienate themselves, they have their own Greek system, they have their own housing." But really, I don't think this is an issue of blame. Pointing fingers will not make the problems go away. Slandering our peers because they are of a different color will not make them invisible. Rather than an issue of blame, I think it is an issue of responsibility. I don't know any blacks on this campus, and it is my responsibility to the whites, to the blacks, but mostly to myself to branch out. But the problem is I'm not really sure where to begin my expansion. Just as many blacks might feel unwanted on our campus, I feel unwanted on theirs. Maybe this discomfort stems from my own insecurities with the issues of racial interaction, but maybe it also stems from the fact that, just as doors into the white world were not opened for blacks, doors into their world were not opened for me. I know many whites on this campus who want to open those doors and start breaking down the walls between us. I am sure that there are many black students who want to open those same doors, I just do not know who they are because I have not had the chance to meet them. I sincerely wish that I had taken steps toward opening them before my last two months at Penn. I sincerely wish that I had not ducked my head and rushed through every step-show I saw in the high rises. I sincerely wish that I had motivated down to Franklin Field for the Penn Relays to see what all of the excitement was about. And I sincerely wish that I had gotten to know some black students during my time here, but not because they are "black." But because they have undeniably, attended a very different school than me, and I believe that through knowing them, I would have grown as a person, and through knowing me, they too might have learned something that they did not know before. Until we learn about each other, the problems will only self-perpetuate. The less understanding we have of each other, the more uncomfortable we will feel. The more uncomfortable we feel, the less likely it will be that we will seek greater understanding. So I am leaving Penn perhaps not having learned all that I should have in my college years. But it is never too late or too soon to take steps towards building the bridges of understanding. Four years later, maybe this column is my first step towards building them. And maybe it will trigger just a few people to sit down and think about the divisions. And maybe, once they've thought long and hard about those walls, they'll hopefully decide to take some action to tear them down.