Students discuss difficult topics at Unity Summit

Students gathered on Monday in the Willkie Auditorium to discuss what to do when someone makes a derogatory comment, such as when a family member calls Arab-Americans “terrorists.”

The Unity Summit focused on the topics of unity and diversity.

The Office of Diversity Education hosts the annual program with lots of help, said Eric Love, director of the Office of Diversity Education.

“It’s a way of people coming together and working on Unity. It was a natural fit for the office,” Love said.

The summit began by giving students a few minutes to look at Write My Mind posters while eating lunch.

Write My Mind, a “written dialogue project about issues related to understanding oneself and others,” was created by Sarah Wilcox. She was inspired by hate speech she saw written on boards in residence halls and the book “Speak Up!: Responding to
Everyday Bigotry,” published by Teaching Tolerance.

Write My Mind posters were placed around campus the first day of the spring semester and asked students to write on the blank sheets of paper what they would do in certain situations. Examples include “When my neighbor talks about Judaism as the religion of ‘Christian killers,’ I can...” and “When my friend hosts a ‘white trash’ or ‘ghetto’ themed party, I can...”

“The intention was good. Some respondents make a good point,” junior Julie Singer said. “But I do not feel like it is reflective of IU students, especially with the patronizing comments.”

Some students wrote why the topics were offensive. One student responded on the “When my friend says ‘That’s so retarded...’” poster that he took it personally.
“After my TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) I strived so hard for ‘normalcy.’ Some survivors will never take off the helmet, get out of wheelchair or even get out of bed. I feel they simply need to be educated as they probably didn’t mean it as such,” wrote an anonymous student.

Students then broke off into small groups for discussion, placing them at separate tables from their friends.

“We break people out of their comfort zone,” senior Ruchi Shah said. Shah is a member of the Theta Nu Xi Multicultural Sorority, which has co-sponsored the summit for the past three years.

Hosts Love and senior Kim Shrack presented students with eight discussion questions, beginning with easier topics and progressing to more difficult ones.

A few of the questions asked students to share a time when they were discriminated against, to discuss a time when they experienced privilege and to share a story when they discriminated against someone.

Students were able to discuss why unity is important in society and discuss difficult topics that many people shy away from.

“The Unity Summit is a good chance to see what we do here at IU. It embraces our differences,” senior Chester Williams said. “Unity is the basis of all things. When you take all fingers together and put it in unity it makes a fist, which is powerful.”

Students signed a pledge supporting 40 Days of Peace beginning Jan. 19 and ending Feb. 27. The pledge asked students to be a model of ethical behavior, integrity and good citizenship, to treat others with the respect with which they wish to be treated and to go out of their way to be kind to others the way Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned.

“Let’s go out and change the world,” Love said.