I attended a very interesting dinner conversation with Dr. Ariela Keysar to speak about generalizations and their toxic reach, enabling prejudice and maintaining its livelihood. To converse about this issue that we all go through one way or another, truly did “stir up the pot” so to speak, and brought to the surface so many inquisitions and concerns that I myself have housed throughout the years.

We started off by going around the room and sharing a moment in our lives in which we feel that others have said or done prejudiced things to us, through generalizations. To see almost everyone share a story pertaining to their background, race, or gender, was eye-opening. It is incredible how unaware we are of the universality of prejudice. A lot of times we feel alone in this struggle, we feel like we are the only ones going through this. A great contributor to this sentiment is the fact that we tend to internalize these feelings of being prejudiced against, these microaggressions.  It was, in a way, therapeutic to come out into the open and express the pain and discrimination that we had felt because of someone else’s comments.

I also began to think, ok, so we’ve discussed it, we know how it makes us feel. So what? What now? What do we do about this?  What are the steps that we can take in order to eliminate prejudice? We discussed this, and we came to the conclusion that the majority of people who commit microaggression are not aware that they are doing so. The most effective and strategic way to combat prejudice, we decided, was through education and interaction with different groups. We did however talk about the difficulty of opening people’s minds when they are part of that slim portion of people who actively, consciously harbor prejudice against specific groups.

This got me to think, there will always be those people whom we cannot convince. No matter how much time and effort we invest in educating these types of people, they are set in their ways. And these types of people will always exist. I wondered (and still do), will there ever be a world without prejudice? Or is it human nature to harbor prejudice? Is prejudice just a natural, yet toxic byproduct of our categorizing and organizing information in the world to make sense of things? I am sure that we can all attest to having been prejudiced, whether consciously or not, about another group, whether it be out of sheer ignorance, out of lack of understanding, emotions against a certain individual, etc. If we ourselves have fallen victims to prejudice, then is it eradicable?

This weeks dinner guest Ariela Keysar spoke about combating prejudice on campus and encouraged students to share some of their stories. Students of multiple origins were represented and enlightened others on how prevalent prejudice could be, even on a diverse campus like Cornell.

According to Wikipedia, prejudice is “forming an opinion before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case”. These generalizations could be thought of as non hurtful sometimes, but in hindsight could affect others deeply. There are many ways to combat prejudice and many were spoken about during our dinner.

As a research specialist on this subject area, our information was recorded and used to be further analyzed by Ariela. It was fascinating to not only be a part of a research study, but also get a better perspective about prejudice on campus.

Last week, Professor Ariela Keysar hosted a dinner conversation regarding prejudice and micro aggressions present in today’s society and specifically on a college campus. Given recent events, racism and inequality has become an extremely prevalent issue in the country and I believe conversations like this allow for people to witness others’ perspectives and opinions on the current situation. A majority of the conversation consisted of students discussing their personal experience with micro aggressions at Cornell. I deeply resonated with this topic as I have begun to consider my race a lot more since I’ve arrived here. Coming from a huge school like Rutgers University, Cornell’s environment came as quite a shock. Since Rutgers is almost three times the size of Cornell, that population comes with a significant amount of diversity. While Cornell is relatively diverse to an extent, my experience here has noted that a lot of the minority groups tend to flock together. So, if you’re a minority who chooses to not join said group, you experience this weird limbo where you’re not fully accepted by your minority group. Before coming here, I have never experienced these feelings. I grew up in a community where there was a large Indian presence, but I considered myself to have two groups of friends- my Indian/church friends and my school friends. At Rutgers I was able to maintain a similar balance, I was involved in one south Asian focused club and had my other friends. Despite being a part of these two groups, I never felt any sort of strain on my social life. In contrast, here I feel that if you are involved with a minority group on campus they are also your major friend group. Having the two groups I used to experience did not seem like much of an option. Overall, I feel increasingly more aware of my race here at Cornell and I have not come to a conclusion of whether or not this is a good or bad thing. On one hand, I am allowing my culture to take a larger role in my identity, but on the other, I am feeling somewhat excluded because of my race. This thought provoking discussion allowed me to really explore my position here and the role my race plays in my identity. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to speak with Dr. Keysar regarding this matter and I hope to have similar Rose house events like this in the future.

We were lucky to have Ariela Keysar speak with us about racism that evening. I really liked the atmosphere of the room–it was really open and suitable for sharing our experiences without having to feel judged. I think the problem with that, though, is that everyone has so much to share that it becomes a jumbled mess. I felt like the experiences we shared at the beginning had some similar content, but as the conversation deepened, more people were sharing many different things and it was hard to follow. Maybe if there was more time to talk about everything, it would feel a little more comfortable. Racism is a really big topic to talk about, and I find that it may be easier to focus more on one aspect of the topic throughout the entire conversation rather than having it deviate.

I also thought the conversation was biased based on the demographic of the people who attended the event, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It just shows that the racist events are most prevalent among certain types of people. I noticed there were a lot more comments concerning the racism towards Hispanic Americans and African Americans, and there weren’t as many incidents pertaining to Asian Americans. I also found it pretty interesting that Ms. Keysar differentiated the racism between “complimentary” phrases and “negative” phrases. Some of the racist comments seemed to come off as a compliment while others came off as negative. Although I think there wasn’t enough time to discuss all the things I felt like could be discussed, I did enjoy hearing everyone speak about their experiences.

Last week, I attended a dinner conversation that featured Dr. Ariela Keysar, a professor of Public Policy and Law at Trinity College who lead a discussion about prejudice. Topics like prejudice are usually difficult to discuss, but I was pleased by how everyone who attended listened to each others’ stories respectfully. The majority of the discussion involved most of students each sharing instances in which we felt discriminated against. The major point that I noticed from almost everyone’s stories was that at Cornell, we all felt very aware of our race and our genders. Most of us remarked how we all came from neighborhoods that had predominantly “minority” communities, and we never thought much about our race until we came to Cornell. Suddenly when we walk into a room, we’re aware of the demographics, and then we worry if we’re out of place because of how we look. Coming from a high school with a 75% Asian population, suddenly I’m very aware of situations in which there are very few or many Asians at Cornell.

For example, one girl spoke about for a hospital placement, the program director placed her in a “worse” hospital in an inner city predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhood simply because she is Hispanic herself. Although the director might not be aware, and placed her there out of convenience, she felt like she was wrongfully placed due to assumptions from her ethnicity. Similarly, we discussed briefly on how people talk to us in a condescending tone, like backhanded compliments: “you’re smart… for a girl” or “you’re attractive… for a brown person”. We had a brief moment to discuss potential solutions, and GRF Antonio suggested mandatory history or communication classes for first year students to become acquainted with being more respectful to people from different backgrounds. Ultimately, I thought the discussion was much too short to adequately cover such a complex issue such as “prejudice” but I enjoyed the opportunities to hear from Prof Keysar and stories from fellow peers.