Dont Talk to the Chinese Kids My Journey with Diversity. and Inclusion

[Applause]

by the summer of 2014 i had just

finished middle school in china and my

parents were deciding

to send me over to america to continue

my education

they wanted me to get into an elite

american university and the best way to

do that

was by attending an american high school

before i boarded a plane in a small

western airport in china my mom

grabbed my shoulders and she said

remember

don’t talk to the chinese kids

i’m joking of course she said it in

chinese she didn’t speak english

but she meant what she said to my mom

the best way to immerse myself

into the american culture the best way

to get the most

out of an authentic american education

was by minimizing contact

with my compatriots and so i heeded her

advice

for the next four years i didn’t talk to

any chinese kids

literally i also pretended that i loved

country music

i also pretended that i didn’t want to

eat dumplings for every meal of the day

but i got tired of all that pretending

of faking to be someone that i was not

my english got really good but i was

tired after all

luckily i had a break from all that

pretending when i came to emory

when i realized my uniqueness and

differences was actually appreciated

and valued i mean here are two of my

best friends

since the first day of college

the three of us would walk around campus

and we would routinely get stopped

by camera crews they would come up to us

and they say things like how do you guys

like emory so far

and they would say also things like

where are you guys from

but it doesn’t matter what the first two

questions are the third question was

always can we take a picture of you

three

the first time we got stopped i was like

wow emory is really nice they really

care about how we feel

so i let them take our pictures the

second time we got stopped i was like

again you guys are really nice but sure

take your picture whatever

the third time we got stop is when i

realized they probably just wanted to

take pictures of us so they could put

that

on the admission brochures but i let

them anyways because they gave us free

cookies

point is universities around america are

now

increasingly realizing the importance of

having students from different

backgrounds on campuses

sure researchers for decades have

highlighted

the value of having different students

on campuses

and in workplaces but our pursuit of

diversity

is often twisted and incomplete

from faking diversity to wasting this

potential and to finally

misunderstanding the idea completely we

have strayed

far away from what it actually means to

incorporate diversity in our lives

what happens when institutions stop

organically

nurturing an environment of diversity

but instead

artificially implant the idea

well this is what happens

the year is 2001. the university of

wisconsin-madison had just published

their undergraduate application

for the year and now right there is the

front cover

of that application it’s a nice picture

right we got a white guy

we got another white guy we got two

white girls

and we have a black guy yes

diversity right

well not quite because here is

the actual picture that was taken

senior dialo shabazz was photoshopped

into the cover of that application

because

wisconsin madison didn’t have a diverse

enough student population

but instead of admitting to that fact

they decided to fake it

and it’s not just universities that do

this

businesses and political coalitions do

the exact same thing

here is an actual picture of the asian

republican coalition

i just i love seeing that hatred when

asked about this clear irony

the spokesperson said well the

coalition’s also for those who

appreciate asian culture

you guys i love golf

i love hockey i go to whole foods like

17 times per semester

but i have never had the audacity

to clean them white come on you guys can

do better than that

the point is when we fake diversity

we put a cover on the important issue of

under representation it’s like clicking

the remind me tomorrow button on a

critical system update

but accept that update is essential to

the well-being

of our institutions and when we do have

diversity we tend to

waste its potential we all have seen

colorful stats

that look like this of how many

demographics we represent how many

different languages the students speak

but our pursuit of diversity usually

stops right there

on those code numbers and statistics

diversity looked like an iceberg we

really only care about the very tip of

it

in 2003 researchers at the university of

connecticut conducted

a research looking for relationships

between perceived level of diversity

and actual cross-cultural dialogue that

goes on between these supposedly diverse

groups

and what they found was that students

don’t really venture out of their

demographic groups

when asked 76 of white students said

they

only have white friends whereas 56

of black students said they only have

black friends

the takeaway from that study is that as

students at least we don’t really talk

to each other

those supposedly diverse groups are

essentially

stratified groups of self-segregated

communities that never

really interact with each other

and that makes me sad i mean what’s the

point of

having diversity if we’re just going to

let us sit there and not do anything

about it

the third and final problem with our

version of diversity is

exactly about the understanding part we

don’t really know what it is

in a hyper-racialized context of america

we think of diversity as only having the

ethnic or racial dimensions

but it’s much more than that

it’s about recognizing and understanding

that each individual is unique

but the important part here or rather

the operating word here is

understanding we can all do the

recognizing part we all realize that

each and every one of us

is different from each other but

understanding those differences

requires an earnest effort to bring

those stratified groups together

to actually communicate but

unfortunately as a society

we are too lazy and too scared to do

that

when all those three problems compound

when we have fake diversity

when we undermine its value and we

finally misunderstand its meaning

completely

diversity goes from one that is pure and

vanilla to one that looks like this

one with a fine print version of it

so why do we have this cheap version of

diversity why do we have

a fine print version of this idea that

we

hold so dear supposedly also because

the mere appearance of diversity

generates revenue

and benefits so to look to the

answer to those questions we need to go

to the causes

of our problems first why do we

fake diversity in the first place or

it’s because the mere

appearance of it generates revenue

nancy leon from the denver university

university school of law

teaches us displaying racial diversity

allows schools and companies to present

themselves as inclusive

and modern and that’s a trendy thing to

do nowadays

for four years i attended a

predominantly white high school in

suburban tennessee

because my parents didn’t know better

and as you can imagine tennessee is not

the most

ethnically racially or politically

diverse place on earth

but my high school principal loved using

that magical word

diversity whenever he spoke during

assembly

he would say things like our school is

constantly striving for diversity and

inclusion as their principles

and then whenever he said that i would

look around me and i would see

92 other white kids nodding their heads

it was really funny but my principal

loved saying that because it brought him

money it

attracted international students and

minority students to give him tuition

it brought him money and it’s not just

schools that do this

companies do the exact same thing in

2003 walmart started a diversity

initiative

to hire more underrepresented

demographics

to include them in a workplace which

sounds awesome on paper until you

realize

they started doing that only after a

series of class action lawsuits

against their discriminatory hiring

practices

i mean they were literally putting up

shields

of minorities to defend

against potential financial losses

next we undermine the power of diversity

and we also don’t understand its true

meaning

because we are used to a by-standard

mentality

americans love driving more than any

other nation in the world

and your teenagers love riding shotgun

more than any other nation in the world

but on the issue of diversity and

inclusion

we take the back seat a 2019 study

revealed that

americans only encounter diversity

mostly in their workplace

and in schools once they enter their

personal lives however

the diversity score drops down

significantly

we don’t mind diversity or just around

us we don’t mind it when we have to

interact with people from different

backgrounds but when we go to churches

when we go to

civic gatherings when we go to our

friend groups

we’d prefer those groups to be

homogenous

whether we like to admit it or not

we think having colors around us is

enough we think just because there’s

some

one different from me in the same room

that’s enough

well the reality is it’s

not enough earlier i touched on my

experience as a

high schooler a 14 year old chinese boy

who spoke

broken english in tennessee and my fake

woke principle and my fake love for

country music i wish all the stories

from my time period was as funny and

and light-hearted as those but the truth

is

i endured a lot of hardship in those

four years

english was one of the most difficult

things for me to overcome i had to ask

my classmates constantly to

answer questions and spell out words for

me

i remember asking one of my classmates a

boy in my english class how to spell the

word

performance he looked at me

and he said c o

mm i.e

i didn’t know what kami meant at the

time because i didn’t have the

vocabulary for it

but from the way he laughed when he left

the room i

knew it wasn’t nice

later that night i went home and i

called my mom i asked her

my time version

mom why why don’t they like me

she was silent she she didn’t know how

to respond

because she was the one who told me to

not talk to the chinese kids to distance

myself from my culture

but she didn’t know no matter how hard i

tried

i would still be a 14 year old chinese

boy

with broken english it didn’t matter

that my principle

stated his commitment to diversity

it didn’t matter that my teacher said

the school was accepting and welcoming

it doesn’t matter what we say it matters

what we do and what we need to do

is to focus on inclusion

instead of diversity we need to stop

being

tunnel vision and being so obsessed with

the appearance

of diversity let’s do a little

thought experiment two students are

applying to the exact same university

they have the same sat score the same

gpa the same achievements outside of

school as well

the only difference between these two

applicants is their gender one of them

is male and the other one

is female now keep in mind the school

they’re applying to is predominantly

male

if we blindly accept a female student

just to look nice on paper

and appear diverse theoretically the

female student

might have a harder time adjusting to

the new environment

whereas if we admit the male student he

will have

an unfair advantage because there is

already a layer of familiarity

in the culture inside of the school

before he gets in there

from this thought experiment we need to

realize that before we

want to include underrepresented

demographics into our lives

we need to make sure there’s a welcoming

and inclusive

enough environment and then culture in

place to give them a

fair chance at succeeding

but that’s largely to the discretion of

the folks above to the

administration level what can we do as

regular people

to harbor and nurture diversity

well for one we can stop saying stuff

like nam bread and chai tea naan is

bread

chai is tea the point is

we need to take some time to learn about

the culture we

say we appreciate and second

reach into the unknown last semester i

took an african-american studies class

because i needed to fulfill a gr a

general education requirement

but that class ended up changing the way

i see the world today

i challenge each and every one of you to

reach

into a community that you don’t really

interact with very often

go to beaufort highway or go to the cap

city mall just to

take some time to interact with people

we don’t normally associate with

the takeaway from those interactions

will be so

so valuable i promise you

and finally just keep in mind that each

and every one of us

has a story to tell we’re all unique and

we’re all

awesome the only way

we can listen to those stories is very

simple

just close your eyes

and listen

i want to close with a quote from shelly

zallis the ceo of the female culturally

renowned researcher

diversity is an action inclusivity

is cultural and belonging

is a feeling diversity is a big word

but feeling we all know

my mom’s advice to not talk to the

chinese kids may have helped me with my

spoken english but please

for the love of everyone for the sake

of all of us do

talk to the chinese kids

thank you

you