Being a Senior Resident Assistant (SRA) brings along certain obligations, among which is organization of a Resident Assistant Community Enhancement (RACE) event. In Spring semester, each of the SRAs needs to organize one of the following RACE events: Passport to Diversity, Writing on the Walls, Talent Show and Take Back the Night. I applied to organize Writing on the Walls.

The purpose of this event is to target all kinds of discrimination issues and emphasize the importance of diversity.

When we speak of diversity, we mean much more than just racial or ethnic diversity. We also consider socio-economic, geographic, international, intellectual, artistic and athletic, political, religious, sexual orientation, and many more. All these are areas in which we differ from each other.

Why is diversity important?

Diversity enriches our educational experience. We learn from those whose experiences, beliefs, and perspectives are different from our own, and these lessons can be taught best in a richly diverse intellectual and social environment.

Diversity promotes personal growth, and hence a healthy society. Diversity challenges stereotyped preconceptions; it encourages critical thinking; and it helps students learn to communicate effectively with people of varied backgrounds.

Diversity strengthens communities and the workplace. Education within a diverse setting prepares students to become good citizens in an increasingly complex society; it fosters mutual respect and teamwork; and it helps build communities whose members are judged by the quality of their character and their contributions.

Diverse environment recognizes and values talent. It eliminates barriers and ensures that everyone is treated fairly and has the chance to reach their maximum potential. Diversity encourages the exchange of ideas which not only broadens the scope of problem solving, but also improves the possibility that the problems will be solved.

My fellow RAs and I wanted to emphasize the negative consequences of discrimination, and use a radical approach in increasing awareness about importance of diversity. We created presentations which showed statistics about discrimination of all kinds present in the world today.

We also created a big WALL, a WALL of hate. For two days, we asked students to write hurtful, offending statements they heard someone said to them or to their friends. We let them express their pain on the WALL. This wall was covered at all times until our main ceremony.

In front of the audience of fifty students and staff members, we revealed the content of the WALL.

IT WAS SHOCKING!!! (The sole purpose of these photos is educational. I do not intend to offend anyone with the content in these photos, but to increase awareness about the negative consequences of discrimination, prejudice, and hatred based on diversity.)

You would think things that were written on the wall happen somewhere else and to someone else, but then you realize that every one of us experienced some sort of discrimination in our lives. After couple of minutes, when we allowed people to look at the wall, to make them feel and understand the pain of their peers, we reached the climax of this event; BREAKING DOWN THE WALL.

We gave everyone hammers and we invited them to join us in physically break down the wall, but symbolically start THE FIGHT AGAINST DISCRIMINATION and start EMBRACING DIVERSITY.

I thank everyone that helped us organize this event; the Housing Office, the Dean of Students Office and the Physical Plant (for building the wall). According to many positive reactions from the students and staff, our event was a complete success. A picture of a student breaking down the wall shows the emotions we managed to build up in people. This is just the start in our fight for a better world, and we have a lot of work to do.