I'm like others in the fact that I believe that the Voices of Discovery program is an awesome concept, but is poorly executed, although I think my reasoning behind that statement is different than others'.
I was enrolled in the "Micro-Aggressions" session on Thursday evenings. I think that my discussion leader was great about asking us questions and getting everyone to participate in discussions, ice-breakers, and activities. He was very informed, inviting, and had no trouble sharing his own thoughts and feelings on an issue- however, it felt as if others did!
As I have been for most of my life, I was the only colored/biracial/non-white person in my session. I was surrounded mainly by white females, with only a few white males at each discussion. I felt safe and comfortable enough to share my own, sometimes even brutally, honest opinions, along with my own experiences, both positive and negative. But, when it was others' turn to share, I felt as if a lot of them were not being completely honest and open. I am not trying to undermine or question anyone's thoughts or life experiences, but some just did not add up to me; I felt as if some people stated the answers that made them sounds better as people (aka less racist or prejudiced) or even just what they thought that the non-white director wanted to hear... For example, we completed an activity that was meant to enable us to identify and realize the stereotypes that we exercise in our everyday lives by having us list the first thing that popped into our mind when we heard a tagline of a fake newspaper article, such as "Two Teens Arrested in Park on Drug Related Charges." For that example, I listed the words "minorities, young men, urban area" because, as much as I hate to admit the fact that those are the first things I think of when I hear the title, I was trying to be as real as possible.
A few other people in my group wrote down similar things, but the majority of participants would write politically correct things like "wrong path in life," or "teens make bad choices", or some other fake bs like that. I only say fake bs because they had those same kinds of answers for EVERYTHING; okay, sorry, but no one is that perfect. The worst part was that those people who had claimed not to have ever used a stereotype in their entire life were the same ones who claimed not to be racist because they "had a friend who was black in high school."
What do I know- maybe they really do only think positive thoughts about people and really have never given into classifying someone or something by the stereotype that society has set, but I find that to be very unlikely. I wish that people would be more concerned about honesty and openness rather than fitting in or sounding like a good person; I believe that the only way to solve these issues about race, prejudice, or micro-aggressions is to lay them all out in the open and discuss them without feeling like you have to walk on eggshells to protect someone's feelings. Just my opinion. Other than that, I learned a lot about my topic and enjoyed the discussions!
I was in another Micro-Aggressions group, and I think you may have enjoyed our group a lot more. Everyone (well almost everyone) was extremely outspoken. At one point, I felt uncomfortable because my views did not conform to the overwhelming majority of the group, but that didn't stop any of us from having a discussion. I think the sad thing about the groups is that people are mostly there because of classes, which is fine but people go to get class credit and as their professor isn't there, they probably don't feel the direct need to discuss openly. However, I had never even heard of these groups before and I have been to several diversity events, so making students go for a class is still a good thing.
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