Collegiate Times

If you have been following the news recently, then you might be aware that issues dealing with diversity have been making headlines.

In last week's confirmation hearings for Judge Sotomayor, we learned about the meaning of a "wise Latina" as she faced questioning from the Senate Judiciary Committee. We listened to Frank Ricci and the story of the New Haven firefighters.

 We heard about a Philadelphia Pool Club explaining its reasons for why it kicked out a day camp of children and refunded their money. Just the other day, police in Cambridge, Mass. were accused of racial profiling when they arrested a prominent African-American professor from Harvard.

However, we didn't hear anything about the election of the first Chinese-American women to serve in Congress. Her name is Judy Chu and she was elected in the 32nd Congressional District, in a special election in California last week.  

Nor have we really followed what is taking place in Honduras, where a de facto government is preventing the return of an elected president. They claim it was a legitimate ouster, while the entire rest of the world called it a coup and is not buying the argument.

We also didn't hear about Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jews rioting in Jerusalem and the challenges that the Jerusalem police faced in trying to control order. The sad part was the commentary that if these rioters had been Palestinians, the police response would have been more lethal.

Additionally, we didn't hear that Congress is finally poised to pass the Matthew Shepard Act, now 11 years since the tragic events of October 1998.

The debate on health care now dominates the news, yet we don't realize that this has diversity implications. While the popular trend is to look at how different groups seek or receive medical care, another component comes with the socio-economic impact.

Issues dealing with socio-economic matters do have an impact and shape individuals, whether someone is from a metropolitan area like Northern Virginia, or rural communities such as those found in Appalachia. The socio-economic issues have no color-limitations in terms of whom or what they impact.

Oftentimes, society tends to portray diversity as merely an ethnic/race issue, but it is so much more. We tend to forget about the other components that include religion, age, ability, socio-economics, political viewpoints, gender and sexual orientation.

I would argue that diversity is interwoven in most facets of the news. My challenge is for each of you to look beyond the headlines and read the news more closely for what is taking place and you will see some of these threads of diversity.