In a recent essay on Huckleberry Finn, author Jane Smiley offers a critical reassessment of that canonical American novel and of the lesson about racism it is purported by many to teach. The longstanding glorification of Huck's decision not to betray his friend Jim to pursuing slavecatchers, says Smiley, is far from the useful moral epiphany many have taken it to be; instead, she says, it "mirrors the same sort of meretricious reasoning that white people use to convince themselves that they are not 'racist.'" She continues:

If Huck feels positive toward Jim, and loves him, and thinks of him as a man, then that's enough. . . . White Americans always think racism is a feeling, and they reject it or they embrace it. To most Americans, it seems more honorable and nicer to reject it, so they do, but they almost invariably fail to understand that how they feel means very little to black Americans, who understand racism as a way of structuring American culture, American politics, and the American economy. (63)

It seems clear that Smiley's provocative analysis could be more broadly applied to issues other than relations between black and white Americans--indeed, to the entire range of issues gathered under the umbrella of "diversity." And her analysis alerts us to a dangerous tendency inherent in any "diversity" initiatives (curricular and otherwise) pursued by an institution such as the University of St. Thomas: that is, to deal with issues of diversity and prejudice in a manner that seems more designed to make us feel good about ourselves rather than to address those features of our institutional structure--curricular, cultural, economic--which make such initiatives necessary in the first place.

When I say "we" I necessarily speak somewhat abstractly, for as individuals "we" are not all white, male, straight, Catholic, and middle- to upper-middle-class. But I think few would argue that at St. Thomas we all find ourselves operating in an institutional culture whose ethos and praxis by and large reflect the frame of reference of that particular demographic. So when I say "we" I refer to "us" in our positions as agents of this university, positions which we hold at least in part as a function of certain privileges-- if not of race or gender, certainly of economic or educational opportunities which have made us conversant with, and able to function within, that dominant frame of reference.

It's this definition of "we" I refer to when I take to heart Smiley's point that we should not associate meaningful diversity work with the effect of feeling good about ourselves. In fact the habit of taking comfort in this feeling is probably a sure sign that we're talking in circles among ourselves rather than dealing concretely with the issues. I was struck by this possibility by a recent letter in The Aquin from a student who wondered why, in a month designated for the recognition of African-American history, that subject was effectually eclipsed by a debate over a Catholicity litmus test for extracurricular clubs. One could say that there was no intent to downplay one in favor of the other; but intentions are not so much the issue as how things happen, whether or not we consciously mean for them to happen that way, something that is more than a matter of having ill-founded feelings or misguided intentions.

We (again, in that qualified institutional sense I spoke of above) may have a mission statement that trumpets our commitment to diversity; we may have a new "diversity" requirement in the revised general education curriculum; we may have Faculty Development workshops on diversity; but without taking anything away from the necessity of any of these things, I worry that we will take them as signs that things are materially and psychologically improving for gays, people of color, women, and other such individuals on this campus. It's a little like a cartoon of a man and his garden I once saw, in which one flower whispers to another, "He thinks he's watering us, when really we're getting hosed."

I don't want us to be Hucks, persuading ourselves that we're dealing with racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and the rest because we're engaged in activities that make us feel that we are OK, that we're not complicit in any of these injustices. As anyone who has been on the receiving end of prejudice knows, it's not intentions or expressions of intent that matter; racism and the rest are not feelings or opinions but institutionalized and enculturated habits of thought and action. In this light, it seems to me we need to be clear about what we ought (or ought not) to expect from substantial, meaningful attention to the issue of diversity on this campus. Here are a few that occur to me:

1. First of all, we should not expect to "feel good" about ourselves as a result of our work on issues of diversity, multiculturalism, racism, and so forth. (Nor should we "feel bad," in the sense of experiencing guilt, remorse, or shame. This is merely another luxury we can't afford.) Rather we should attain a critical self-consciousness about our own habits of thought and action.
   
2. We should not expect to talk but rather to listen--and not to each other. We should listen to those who are in a position to know best whether St. Thomas is meaningfully acting on its stated opposition to racism, sexism, and homophobia--which is to say, those who are likely to have been the objects of these injustices. This also means that some among us can step out of their roles as agents of the institution and speak to us about their own individual experiences as objects of racism, sexism, homophobia, and the like on our campus. But we should not expect such truth-telling about ourselves to make us feel good.
   
3. We should not allow ourselves the luxury of shifting blame or of diverting responsibility. For instance, the problem of racism at St. Thomas does not originate with a particular contingent of students (as I've heard some faculty say), nor with a particular contingent of faculty or administration (as I've heard some students say). It is an institutional, even a national, problem--a collective and historical as well as an individual injustice, but one which we all--both individually and collectively--have a responsibility to address. The overwhelming challenge of such a responsibility (which includes reforming ourselves as well as the institutional structures we inhabit) will certainly not make us feel good.
   
4. We should not expect to be thanked, congratulated, or otherwise appreciated for any efforts to overcome racism, sexism, homophobia, or other injustices at our institution--especially by those who have been the objects of these forces. These efforts should be undertaken because they are the right thing to do, not because undertaking them will make us feel better.
   
5. We should expect the temptation to console ourselves with either complacency or despair, and we should refuse to allow ourselves such false consolations. We should anticipate that no initiatives will be sufficient to stamp out racism or the other injustices mentioned--indeed, we should expect that the more we do, the more will be demanded of us. We should not use the profound depths of the problem as an excuse not to deal with it. Above all we should not expect some sense of closure or accomplishment in which we can take satisfaction.
   
6. We should expect to find that racism, sexism, homophobia, and so forth are part of the real experience of individuals on this campus, and we should be prepared to acknowledge this reality openly and honestly. We should not rationalize, minimize, or otherwise try to explain away the existence of such problems on our campus. Nor should we assume racism on our campus is limited to the supposedly anomalous acts of particular individuals who have racist "feelings" or "beliefs," although those may certainly be in play. Our response to such incidents can reveal our own institutional prejudices to be as profound as that which motivated the individual act in question. Recognizing this as a possibility will not make us feel good, as it will deprive us of the comfort of thinking ourselves as "not like" those individuals who perpetrate overt acts of racism, sexism, homophobia, and the rest.

Cultivating diversity, in other words, is not a matter of good intentions but of concrete engagement with the problem--which, in an institution like the University of St. Thomas, means actions guided by critical self-understanding. It has to do with understanding the specific effects on others of our acts, words, and institutional policies, and not with the feelings--good or bad--we might experience as a result of such understandings or the actions that follow from them. Above all it involves a painful unlearning of the ingrained habits of power and privilege that are part and parcel of our identity as agents of this institution. Our intentions and feelings, well-meaning as they may be, are not enough to keep us from being like Twain's Huck Finn. Though a penniless and orphaned adolescent, Huck's sole condition of privilege--that of his whiteness--allows him to think of a black man's freedom as his decision to make, on the basis of his own "feeling" of moral comfort, rather something to do with the desires and aspirations of Jim himself. The result is that Jim becomes (like many of our own students in our own hands, I fear) a mere instrument of Huck's conception of himself as a well-meaning, progressive (perhaps even revolutionary) moral actor. But Huck sure feels good about his decision, even if it does mean he's going to hell.

Work Cited

Smiley, Jane. "Say It Ain't So, Huck." Harper's Magazine, January 1996: 61-67.