Today, I was diagnosed with Privilege. Symptoms: white, Christian, straight, “cisgender,” and able bodied. The doctor informed me that I may need to do something to change this, or completely remove myself from all dialogues and discussions until this gets better. But actually, Virginia Tech deciding who does and does not have privilege is not okay. Going up to a sign and reading that you should “check your privilege” just because of the situations you were born into, and paths you have chosen for your life, is categorizing and dividing people further. College is supposed to be a place of open conversations, intellectual dialogue, and putting our backgrounds aside to talk about our beliefs. Signs like this are just encouraging divisions and tensions between the students. To solve a problem, creating a further problem will not help, and, eventually, there will be true division again. Most of the time, no one knows whether or not someone falls under this list of items the Multicultural Center at Tech has graciously pointed out to everyone, and calling out a specific race is what racism truly is. So, instead of disqualifying people from any discussion, making them feel bad about traits they were born with, or encouraging more division and racism, encourage open dialogue like a university should.
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