No one expected last week’s second annual Symposium on Diversity and Community to be as well attended as last year’s. After all, last year there was a real, pressing issue that needed to be addressed: Two students’ costumes at a fraternity party had moved the campus to practical pandemonium over the hypersensitive subject of race and racism in the context of Whitman College.

In case you somehow missed it, the students had attended a Survivor-themed party wearing black paint on their faces and upper bodies. Photographs from the party (which turned up on Facebook days later) were spotted by another student, who felt attacked by the costumes, which she felt were reminiscent of blackface make-up and minstrel shows. She e-mailed the student listserv voicing her concerns, effectively launching a campus-wide debate on what was and was not racist, and what Whitman should do about it.

Here’s what Whitman did about it: The administration canceled classes for a day to host a campus-wide symposium and discussion on race. The day’s events were attended by more than 1,000 Whitman students, faculty and staff: that’s more than three-quarters of the campus. Last year, symposium sessions were almost exclusively standing-room-only affairs. All in all, the first symposium was hailed as an enormous success.

Of course, there have been critical voices. Listserv e-mails and hushed side conversations expressed concern that while talking about diversity was great, it really wasn’t enough. What were Whitman students doing to remedy obvious race problems on campus, and more importantly, in America at large?

As the year wore on, discussion on race was largely shelved. Of course, the administration tweaked things here and there (notably replacing faculty members in several academic departments with new hires specifically educated on subjects of diversity; ASWC, too, formed a Diversity Committee to keep conversation going about follow-up symposia). But for the most part, Whitman went back to its comfortable state of complacency.

That original symposium (and its multi-pronged follow-up activities) was nevertheless enough to change Whitman’s reputation. A school that had been off-handedly referred to as “White-man College” behind its back for years was suddenly ranked number 12 in the “Lots of Race/Class Interaction” category by Princeton Review. In reality, the race and class demographics at Whitman haven’t changed much in the last several years; in fact, the Pioneer reported that this year Whitman enrolled only three African-American student: an almost 10-year low.
So why the sudden jump in ranking? The symposia: last year’s and this year’s: certainly haven’t hurt. You have to admit: A campus-wide conversation on issues of “diversity” and “community” looks great on paper.

Personally, I tend to side with the critics. A day-long discussion on race seems largely masturbatory to me. Sure, you can talk and theorize about these things all you want; you can even feel guilty for your white privilege or your rich parents for a couple of hours; but at the end of the day, nothing has changed. You figure you’ve done enough just by thinking about and recognizing these issues. Then you can do your homework in general mental peace.

That said, I was profoundly disappointed in the turnout for the morning and afternoon activities on Martin Luther King Jr. Day: the day selected for this year’s symposium (the evening keynote address by Patricia J. Williams, on the other hand, was pleasantly but unsurprisingly full). For the Plenary Session (which featured discussions on everything from classism to weight-ism; the State Penitentiary to illegal immigration; pride to secrecy; as well as a healthy dose of student testimonies on identity), Cordiner Hall was less than half full. I went to one afternoon session that was attended by about 30 students (this was one of the better turn-outs, by the way); another that was attended by fewer than 10.

Most of my friends didn’t participate in any of the day’s activities; admittedly partly out of sheer laziness (and a refusal to pass up the opportunity to get drunk on a Sunday night), but partly, they claimed, because the idea of a symposium didn’t really fly with them.
“What’s the point? You sit around and feel guilty for being white. What does that accomplish? You leave feeling better about yourself for talking with a bunch of other white people about the oppressed minorities of society. That’s bullshit.”

And on some level they’re right.

On a deeper level, though, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a national holiday for a reason. We miss classes not because MLK liked to drink and smoke in the afternoon, but because he died fighting for Civil Rights. There’s no non-clichéd way to put that: Martin Luther King Jr. Day exists to remember, celebrate and mourn the events of the Civil Rights Movement: whose ramifications, by the way, are still just as enormous and tense as ever.

It would be great if everyone took 20 minutes out of every day to think about race, class or religion in America outside of a mandatory classroom setting. It would be great if everyone had the time to read the paper and remain educated on the crises and struggles we are continually facing on these issues. It would be really great if everyone who cared, on some level, about race and class in America did something proactive about it: started a research group; organized a community coalition; wrote letters to Congress; blogged every day; etc.

But we don’t.

So when there’s one day set aside to simply think, talk, and meditate on these subjects, it is our responsibility to take advantage of that. It is absolutely uncomfortable and frustrating to think actively about these things; reality is difficult: we all know that. Thinking and talking and talking and thinking, though, is how change begins. Very few successful actions come without careful contemplation.

Maybe 90 percent of the students who attended this year’s race symposium left with no new ideas. Maybe most of us returned to the academic world without added consideration on these major problems in America.

But if one person learns something that turns into proactive motion: wouldn’t you call that a success?

The symposium is self-important and vain. It might exist only to keep Whitman high up on the Princeton Review’s list. But we can (I might argue we have a responsibility to) get more out of it than just that.

Martin Luther King Jr. said, “A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.” Take information where you can get it; take time when it is given. And maybe next year, without any incentive, Whitman will grow out of its arrogance and move towards a greater understanding.