I grew up in a community where racism was non-existent. Or at least, that’s what I was told during an interview with a Hong Kong Legislative Council member back in 2004. I remember walking away from that interview indignant. As a 16-year-old, I could not really fathom why I took such offense at this denial of racism, but I knew that I did. Perhaps it was that his words felt like an invasive attempt to distort my sense of reality.

Since that hot July day, I have heard many similar views from teens across the globe. Asking students on campus at my university about the prevalence of racism elicited the common response that racism does not exist but discrimination does. When I probed further, most students were of the opinion that “racism” is too harsh of a word and that “discrimination” is more semantically appropriate. It is interesting that teens are converging towards the opinion of that Legislative Council representative. Is our interpretation of the existence of racism obscured by a war on words?

Granted, the term “race” itself is a contentious one. During a seminar with a professor on the history of race and immigration, fellow colleagues reasoned that race is based on genetics whereas ethnicity is a social construct. Whether you choose to define race along a biological, social or cultural construct, the United Nations has offered a legal definition for discrimination based on race:

“Racial discrimination shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life”
(UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, New York, March 7 1966)

Given this definition, I decided to investigate whether racial discrimination exists here at my university, the University of Pennsylvania.

Our first story is about love and race. I am involved with a group called Check One. The name of this on-campus organization stems from the concept of only being able to check one box for your ethnicity or race on applications and surveys. Check One recently organized its annual interracial dating forum. In the lead up to the forum, we conducted an online survey to test students’ attitudes. Ninety-six people answered, with respondents spread over the classes of 2008 to 2011, from each of the Nursing, Engineering and Business schools. According to the survey, 98.9 percent of students said that they would date somebody from another race, however we lost 7.5% of those students to a negative when it came to marriage across race.

Interestingly, the results showed that 64.4% of students found religion a more important determining factor than race. The forum welcomed a wider range of opinions. Panelists commented on past discomfort from parents and students alike with regards to interracial relationships. While the survey displayed significant acceptance of interracial dating, some of the personal stories shared during the forum showed that interracial couples still encounter intolerance and narrow-mindedness from others.

My second story is about a musical. Last academic year, my university’s Club Singapore organized a fantastic musical called ‘Sing City’. One of its songs, ‘Yellow People’ included a chorus that ran as follows:

Yellow people sit together
White people sit together
That's what we call diversity
Black people sit together
Brown people sit together
That's just the way it has to be…
That's just the way it happens
In university

The lyrics were a humorous, self-poking stab at the basic self-segregation that you see around campus. Just take a peek at one of our cafeterias, and there is some truth to be seen in this fun-loving jingle. Most students will tell you that they have friends of every race. However it is also apparent that there are still students who prefer to remain with ‘their own kind’. There is nothing wrong with that; this is a purely personal choice. Yet the mere fact that some argue they feel more at ease with ‘their own kind’ offers credibility to a preference based on race, color, descent, national and ethnic origin which undermines recognition of cultural diversity, steers away from potential friendships and pigeon holes people based on what they are rather than who they are.

The housing scene is the third story that reinforces the premise in the second. During the seminar on race and immigration, we read an article by Arnold Hirsch titled ‘With or Without Jim Crow: Black Residential Segregation in the US’. This spurred flashbacks of an article published last semester by our student newspaper, “A Du Bois College House for the 21st Century”. It was ironic that the text we were examining traces racial residential segregation back to the 20th century when it can still be seen on campus. According to the data collected in the report, “African-American Self-Segregation in Dormitories Is the Exception among Students at the Nation's Highest-Ranked Colleges and Universities”by The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, Penn has the second highest percentage figure of all black students living in a black program house. Our statistics stand at 24.4%, rivaled only by Oberlin College’s figure of 30.5%. As with our meal seating plans, this raises the question of choice: is on-campus segregation a conscious choice or a last resort stimulated by a sense of exclusion? It is difficult to extract an answer to this question as there is no clear cause-effect relationship between these two factors, which are probably a function of one another.

Yet one thing is clear: from relationships to cafeterias to housing, our behavior reflects distinction, exclusion, restriction and preference based on race, color, descent and national and ethnic origin. Whether you prefer the term ‘racism’ or ‘racial discrimination’, we must see discrimination for what it is, however subtle it is. Whether we are politicians or students, we cannot deny and we must accept that racial discrimination still prevails.

Is the answer then for us to cast our eyes away from race in the spirit of racial unity? Personally, I want to see red and I want to see green for what and who they are. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become reality. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word”.

To proclaim oneself blind to color is to deny the unarmed truth that each human being is different. The daybreak comes when we can see all colors for what and who they really are and have an unconditional love for each.

"African-American Self-Segregation in Dormitories Is the Exception among Students at the Nation's Highest-Ranked Colleges and Universities" by The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, No. 39. (Spring, 2003), pp. 18-19.

Please click here to read Love Music Hate Racism - THE POWER OF UNITY...by Nomadic Chris, published on 16 January 2009 Please click here to read "No Two Snowflakes (1 of 2 Winners for Contest on Racism)...by Anthony James Hess", published on 19 March 2008 Please click here to read our March 2008 Theme: Race and Racism ... by Margaret Chen, Editor-in-Chief, published on 1 March 2008 iCubed.us Writing Contest on Racism, 2008