UF student Nirav N. Patel was quoted Wednesday as saying “I feel like we’re still segregated here. It sucks being in an old southern school.”
UF is an old southern school? I wasn’t aware of this. Granted, I was aware that geographically UF is south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and it’s existed for many years, thereby making it old. I’ve also noticed UF’s strong penchant for tradition and human decency, which I suppose could be labeled southern values.
If Mr. Patel’s characterization was anything but painfully literal, I’m afraid he’s seriously mistaken.
If there’s anything my uber-conservative upbringing prepared me for, it was the horrors of liberal academia. Being a true Alachua County resident, I was given an outsider’s perspective on the kooky antics of the city of Gainesville and its bleeding liberal heart we affectionately refer to as UF.
I’m not saying Mr. Patel isn’t entitled to his opinion, but I’m afraid this pick-up-driving simpleton’s view renders it utterly ridiculous.
First, let’s take a look at the city in which UF resides, and therefore whose fate is symbiotically linked. Gainesville is a blue bastion in the Red Sea of conservatism that is North Central Florida.
We have an openly gay mayor in the middle of the Bible Belt. And it’s certainly not UF itself that’s old and southern. All one needs to do is see the regard UF has for minorities and LGBT students to discover Gainesville’s stances are just the less radical outgrowths of UF’s positions.
UF dedicates incredible resources toward preventing and combating discrimination. Let’s not forget, class of ’13, what our suggested reading was for our freshman year: The Devil’s Highway, which was a work describing the plight of illegal immigrants who entrusted their lives to dangerous men paid to escort people across the border, sometimes abandoning them and keeping the money.
What’s far more important than all this, though, is UF and Gainesville do all these things out of genuine concern for people, rather than some bloated sense of political correctness.
I’ll admit, yes, Gainesville still has its Dove World Outreach, and I’m sure discrimination still exists at UF on an individual basis, but in no way are those phenomena encouraged by our policy or our community.
So what’s the real problem here? When are we going to achieve the utopian dream where all people are seen equally? The short answer is never.
I, for one, never want to see a world in which no differences are drawn between individuals. Our differences are what make us interesting and unique and human. Sure, the natural tendency is for people to congregate with other people who look or speak or act similar to them, but that isn’t a failure of the human nature; it’s just a force to be counterbalanced with the realization of the worth in all people.
What may be frustrating to some is the fact that this balance unfortunately has to be drawn personally; it can’t be forced onto some people.
Ultimately it’s an individual choice, and all we can do is make that choice ourselves and encourage others to do the same.
Nate Rushing is a political science student. His column appears every Thursday.
