When I think of diversity, I envision cities like New York, not rural Wisconsin towns like Platteville. To the advantage of the university, the administration has encouraged students and professors from diverse backgrounds to attend here. As citizens of the world, we benefit from such initiatives because it exposes us to cultures unlike our own and it prepares us for careers and life experiences that are sure to include people who don’t look, think or act like us. It is ignorant to fear such encounters and also unrealistic to think they are avoidable.

Our reputation has been blemished by hateful acts. We got the e-mails and a good number of us attended the forum hosted in the Pioneer Student Center on Nov. 30. Whether you felt like a captive audience, just there for Friday’s Mongolian grill or you purposefully carved out time to attend, the message was clear: “UW-Platteville is outraged at what has happened and the only intolerance acceptable on this campus is that directed toward ignorant acts of hate.”

That seems obvious, to the point of being cliché. We have to take classes with emphases in gender, ethnic and cultural diversity themes. College is a time to embrace learning and varying viewpoints and as one student at the forum last week asked, “When did it become okay to be ignorant?” It has never been okay for as long as I’ve been a student. You’ll notice that not one person stood up at the forum and said something like “What’s wrong with the ‘N-word’?” because we all know better.

The question then becomes: “If we all know better and stuff like this still happens, then what do we do next?” The obvious answers were presented: speak out whenever you see or hear hateful language or actions, be an ally to students who don’t look or think like you, make a point of being open to new ideas and people and most of all, guard your own actions and language.

A friend of mine who is a student at Platteville received a special e-mail from Multicultural Educational Resource Center because she is a “person of color” and the e-mail told her as much. She was offended because before anything else she identifies herself as an American and a person, but the well-intentioned MERC is more concerned about her racial make-up. We need to stop focusing so much on what is different. Regardless of race, sexual orientation, religion, age, gender and whatever else, we share humanity. The hate groups are the ones who are supposed to be preoccupied with differences. If the perpetrators of Platteville’s hate crime spree saw their victims as equal fellow human beings, I would have no need to write this column. In the name of creating a community atmosphere, let us celebrate our commonality alongside our diversity.

A student who offered a note card at the forum expressed remorse about his or her association with UW-P and another individual said they were forming generalizations about what all of Wisconsin must be like based on these hateful incidents. That hurts me because I refuse to be lumped in with a few intolerant criminals and be called a bigot, not to mention making sweeping generalizations and stereotypes like that is another thing hate groups do. I encourage everyone to remember that the people doing these things are in the minority. People who are different shouldn’t be afraid to come to school here because the majority of us are fed up with a few damaging our reputations. The time for hateful ignorance has passed and it is time all of UW-P accepted that.