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Cole relates message
of unity
at Brotherhood lecture
Society can learn several lessons from the field of anthropology to help deal with divisions along racial, gender and class lines, a noted anthropologist told the campus community at NC State’s annual University-Community Brotherhood Dinner lecture at Witherspoon Student Center.
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(Photo by Chad Austin) |
| Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, president of Bennett College for Women, embraces NC State Chancellor Marye Anne Fox prior to a lecture held on Friday, Dec. 12, in conjunction with the annual Brotherhood Dinner. |
Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, president of Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, shared several lessons she learned as an anthropology student and what the study of that discipline reveals “about this difficulty we human beings seem to have in dealing with difference” in her speech entitled “Are You Your Sister’s and Your Brother’s Keeper?”
Cole said that intolerance stems from an inability to respect other people and their diverse backgrounds and beliefs. She emphasized that biases are learned behaviors, and since they are learned, those behaviors can, in turn, be unlearned.
“While the pitting of one group against another group is found in culture after culture, nation after nation, I am here to declare to you that we have yet to find the gene that is the cause of it all,” Cole said. “We’ve done the human genome project, but as far as I know, they did not find in all the chromosomes a gene for bigotry.
“If it is not genetic, we have learned it. So if it’s not genetic and it is learned, the best news of all is we can stop teaching it.”
Cole also stressed that people need to empathize and not merely sympathize with others, adding that the only way to truly understand and respect other people comes through experience.
“If we cannot empathize – if we cannot put ourselves in others’ shoes – how will we ever live peacefully with each other?” Cole said. “No matter how much one reads, no matter how much one studies or analyzes the condition of other people, one’s deepest understanding will only come by participating in another life.
“We
have the responsibility and the privilege of getting into what my Caribbean
sisters and brothers would call somebody else’s yard.”
Cole also encouraged others “to be instruments of change”
in the ongoing effort to break down barriers that still exist between
various groups of people.
“While it doesn’t come as rapidly as we want, change has come,” Cole said. “While we have so much to do in this country regarding race, there have been changes. We do not have gender equality, but there have been changes. We are at a point where change will come if we do the work.”
Cole added that those individuals working in higher education should be leaders in helping bring about a greater appreciation and understanding of diversity.
“For those of us in colleges and universities, we need an even deeper responsibility falling on us to learn these lessons ourselves, and then to teach others,” Cole said.
Posted December 19, 2003
All Rights Reserved
