This year’s orientation programming for the Class of 2026 featured a diversity and inclusion program that shocked me. This reaction was due not to the event’s topic or who the student speakers were but to the dangerous implications of adopting the mentality that some of them seemed to be proposing: equating one’s entire identity to race.
I was unable to fathom why someone would want to do that. But as I, an African American student, reflect on my first month at Princeton, it seems abundantly clear that this is the aspect of our identities we are led to focus on the most. Orientation events, especially the diversity and inclusion program, were touted as opportunities to help students find their place in communities with similar peers, which is a noble goal. Students from every racial and ethnic background imaginable were featured. However, despite Princeton’s frequently stated value of diversity in the campus community, no true attempt was made to showcase offerings for students of different religious, political, or other ideological affiliations. Discussion of conservatism or Christianity was glaringly absent.
Our identities are multifaceted, with all aspects (including race) combining to create our values and outlook on the world. To focus the vast majority of identity-related programming on race alone and to have student speakers essentially equate race and identity implies that that particular factor is the main determinant of who we are.
When race becomes the focal point of your identity, that suggests that skin color controls your outlook on life more than any other factor. The natural extension is to believe that people of a certain race are a monolith, expected to think and act the same. I have seen how harmful this mindset can be to the African American community, particularly for Black conservatives like myself who are called “sellouts” or “not Black enough” when they disagree with the views expressed by many other African Americans. This practice ostracizes free-thinking individuals and exacerbates racial division, taking us further away from the values of “diversity,” “inclusion,” and “free expression” that Princeton continues to extol.
My argument here shouldn’t be interpreted as my being ashamed of my race or heritage. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I couldn’t be prouder of who I am and where I come from. My grandmother grew up as a sharecropper and sacrificed for her children, who in turn sacrificed opportunities for themselves so that my siblings and I could have the resources and opportunities we have now. I carry family stories like this with me and use them as inspiration to be the best possible version of myself. My race is important to me. But my Christian faith is just as integral to the way I view the world. Those who try to force you to become solely your race or claim that not emphasizing race as the focal point of your identity means you’re trying to run away from it are only preventing us from having genuine discussions about identity and the numerous factors that led us to the values we hold. The university is the ideal setting for this discourse, but overemphasis on race is stifling it.
The above is an opinion contribution and reflects the author’s views alone.
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