Wu, Xi: Diversity

Discrimination has been and will continue to be an important and sensitive social issue not only in United States, but around the world. It often appears in different forms and shapes.

Back in the 1960s, discrimination was an extremely serious civil rights issue for Black people. “A Call for Unity,” “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” and Dr. King’s famous speech “I Have a Dream” were written during that time and under a sensitive social environment for Black and White people. Dr. King, as a Baptist minister, put his faith in God. The Church, a symbol of Christianity, has played an important role in the racial discrimination issue. Christianity itself restricts those Christians from falling into racism.   However, Dr. King also understood God won’t send free checks to mailboxes monthly. Those checks must be earned. So, he and his followers expressed their expectations of achieving civil rights through a peaceful way: by publishing letters and making public speeches. Thanks to their great efforts, Mr. Obama became first Black president in United States history.

Nowadays, new types of discrimination keep popping up: gender discrimination, age discrimination, and others. Women are still having trouble finding jobs in some fields. Students bully other students and social groups try to exclude others.

In science fields, discrimination exists between races and genders. However, science is a field that involves fewer social issues than others. Whoever gets a great idea first is who survives in the scientific field. Whoever makes a great achievement is who gets most the most respect. As a science student and as someone who will work continuously in scientific field, I feel somewhat removed from those discrimination issues. Dr. King wrote in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” and “Justice too long delayed is justice denied.” Look at this world, if you still can find discrimination that means the world is still denying justice. As Christians say, God leads it to be what it means to be. Let’s just focus on doing our jobs. I believe if we try our best in doing our own jobs, we will get a reward at some point.