Stories...Grau

Carolina Grau

Jefferson HS - Lafayette, Ind.
July 21-25, 2001

The agony of standing alone

To have a purpose in life is to know life's meaning. We dear newspaper hermits like to call it communication.

Our sole purpose is to inform the masses to the best of our ability in the quickest time possible. However, living in a not-so-perfect world, we journalists experience times when we stand alone in our ideas on what to communicate to this cold world.

Frank Motley, an administrator at Indiana University, recently gave a lecture to the HSJI students, where he emphasized the importance of reaching out to all different types of people. I agree. However, coming from a staff where the minority population is, well, me, (ethnic minority) one tends to experience the agonizing solitude of standing alone.

First of all, majority rules! I can stress the importance of communicating points, views, and ideas from different races, but the bottom line is, I will end up doing it all.

Our staff is able to choose what they write about. However, if they only know about what they are accustomed to, then they will not open their minds enough to see the diversity in the world.

Some may call them bad journalists; I call them human. No confusion. I in no way defend or condone their actions, but I do believe that in order for my staff to experience the other side of the color spectrum, minorities need to get involved.

Minorities need to be the No. 1 players in this race for equality. We need to show the world our capabilities before it tells us what they are. What I'm trying to say is that, if we want something done we must do it ourselves. Yes, my staff members should expand their story ideas. But they need encouragement. It is my personal belief that they cannot get this encouragement without our help.

We have to be willing to step up to the plate and show the unenlightened staff members of this country we are just like them as people but different and interesting as a culture.

I applaud and encourage minorities who take a stand against narrow minds and set examples. I guarantee that if I weren't the only minority on my staff that my staff would be exposed to more topics that interest people of different races and ethnic backgrounds. However, minorities need to take an active part in it and be educators.

We are spiraling in the right direction in this information super highway, and we are doing it whether minorities hop on the bandwagon or not. When one knows who he/she is, one can educate anybody.

So, ethnicticity has a choice: Either it can complain about not being on the wagon or it can do something about it.

Personally, I will save myself a seat on the wagon that will cruise the 21st century, and if any other minority person or group would like to jump on with me, I'll be glad to save them a seat too. It will definitely make my job as a minority a whole lot easier to have some company in my newspaper world.

To have purpose is to know what to love. I know I love being different, and I also love being the same in some instances. However, sometimes I wish other ethnic people would help me out in turning our journalistic purpose from plain to multi-colored.