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By Kimberly Allain Learning about What Is Best in Us and What is Worst in Us: My Encounter with the Museum of Tolerance How long will we continue to act against what we inherently know to be true? How long will we dismiss the blame for our assaults against persons of another ethnicity, whether those assaults are overt or the product of benign neglect? How much more evidence do we need to be convinced of the humanity of another? We all know about the harmful assumptions we nurture against others and how these allow us to oppress others simply due to unimportant factors like skin color. We know they are lies because these ideas have to be continually reinforced with the propaganda that allows us to justify our lazy, stereotypical, destructive, and hateful ideas. How dare any of us assert the idea that we are superior simply because we look different? How much intelligence does it take to accept the equality of our humanity? Better yet, how much intelligence is denied to reject it? Much, I imagine. Children know the truth instinctively, so we have to train them to think otherwise. We have to teach racism, we have to drill it in, usually over the course of an upbringing until it's no longer fought against, until we deny the truth that should be "self-evident?" This is the interrogation that assaulted me when I visited the Museum of Tolerance. I walked around in quiet reverence, so as not to disturb the souls of those whose spirits were telling me their stories. I could hear their voices and feel the sense of urgency -- warning us of the current divisiveness and schisms in our society. I became acquainted with those who had been stripped of the very thing that God had given them -- their humanity. At that moment, I was embarrassed to be called human. My experience, no doubt, was an emotional one, but it was equally educational. I experienced the benefit of words used in an inspirational, uplifting way at the Civil Rights exhibit -- in the voice of Martin Luther King, Jr. and others. And I also saw words used as ammunition in a war against the human soul, spewed from the weapons of power hungry hate mongers like Hitler and Mussolini. If we are not responsible to be accountable for what we hear and to look to ourselves for leadership, we will always be susceptible to those who prey on uninformed listeners. Benign neglect or a minimization of the cries of the oppressed keeps injustices perpetuated. These responses are just as dangerous as overt acts of violence and oppression. The habit of convincing ourselves that it's not really that bad or that it's better if we don't get involved costs us as a society -- as a world. Innovation, creativity, scientific discoveries, friends, freedoms and most of all lives are lost in a mountain of human ash. The very attributes that make us proud to be human are lost. Maybe that is our punishment -- just maybe we will have to wait a little longer for a cure for cancer, a voyage through our solar system, or an artistic masterpiece. I ask open-ended questions because I don't know how to present answers to problems whose solutions are so obvious and simple. It would be a futile exercise because one does not need to be convinced of something they already know. The Museum of Tolerance is a powerful experience and a wonderful tool to use in teaching our children, and to remind ourselves lest we forget, what we are capable of. The Museum itself is a testimony of the things that are the best in us and the things that are the worst. The interactive multimedia exhibits allow us to get printouts of information on the Holocaust. The inclusion of the Civil Rights exhibit and the interactive confrontational technologies really make us think about our own biases and motivations. Tour guides are knowledgeable resources and are available to answer any questions we have about the displays and exhibits. Man is both great and terrible, creative and destructive; can we learn from the mistakes of our past well enough to prevent them from reoccurring in the lives of the generations that follow us? Let's keep racism and discrimination where it belongs -- in a museum. (Kimberly Allain is a Junior majoring in Psychology.)