Race should not matter. Race is a socially constructed concept with no biological bearing on our characters, abilities, friendships, values or accomplishments. Ideally, humans should see one another simply as expressions of love. However, we do not live in a post-racial society. Race and ethnicity still contribute to what obstacles or opportunities one receives. Race and ethnicity are also crucial to diversity counter to what the writer of "Proper diversity is based on ideas, not race" (Sept. 24) concludes.

For people of color, attending a university and having careers as successful as their white peers, more often than not, does not happen. In 2011, 60 percent of undergraduate students in U.S. colleges were White, whereas 40 percent were nonwhite including black, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander, American Indian or Alaskan Native, and of two or more races, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Access to resources and opportunities for many students of color are not as readily available and creates an uneven playing field from the moment of birth. When we are able to make it to these spheres, it is often due to having jumped hurdles those bearing white privilege do not have to and spending years catching up and the rest of our lives dodging racism and discrimination. Hot-button cases on race continue to exist because so many people can't seem to stop being racist and discriminatory, not because people refuse to get over the topic.

In our generation, many white people have been able to avoid racism both in not experiencing it personally and not witnessing the blatant racist segregation policies of the 1960s. The experiences of people of color are being intellectualized as something that factually happened but are now only variables to the experiences of people of color. This leads some who do not experience racism themselves to conclude that because our laws have moved past being blatantly racist, we as a society can also move past talking about race.

Race and ethnicity however, are not mere variables to people who experience racism and discrimination. Many people of color know very well the desire to move on from the race issue. We would be more than happy if race was not a factor in how we are perceived and treated by others. However, when I walk into a space like Brandeis that is composed primarily of white students, I am still brown and my race will still affect my experience. We as people of color represent a reality that many of my peers do not truly understand.

Having applications that factor in race and socio-economic backgrounds is imperative to creating diverse communities. This is a way of combating the many forces that try to keep people who are not heterosexual, white males out of academia and positions of power. Until the playing field evens out and people of color are no longer outside of the norm in high-ranking universities, those checkboxes are important for the purposes of inclusion and representation. Obviously, a person's values and character should be and are considered when creating a diverse campus. That is the purpose of applications consisting of r?(c)sum?(c)s and essays in addition to checkboxes.

The racial minority senator position is therefore imperative to Brandeis. This position implies that a white senator cannot represent the experiences of racial minorities, just like I as a cisgender, female person, cannot represent the experience of a person of any other gender identity or expression.

I ran for and sat in the racial minority senator position for the last academic year because having had a first year full of moments, such as frequently being asked how I got into Brandeis and then receiving surprised responses when the answer was through a normal application process, uncomfortably highlighted my racial differences in both academic and social settings and gave me the ability to represent the voices of other people of color that have similar stories. Similar stories, but not identical.

I did not for a moment presume to understand or represent every single unique character or perspective of all racial minority students on Brandeis' campus. Even the term "racial minority" incorporates many different races and ethnicities. Everyone has their own story, values and characteristics, and no member of the Senate or any other representative body is capable of representing the lives of every single member of their constituents. That was not my job. My job was to represent the voice of the "othered" or minority on the basis of race; a voice I have heard both in myself and in others many times. No matter how diverse, tolerant and inclusive the Brandeis campus may seem to be, it is a microcosm of our world and therefore still has strides to go in creating a truly unified and equal society.

We, as a society, need to redefine diversity. Diversity comes from a mixture of people of different races, ethnicities, nationalities, religions, genders, gender expressions, sexual orientations, values, characters, interests and goals coexisting, interacting and gaining an understanding for one another. Although Brandeis has done a decent job in bringing this mixture in, we as a community of students do not pay enough attention to the areas of interaction and understanding. To spend four years only interacting with the people of "your" community, whomever that may be, is not a true representation of diversity. I have found myself disappointed and enraged at the lack of understanding, such as the disregard of the use of offensive language, and lack of meaningful interaction between different groups while sugarcoating our community as diverse and progressive. We have come far, but in believing we have accomplished a utopian society at Brandeis, we often disregard the reality that we have a long way to go.

True diversity is creating a varied but unified society on the bases of Love from which stems true equality and understanding. I do not believe this is too much to ask from a campus as powerful, intelligent, caring and inspiring as our own.

-Amanda de Oliveira Pereira '15 was the racial minority senator for the 2012 to 2013 academic year.