Volume 16, Issue 1 (2023) The Race and Diversity Issue: Issue 16, Volume 1

Dear Readers, Academics, artists, intellectuals, and other human activists have agitated for racial and cultural equity in the United States for hundreds of years but have largely only been met with the understanding of already marginalized people. As citizens within a societal mosaic of rich racial, cultural, and ethnic traditions, we need to open our minds to experiences we have not personally confronted. Research often follows social progress rather than beginning it, but underrepresentation and misrepresentation continue to promote racism and subjugation. Those of us at the forefront of research and academia have a profound responsibility to promote empowering representation and equity in all avenues. Well intentioned students can perpetrate racism at the same rate as overtly racist students when they remain unaware of racial privilege, how much a colorblind ideology benefits them to the disadvantage of others, and when they only observe that race exists without also understanding how it shapes life experiences. This ignorance encourages a sort of superficial harmony which overshadows minority group identities, strengths, and struggles by protecting the feelings of the dominant group. We must not excuse ourselves personally or academically from the burden of understanding systemic and individual racial oppression or the joy of humbly appreciating diverse traditions, races, and cultures. There is beauty in diversity. Connection to race, culture, and ethnicity is empowering. As BYU students, we try to follow our institution’s maxim that we “enter to learn; go forth to serve.” We do just not enter to learn about people just like us so we can go serve people just like us. It is our hope at Intuition that we can maintain a platform for learning that will enable us to learn about and serve all. This journal issue of Intuition is not perfect. We began recruiting editors and submissions for it almost a year ago with some reservation—if we were going to do this, we wanted to execute it absolutely flawlessly, and we did not feel qualified to do that. However, we ultimately realized that progress is often made on the heel of imperfect efforts, and we believe that progress should definitely be made. We hope that you pick up where we have left off, that you identify improvements, that you move forward with those improvements. Please take our offering: analyze it, deconstruct it, and figure out your own way to cultivate advancements in your field. If we collectively work toward racial equity and understanding, we will find that we think less often “what do I have to say,” and more often “what do I have to learn.” In these pages, you’ll find personal narratives, art, and academic research. Some of the language is raw; some of it is conflicted; some of it is joyful. But it is all personal. Please appreciate with us the extraordinary efforts of students like you who have something to say. This special Race and Diversity issue could not reach publication without the hard work of many editors, the special race and diversity committee of content reviewers, our faculty reviewers, our cover artist Nay Robinson, and our assistant editor-in-chief, Haylee Burnett. Please visit our Editorial Staff page and let your eyes wander over the listed names. Each person has made a notable difference to Intuition in their commitment to racially diverse research. We hope that our small contribution to undergraduate research encourages further exploration and discussion. Thank you for being here with us.