On the weekend of Sept. 1, 2000, West Lafayette is scheduled to spend a day in darkness — a day for forgetting, rather than celebrating, ethnic and cultural diversity. The city’s annual Global Fest, a celebration of cultural diversity in the area and a significant source of funding for various ethnic clubs, is "postponed" an entire year.

This cancellation of an event that many see as necessary is not because the Ku Klux Klan, or some other proponent for ignorance, is planning a protest march down State Street. It’s much more simple — the Purdue Boilermakers are scheduled to play Central Michigan in a football game at Ross—Ade Stadium.

Location is really not as much of a problem for this year’s Global Fest as traffic will be. West Lafayette police will already be busy directing traffic of more than 60,000 spectators coming into town for the game, and the increase of traffic for Global Fest will only worsen the congestion.

Another major problem with the celebration’s cancellation is the fact that many of the people who would normally work the diversity booths will be attending the game as well. After all, Coach Joe Tiller’s efficient Boilermakers are an exciting team capable of making it to the Rose Bowl in 2001.

Rescheduling within the few weekends prior to or after the game is nearly as problematic, it seems, which is the defining factor in the decision to cancel this year’s celebration.

Aside from the obvious, which is that Americans need to be constantly reminded of the beauty of other cultures, groups that would normally earn a substantial amount of their yearly budget at the fest must now search for other means of income. The University will not fund them or provide relief. They are essentially abandoned.

Finding a more reasonable date for the citizens of the Greater Lafayette community to learn from other cultures should be of primary importance to the community and the University. This country did not find its greatness on the gridiron. It finds it in the multiethnic integration of a thousand communities, cities and towns. And this University's greatness is equally dependent on diversity.

Our diversity cannot go unrecognized or uncelebrated, and a more suitable date or location should be found for Global Fest this year.