The rise of hate crimes and violence against individuals for Asian descent in the U.S. has caused me to revisit some writing that I did several years ago while I was still at the University of Idaho. My last few years at the University of Idaho were spent as the director of the Confucius Institute (2014-2017). The COVID-19 pandemic has only added fuel to the anti-Chinese sentiments in the U.S. and has motivated the current efforts to shut down Confucius Institutes, limit academic exchanges, and worst of all had led to the current epidemic of anti-Asian hate crimes in the U.S.. All of these issues have led me to revisit this editorial, and I feel that it still addresses some important issues. The heart of this piece of writing is rooted in my commitment to fostering diversity in our academic institutions and in my desire to see our institutions of higher education focus on cultivating more inclusion in general. Exclusion of "the other" has never resulted in positive social change; it merely reinforces difference and promotes tribalism and homogeneity. We will never address the deeply seated divisions that are threatening our democracy by refusing to work with the other side.

We are now living in a fractured world, a divided world, where hatred, dissension, and strife seem to be the rule. People are separated into factions: Republican or Democrat; conservative or liberal; educated or ignorant; black or white; good or evil; with us or against us. We seem to have lost the ability to grasp complexity and appreciate difference. Compassion for the other side, for those who are different, seems to be in short supply.