Your matriculation is meant to be the moment when you realise you have entered into one of the greatest, and oldest, intellectual institutions in the world. Mine was almost perfect. Almost. Of course, there was the fancy food, the wine and the choir that managed to make even Josh Groban songs sound semi-bearable; there were also those quintessential “the rest of your life begins today” speeches. And then, for me at least, there was this jarring feeling.

A senior member of my college gushed proudly about the level of tolerance at King’s College. Tolerance for people of different backgrounds, sexual orientations and schools of thought. Part of me felt proud, because I understood the sentiment: here, the only thing that matters is your aptitude for learning. But I still couldn’t help feeling deeply uncomfortable at the thought that I should be “tolerated” per se, especially for something as arbitrary as having brown skin. Despite my Asian heritage, I’ve never seriously questioned how well I belong in a white-dominated society. That was until I got that jarring feeling.

I thought it might be therapeutic to unpack the word and assure myself I was being silly. This made it worse. Linguistically, “tolerance” is for the person with freshers’ flu whose cough echoes throughout a lecture room of 200 people; or for that baby whose wails – though coming from the furthest seat away from you on the plane – sound like they have been converted to high quality mp3 and manoeuvred their way into your earphones. “Tolerance”, as I find it, is an act of relenting against those who can’t help but be annoying, or those who don’t really know any better. “Tolerance” isn’t, and shouldn’t be, for your friends who just happen to come from a different background. So why doesn’t our languauge reflect this?

There are a couple of options here. The word “tolerance” could be arbitrary. There could be nothing about the common use of the word that indicates I should take offence on behalf of all minority groups. I’ve attempted to retreat to this position a number of times in my life. But it’s something that feels increasingly inappropriate and difficult to do. I attended a debate a couple of weeks ago about the value of faith schools in society, and an audience member asked the speaker (an advocate for “tolerance” of minorities and LGBTQ+ communities) “What if I don’t want to be tolerated? You tolerate diseases and infections. You shouldn’t have to tolerate gay people.” To which, the speaker replied awkwardly, “Okay, I really don’t know what to say to that.” This, I think, is demonstrative of the second option: there is a severe lack of consciousness in our racial, and cultural, rhetoric today. Which is an obnoxious way of saying: we aren’t thinking before we speak – discarding the heavy implications of our words. And of course, the third option: “tolerance” is absolutely the word that should account for current race relations in Cambridge.

If it isn’t obvious already, I’m making a case for the second option. The word “tolerate” is, I think, indicative of an imperfect rhetoric in our society. So it isn’t just annoying for a minority like myself when speeches about tolerance are applauded, but it’s hurtful too. They’re a sign that we, as a society, believe that institutional “tolerance” platforms aren’t hurtful, aren’t even arbitrary, but are the best version of things that we could have.

This is deluded. Not only does the word disrespect anyone from a different background, but it also misrepresents our lives. Because I am not tolerated here at Cambridge. I am welcomed. I feel at home. This is an important feeling when you’re immersed into possibly one of the most intense academic structures ever. I do not think this should be taken away from me because of an imperfect word.

Perhaps, you might say I’ve gotten the wrong end of the stick. Obviously it’s no secret that language is a convenient, albeit inaccurate, mode of communication. Meaning gets distorted all the time. Yet, still I managed to grasp the sentiment of inclusiveness at King’s despite the awkwardness that came with being “tolerated”. My main qualm is with how the word fits into our racial rhetoric. It’s not so much meaning but the construction of a better narrative – creating the best version of things. “Tolerance” is not it.

It is, in my view a dignity-reducing term. It does not respect, nor preserve, the dignity of any group. Not even for those who must do the “tolerating”. It’s a sign of grudgeful acceptance that continues to misrepresent the experience of so many minorities. So if a confused word such as “tolerate” can do such damage, why tolerate it any longer?