A Campus Community
Post by: Shrestha Singh
There has been a phenomenal response across the University of Pennsylvania’s campus to an incident of racism that occurred to a fellow Penn student several weeks ago.
The Race Dialogue Project and The United Minorities Council came together last night, 4/20/2011, to write a guest column to be published today in the Daily Pennsylvanian. The statement calls for individuals across this campus to engage more deeply with one another, to empathize over each other’s individual struggles, regardless of whether they pertain to race, sexual orientation, religion, gender, ability, academic and life stresses, or the innumerable other issues that can make this life more difficult for each one of us.
College senior and DP columnist Alec Webley, who also published a column on the issue today, writes that “it is from our hearts, not our perception of race, that these kinds of attacks come [...] We need more kindness on our campus.” In agreeing wholeheartedly with that sentiment, I am not alone. To end racism, to end homophobia, to end discrimination and oppression of all kinds, we need a change in our hearts, not just our minds.
It is through recognizing our common humanity, in seeing across our differences and empathizing with one another’s struggles, even if they are not our struggles, that this kindness will come. It exists already, within many individuals and spaces on this campus. But an all-encompassing community of support, one in which all peers hold close to their hearts the idea that one of their key roles is to serve as allies and listeners, is missing. We must learn to be vessels that can hold one another’s stories and struggles, rather than dismiss them as unimportant.
The issue is one of building a community of compassion that will ease our campus’s many ills – marginalization, sexual harassment, discrimination, students’ sense of being overwhelmed or inadequate. The task sounds impossible — how does one bring about a change in others’ values? But yesterday, a good friend and I talked late into the night. He told me to look at all that has been done in just the last century when it comes to changing the way people think. It’s daunting. It’s a challenge. But it’s doable. And our steps, however small and however incremental, will take us there.
Token racial characters on TV
Post by: Janice Dow
Blogger Angry Asian Man wrote a particularly apt post (http://blog.angryasianman.com/2011/02/new-power-rangers-are-not-color-coded.html) about the new Power Rangers show. In the 2011 iteration of one of my favorite childhood shows, and almost 20 years later, the Power Rangers are coded by race no longer…FINALLY. (I’m referring to the Black and Yellow Rangers specifically…)
Penn’s Greenfield Intercultural Center receives $1 mil grant!
GIC Center
Race Dialogue Project’s campus home, the Greenfield Intercultural Center, has recently received an unprecedented gift of $1 million from the Greenfield Foundation. This gift comes in recognition of the intercultural work that RDP and other GIC groups have been doing on campus! Not only is this encouraging for current intercultural initiatives, but it will also allow student groups to expand their reach on campus — to get more of our peers thinking and talking about race issues.
See the full Daily Pennsylvanian article here — http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/article/intercultural-groups-boosted-1-million-gift
Healing the Wounds: A Roundtable Discussion on Restorative Justice
Exploring social transformation and justice in the wake of slavery in the U.S., the Holocaust, Japanese-American internment, and apartheid in South Africa.
Hosted by the Race Dialogue Project with support from the Philomathean Society, Moderated by University Chaplain Rev. Charles Howard
Date: Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Time: 6:00-7:30 PM. Dinner will be served at 5:45 PM
Location: Ben Franklin Room (Houston Hall, Room 218)
How do nations and other groups address the aftermath of large-scale oppression, mass discrimination, and violence? We will compare approaches to restorative justice, or the healing of the parties to conflict—victims, offenders, and witnesses—in the following historical cases: slavery in the U.S., the Holocaust, Japanese-American internment, and apartheid in South Africa. The event will be an engaging conversation in which attendees pose questions to our featured professors:
Dr. Steven Hahn (Penn, History) concentrates on African-American history and the history of slavery and emancipation.
Dr. Ian Lustick (Penn, Political Science) focuses on negotiations in the 1950s between Israel and Germany.
Dr. Eiichiro Azuma (Penn, History) specializes in migration and Japanese American history.
Dr. Zolani Ngwane (Haverford, Anthropology) studies the transformation of South African social institutions in the post-apartheid era.
Inter-Racial Bonds
Post by: Amy Lopez
In the ’80s the Supreme Court ruled against Bob Jones University upholding the legality of interracial dating thereby denying the university tax-exempt status. This occurred just a couple of decade ago and today we are still faced with similar issues. As “Americans” continue to identify themselves as multiracial, I can’t help but wonder is there is still a single definition to what it means to be American. The fact that more and more students are willing to intermingle with others not of their same race speaks to the growing ethnic diversity of the nation. Whether such inter-racial engagement is beneficial or not is a question I invite you to ponder and share your thoughts on. Moving beyond whether or not such racial mixing is something desirable, I personally find myself attracted to a question posed by a New York Times Article regarding the specific kinds of inter-racial bonds that are most common and least established. Why is it that Asian-Americans and Caucasians are more likely to interact with one another than will Blacks and Caucasians? What does this tell us about our society? Are there fundamental socio-economic differences that keep some groups apart from others and can these differences ever be overcome? Is it reasonable to say that the likelihood of one minority group mixing with another minority group is higher than than the mixing of a minority and majority group? I think so, but I would love to hear what you have to say.
The truth is the world we live in today and what we chose to do with it is what we will leave behind for our next generation to play with.
To be More Than Race
Post by: Shrestha Singh
Two weeks ago, The New York Times published an article by Susan Saulny entitled “Black? White? Asian? More Young Americans Choose All of the Above.” The article speaks of the rise of multiracialism in America, focusing specifically on the University of Maryland’s Multiracial and Biracial Student Association. Saulny explores the struggle of multiracial Americans to identify themselves pluralistically and find a place amid their peers, families, and communities. But throughout Saulny’s student interviews, there echoes a greater subtext – the overwhelming desire of students to also be understood beyond the categories of race, beyond outside appearances. As one young man says in the article, “I just want to be a person.”
A semester abroad?
Post by: Maya
http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/article/students-face-racism-abroad
Penn minority students have to think twice about having the experience many look forward to during their junior year, but I wonder whether such racism abroad is really unique to foreign countries, or whether students just don’t feel it as much within the Ivy League citadel of UPenn.
By any case, I’m glad to know that a student faced discrimination in Hong Kong, because that tells me, a non-minority student, that I want no part in immersing myself in that culture, if not all of my fellow Quakers are welcomed with open arms.
National Museums: Unexpected Battles over Race
Post by: Janice Dow
Throughout college, I have come to see that there’s no talking about American history or American literature without bringing in the African American experience. From slavery to civil rights to President Obama: our nation is one characterized by racial and ethnic mixing, hardly homogeneous. Projections reveal that by mid-century, there will be no dominant race. Consequently, it is important to adequately represent African Americans and other people of color in the “official,” “Washington, D.C.” version of American history.
In an art history course that I took two years ago, I learned that museums are meant to be places of memorialization and reconciliation, displays of culture, and community spaces for society as a whole. Inevitably, however, community space becomes battle space, as competing parties lobby for their interests. For example, who is to determine what can or cannot be exhibited in a museum? What if the implementation of the museum fails to meet its mission of reconciliation or memorialization?
A Tribute to An Era
Post by: Aya Saed
His life was legendary, his words were electrifying and his death was tragic. Martin Luther King Jr. revolutionized how we think about religion, peace, and race. During a time when being black meant you were a second class citizen, this humble man rose to great esteem as he led a movement that would transform the lives of many. Like Martin Luther King, great leaders such as Malcolm X were shifting what race meant. This was an era of great chaos and interest in race and I believe much can be learned from the words these figures spoke.
“I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don’t see any American dream–I see an American nightmare.” These are the poignant words of Malcolm X, a man that saw a race being victimized and stoop up. They were living in a nightmare. This is where the African-American community belonged, in a nightmare. Prior to the movements that sparked in the 1960s, African-Americans were living in a dark and scary time of violence, hatred and great demoralization. The anger that this stirred created fear and a lack of understanding; perhaps more crucially, it sparked a need for community engagement and united a race.
What’s Next
Gallery Image - Click to See more
Last semester we started out getting to know about The Race Dialogue Project. We learned about it’s structure, objective and we got the chance to shape the direction of this organization. We had the opportunity to discuss topics, such as Whiteness and White Privilege, that maybe were not being that widely discussed on Penn’s Campus. We then had the opportunity to be divided into committees, and brainstorm a art exhibition for the fall semester.
The exhibition was a success, and was even featured in the Daily Pennsylvanian, our school newspaper. We then ended the semester with a discussion about Race in the Media, which raised important topics such as the image that the US exports to other countries, free speech in the media about race-related topics, how artists represent race, the relationship between the Penn community and the West Philadelphia community, etc.
This was all done by YOU and for YOU. The members of The Race Dialogue Project were the ones who came together to brainstorm amazing ideas for the art gallery. The members attended the panel discussion adding valuable insight to the topics that were brought up. And for that we really THANK YOU for making this organization even better.
What’s Next? We are planning a lot of exciting events for this semester. We are starting of with a RDP kick-off social. We will also have a Hair and beauty related event and a panel discussion on restorative justice. In addition, we will have our GBMs so we can hear from you what you think about race. Be on the look out for emails about these events and be sure to stop by our table at the Spring Activities Fair, at Houston Hall 11am-3pm today!
