Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Stone Center forays

The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History is located not terribly far from where I work at the Rare Books Collection at Wilson Library. As such, I decided to pop over there one day after work for a look around.
The last time I had been to the Stone Center was freshman year, when I had women's studies 101 and my personal fitness lectures there. (Both classes were equally gruesome in their own special ways.) Having never seen much of the building beyond the auditorium, I decided to look around other areas as well.
I stopped by the Brown Gallery, though I didn't stay there for too long--I've never been much of an art person. Then I went to the library, which was much more interesting for me at least. I love libraries. And the fact that the Stone Center's library has over 10,000 volumes relating to Africana and African American life is really interesting. I wonder if there's an equal or larger sized collection elsewhere.
All in all, a pretty cool building. I really like how it's so many things--a cultural center, a museum, a library and an educational center all rolled into one. There's a palpable sense of pride in black culture there, and it was refreshing to experience that.

Monday, December 14, 2009

How has this course shaped views, etc.

I actually feel that most of what we learned in this course could be described as common sense. I came into this class knowing that the media doesn't always portray minorities equally and/or respectfully. And that's pretty much what I got out of this course. It's a shame, but that's how it is.
Looking through my undergraduate bulletin, I noticed that this course used to be entitled "Minorities in Mass Communication." I have to wonder why the title was later changed to diversity, because essentially all we focused on in this course was minorities. That's what our final projects were, and that's about all we talked about in class. Granted, we did mention women and homosexuals briefly, but that probably took up about one day of class time overall. In order to truly call this a "diversity" course, it seems to me like we should have addressed diversity in all its many forms: religion, political views, socioeconomic status, etc., rather than simply talking about blacks, Asians and Hispanics and Native Americans. Sure, that's diversity, but it's only the tip of the metaphorical iceberg.
In all, I would have probably learned a lot more from this course if we explored diversity in its many, many forms as opposed to simply focusing on race. Racism does still exist, and it is good to be aware of that and seek ways of changing that. When it comes to the media especially, however, it's imperative that one be aware of bias and prejudice in other areas besides race.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Unsung Founders Memorial

This is one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. Really.
I'm on the staff of UNC's satirical magazine, BoUNCe, and we once considered publishing an article that was entitled: "Unsung Founders Memorial supports the weight of history, my ham sandwich." I know people who have jokingly referred to the memorial for a very long time as the "slave table." We didn't publish the article for whatever reason, but it was a brilliant idea for an article because it addresses so many of the things over which this poet is boo-hooing.
1. "There was a lovely white family eating lunch." So? I've eaten lunch at that table before. I'm white. Lots of white people eat there. Sure it's laughably ironic--that was the point of the BoUNCe article--but is this a bad thing? Should only black people be allowed to sit at the table? Sounds an awful lot like the '50s to me, when whites and blacks had separate designated eating spots. This is honestly one of the dumbest things I have ever heard a person say.
2. Silent Sam is much taller. This is true. Silent Sam has also been here much longer and is something of a University landmark. It would have been foolish for the memorial design team to consider building a 20-foot-tall table in order to make it on a level with Sam. As for the location, seems to me like this is something that the committee should have thought of before they plunked the table down where they did.
3. There weren't that many black artists considered for the job, and the person that was eventually selected specialized in "miniatures.". . . . .Well, it seems to me that the table has many miniature figures around it, so it seems like they made a pretty good choice to me! Really guys. It shouldn't matter whether a white, black or green artist was chosen to create this table, so long as the final product conveys the message that you want it to. And I think it does. I really do--it's a pretty powerful structure if you stop to look at it closely.
In conclusion: C.J. Suitt needs to get over himself. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to enjoy a ham sandwich at the table.

Racial gap

I'm actually kind of surprised that this is the case. In today's world, where "politically correct" is the buzzword for many, you'd think that companies would be scrambling to hire blacks to fulfill racial quotas at the very least. I can understand how this might be an issue though, especially among companies which are headed by older, white executives. It's entirely possible that such people would be thrown off by the names Laqwanda or D'shaun appearing on a resume. What I did find surprising was that Asian and Hispanic managers also tend not to hire as many blacks as they do whites. This just goes to prove the immortal words of Avenue Q: everyone's a little bit racist.
So, how best to go about solving this? Dunno. I've always thought that affirmative action, whether in schools or the workplace, is a stupid idea. People ought to be hired or accepted to school on the basis of achievements and skill, not because this university really needs to find a few more Hispanic students to reach its designated percentage. Granted, there are disparities in quality of education among different races. Why not take the money that would otherwise be spent on affirmative action programs and instead use that to provide better schools and technology for students that might not have access to such?