Gene Yang on iTunesU

If you didn’t make it to the recent talk by Gene Yang (author of American Born Chinese), you can see it now on iTunesU. One of the questions Yang gets asked during the presentation is about a character in the book called “Chin-Kee.”  It’s pretty interesting to hear his take on racial stereotypes and caricatures in the media, and why he even created a character like Chin-Kee. In iTunesU, you’ll find it under Penn State University — University Libraries — “Guest Speakers.”

Straight Talk

Ready for a little Lifelong Learning? Come join us, in person, or online, for the second event in the Speaker Series on Religion and Culture from the University Libraries Diversity Committee:

“Straight Talk”

Thursday, December 4

11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon

Foster Auditorium, 101 Pattee Library, University Park, and

via MediaSite Live (log-in required*)

Straight Talk is a panel of speakers comprised of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and ally students from a wide range of beliefs and backgrounds who educate the university community on sexual orientation, gender identity, oppression, and diversity at Penn State. They are sponsored by Penn State’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Ally (LGBTA) Student Resource Center.

For those who can’t attend at 11:00 a.m., the presentation will be available on MediaSite for the rest of the day on December 4 (at the request of the presenters, it will be removed from MediaSite on the 5th).

We look forward to seeing you there!

Does this mean racism is over?

With Barack Obama’s election as the nation’s first African-American president on November 4, it’s easy to think that we’ve finally reached the “post-racial” era in our history. After all, how can African-Americans claim racism, with one of their own in the most powerful position in the world?

Here’s my opinion: Obama’s election was–no question–a great and historic step in our country moving past racism. But it was only one step. Obama was able to successfully portray himself as being about more than just his racial identity, which is what made him palatable to more Americans than would have been the case had he been seen marching in protests, playing the role of the Angry Black Man.

There was a pro-Obama email I received before the election that, as a mental exercise, asked me to switch aspects of the candidates’ lives to the other candidate to see if I could still imagine that candidate being viable. Doing this little mental exercise really jarred me, because I could feel the twinges of racist attitudes deep down inside me that I had to acknowledge. The points that hit me the hardest were imagining Obama with a pregnant teenage daughter (that Sarah Palin has) and a wife with a history of drug addiction (that Cindy McCain has).

My point here is not to say that John McCain or Sarah Palin were bad candidates. But I think we have to acknowledge that what ended up being minor unpleasantness for their campaign, would have been positively fatal for Obama’s. As a white person, I could feel even in myself how much easier it is to view these issues as being “indiscretions” or “problems we all have to face” when it was McCain or Palin involved. But a black man running for President of the United States with a pregnant teenager at home and a drug-addict wife? I had a hard time imagining that.

And that’s racism.

What do you think? Do you think that Obama’s election means that we have transcended race?

Dressing up as Indians for Thanksgiving?

Hello everyone! Welcome to the University Libraries Diversity Committee’s blog. What we are going to do here is offer up some thought-provoking questions regarding diversity issues and let you all comment. We hope to get some dialog going and allow folks to learn a little bit about their own feelings regarding diversity issues.

With Thanksgiving coming up soon I found a post on the Anti-Racist Parent blog that I thought was rather timely: kids dressing up as American Indians for Thanksgiving. Check it out, particularly reader comments. (I’ve recently learned, by the way, that the term “Native American” has not completely replaced “American Indian” even amongst the people the terms seek to describe– some American Indians dislike the term “Native American” for the same reason many “Hispanic”-Americans dislike “Hispanic:” because it is intended to be a catch-all term for the convenience of labeling by government agencies.)

I’m interested to hear what people have to say about the blog post: Is it just harmless fun for kids to dress up as Indians for Thanksgiving? Are diversity advocates just being too serious? Or do you think that kids’ Indian costumes reinforce stereotypes of the people involved (since the costumes are usually based on Euro-American images of “Indian Attire” that has little authenticity)?

I’m interested in hearing your frank comments. This is one of the reasons we decided to run this blog outside of the Penn State network–so that people could feel comfortable commenting anonymously. I will edit/delete posts only if I think they are intentionally hurtful or derogatory.

I hope to hear from you all! Cheers.