Black Student Union

We’d like to hear your thoughts on this:

I love the concept of rationally racial. I often feel when people say to me “I don’t even see you as Spanish’ (which I hate because I’m not from Spain, I’m Latina. But that’s a whole other issue) I find it insulting because it’s saying that my heritage and identity is a negative, like they can “look past” this supposed flaw I have. Colorblindness is a load of bull.

What do you think of this statement? If you are a person of color is this something which you have heard frequently? Do you agree with this person? If you are white, what do you think of this?

Feel free to say what you have to say. This is a no-judging zone.

Source: JaySmooth | I Forgot He was Black

Dark Girls: Preview from Bradinn French on Vimeo.

Black Student Union @ Principia

BSU is now on Facebook!

Jokes are fun and may often signify familiarity and some level of informality/comradeship between two people. However, with jokes about race, it is often a fine line and many times, we don’t know when we have crossed it. Take, for example, rapper Asher Roth of the “I love College” fame. In early 2009, Roth (white), on a visit to Rutger’s University, tweeted:

“Been a day of rest and relaxation, sorry Twitter- hanging out with nappy headed hoes.”

allegedly to make fun of Don Imus, who had made a similar remark of Rutger’s University’s women basketball team. He later explained himself, apologized and then deleted the offensive tweets. But not before social media went wild. Interestingly, and maybe unrelated to the racial comment is Roth’s take on black rappers’ materialism and extravagant lifestyle when there is starvation in Africa, to paraphrase.

I found this YouTube video from March 2009 by hip-hop blogger, John Randolph, aka JaySmooth.

In a later YouTube video, Randolph spoke to a friend of his, Dan Charnas, who was one of the first writers of Source magazine (a hip hop magazine), and whom according to Randolph “has a lot of experience being a white guy in hip hop.”

What do you think? Is there a lesson for us to learn from Asher Roth and hip hop in general? Are there instances where race jokes are okay? Do the jokes make us more aware of “race” or can they serve as a means of getting past racism?

Sourced:
TheLoop21.com | Asher Roth’s bad joke about ‘nappy-headed hoes’

Davey D’s Hip-Hop Corner | Rapper Asher Roth says Black Rappers Talk too Much About Money

Racialicious | Asher Roth and the Politics of Race in Hip Hop

It’s a little hard not to like Tavia Patterson. (Pronounced “Tay-vee-ah”. I called her “Tah-vee-ah” when her roommate first introduced us back in our freshman days) She’s fun, bubbly and her personality simply reaches out to you. Not to mention it’s almost impossible to miss her when she loudly calls out to you from across the concourse. Having spent three years with her, I have come to admire her for one of her strongest character traits; Tavia is bold and very outspoken. It was no surprise, then, when I found out that she had managed to convince a few (40- odd) students to wear t-shirts with “Black Student,” “White Student,” Latino/Latina,” and “Asian Student” boldly displayed on the front.

For a whole week, we wore the shirts all day except to sports and stuff, just trying to show people that it is more than just the label or how people might view you. Like when we go out in public people don’t always see me as white, but they might see somebody as “Oh let’s go stand behind the Asian in line,” versus the person in a red shirt or something like that.

The project also included a video:

Tavia is a little modest about having the guts to spark up such a controversial topic on campus. She says of the whole experience:

It was just a really fun way to get beyond the labels that we subconsciously place on each other and realize that we are all people, we all have things in common.

During Winter Quarter, an informal survey was carried out with the purpose of finding out the understanding we have on campus about BSU. Do students know about it? Do they know the history? Who is eligible for membership? and similar simple but telling questions. From the results of the survey, we figured that we might need to talk about the club a little more. So, here goes.

What does BSU stand for?

Black Student Union.

What are the goals of Black Student Union?

To rekindle humanity, to encourage our own self-definition, and to eradicate oppression and social injustice

Did you know that anyone, of any race can join BSU?

Yes, anyone can join. Race affects all of us, irrespective of the color of our skin!

 What other club, or co-curricular activity did BSU initiate?

The Pan-African conference, which was initially titled the Pamoja (Swahili for “Together”) Conference was started as a forum to discuss current events in Africa and find ways in which students could be involved.

What is the difference between BSU and the International Student Organization?

While ISO, which is also known as Friendship Around the World celebrates the cultural diversity on the Principia campus, BSU was formed primarily to address racial inequality. Over the years, and considering Principia’s large population of African students, the two clubs almost became synonymous. Still, irrespective of the name, the BSU does not focus on racial issues affecting black students alone. Again, race affects everyone black, white, brown or yellow.

There you have it. As much of an introduction as I could squeeze into three minutes. The rest, we can find out along the way. The mission for the blog specifically is to have a continous open dialogue about race issues, to be honest and frank but still be respectful and respectable. We encourage all your feed back; comments, compliments, criticisms and anything you would like to share.

I am excited to do this with you,

Wendy, BSU secretary

Coming soon.