BSU Holds Q & A Session for Minorities

With the shield of anonymity restraining any inhibitions, nine student organizations posed a number of racial and social identity questions during last night’s “Questions Out of a Hat,” a conversation sponsored by Black Students United. Designed to absolve ignorance, the program facilitated group discussion in response to the questions read aloud.

According to Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo ’08, co-president of BSU, the program debuted last summer, when a group of 20 students traveled to New Orleans for a Hurricane Katrina relief trip organized by Cornell Hillel and BSU. From an eclectic array of backgrounds, the students on the trip focused a large part of their efforts on bridging the gaps between Jewish and black cultures, though, according to Jennifer Saint-Preux ’08, community chair of BSU, much of the discussion focused on Jewish culture. [1]Hats off: Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo ’08, co-president of BSU speaks during yesterday’s “Questions Out of a Hat” program.

Inspired to promote cultural education about her race as well, Saint-Preux, ventured forth and founded the “hat” idea.

“[We wanted to] bring to the forefront the differences, as opposed to trying to make everybody the same,” Saint-Preux said.

“Instead of trying to pose what we think black culture is … [we solicited] the questions that they had,” Lumumba-Kasongo said.

With a warm reception from the rest of the students on the trip, the idea was executed. After accumulating questions for two days, the hat’s contents were exposed to the students who sat in a circle, eager for response and discussion.

“The anonymous nature of the program allows for people to push further than they might if they were face-to-face,” Lumumba-Kasongo said.

“It was one of the most awesome programs I’ve been a part of,” said Amy Pearlman ’09, president of the Hillel Jewish Student Union, who also attended last summer’s the trip. “Students asked the kind of questions that are viewed as ‘the stupid, ignorant questions,’ but the ones that are actually held by many other people.”

The success of the initial program motivated Lumumba-Kasongo to suggest holding a similar event on the Cornell campus.

The process began in November of last year, according to Lumumba-Kasongo. BSU invited nine different umbrella organizations, including Cornell University Gay-Straight Alliance, Interfraternity Council, Cornell Asian Pacific-Islander Students Union, La Asociación Latina and International Student Program Board, with the hope of having six members from each organization in attendance. Though this number was not met, each group was represented.

“When we were approached by BSU, we weren’t sure what to expect, but the build-up and question-writing was really interesting,” said Alex Perrotti ’10, a member of United for Peace and Justice in Palestine.

Lumumba-Kasongo explained that the event was not publicized outside of these groups in an effort to achieve equal representation in discussing the topics covered.

“These diversity discussions tend to be comprised of the same constituencies, [and therefore] discussion tends to lean a certain way,” she said.

After being split into three separate discussion groups of about 20 participants, each group’s pre-assigned moderator facilitated the forum. The groups engaged in 30 minutes of discussion before rotating and facing a new set of pre-selected questions.

The questions ranged from a myriad of topics, which stressed the key difference between the initial program and last night’s event — the latter provoked discussion that applied to other communities, outside of those purely Jewish or black.

Issues included friends’ opinions of inter-racial dating, negative stereotypes associated with the Greek system and reactions to the Jewish-American Prince/Princess stereotypes.

“Do white people feel that anything they do reflects back on their race?” asked one moderator.

“I don’t feel that way because I don’t consciously see [my skin color] as something that defines me,” answered one participant in the discussion.

To this, another student responded that in certain social contexts, non-minority students might consider themselves representatives of their cultures to the rest.

Other questions hit on the frequency with which homosexuals are subjected to homophobic remarks.

“You know who’s black, you know who’s Asian, but you don’t know who is gay,” one student pointed out, expressing the difference between types of minorities.

Still more themes included the reception of affirmative action from both minority and non-minority students, and images of race that are displayed on television. Students carried on a conversation concerning whether or not certain racial groups felt it appropriate to laugh at portrayals of their own race, to which many answered positively.

“What should you call people from the African Diaspora, that live in America: African-American, black-American, black?” one moderator asked.

“African-American excludes a lot of Caribbean people,” one student answered.

“As people whose ancestors were slaves, some do mind being called black; it all depends on the person, and how they react,” another student asserted.

Those eligible to answer specific questions did so, while similarly, those to whom the questions were not targeted also offered their feelings, fueling further discussion.

“For every answer that I gave, especially concerning religion, I found it led into a question I had about their group of people,” said Dan Baer ’08, a member of Hillel Jewish Student Union.

Several pauses for laughter occurred throughout the night, highlighting the friendly nature of discourse, though at times, points were challenged for clarification.

“Everybody spoke very candidly; they were very open,” said Prof. N’Dri T. Assie-Lumumba, Africana studies, one of the advisors of BSU.

Lumumba-Kasongo hopes to set the framework for future dialogues as she plans to propose the idea to Residential Life representatives. In fact, according to Lumumba-Kasongo, “Questions Out of a Hat” has the potential to follow the “Tapestry of Possibilities” performance given during Orientation Week for freshmen.

“It’s a kind of holistic discussion that students should be having everywhere,” said Randy Lariar ’08, who represented the Cornell Democrats.