Post Racial America Summary
The event that we attended in class was, "Revisiting Racism: Equity, Diversity & Inclusion in "Post Racial America" - Guest Speaker Bryant K. Smith." His Motto was "make good people great, and great people memorable." Mr. Smith spoke about various things such as race, whiteness, othering theory, pop cultures, oversimplification of United States History and how all those play a role in contemporary racism. He "revisited them," by giving us information on each topic. The topics that stood out to me were race and the oversimplification of United States History it was interesting to see how they play a role in how racism is seen in our society. The examples that Mr. Smith used in order to educate us on these topics were very eyeopening, for the
…show more content…
It also reminded me of an MPR program that was talking about George Town's past that involved owning slaves to raise money for scholarships that were given to white folks. The show hosts were talking about how the school took a few years to own up to their past because it was somewhat of an embarrassing situation. This made me question if that is one of the reasons why history is still taught inaccurately because people are embarrassed to own up to their mistakes which leads racism to be institutionalized in our society. The other topic he touched that stuck out to me was the topic of race in general, before attending the lecture I was not aware that some people believed in "reverse racism," which basically means "Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism on the basis of race directed against a member of a dominant or privileged racial group" (oxforddictionaries.com). A video was shown to us that was an interview of a man who wanted to "make America white again," this video shocked me because in today's society I would not expect for our society to be okay with this man putting up billboards that said that. Yes, I get that we have freedom of speech but should there not be a limit on speech when your speech degrades another person on something superficial such as skin
It also reminded me of an MPR program that was talking about George Town's past that involved owning slaves to raise money for scholarships that were given to white folks. The show hosts were talking about how the school took a few years to own up to their past because it was somewhat of an embarrassing situation. This made me question if that is one of the reasons why history is still taught inaccurately because people are embarrassed to own up to their mistakes which leads racism to be institutionalized in our society. The other topic he touched that stuck out to me was the topic of race in general, before attending the lecture I was not aware that some people believed in "reverse racism," which basically means "Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism on the basis of race directed against a member of a dominant or privileged racial group" (oxforddictionaries.com). A video was shown to us that was an interview of a man who wanted to "make America white again," this video shocked me because in today's society I would not expect for our society to be okay with this man putting up billboards that said that. Yes, I get that we have freedom of speech but should there not be a limit on speech when your speech degrades another person on something superficial such as skin