FULLERTON : Racism Addressed by Student Panel

As Dr. Jerry Wright, an anthropology professor at Cal State Fullerton, initiated a student panel discussion about racism on Tuesday, he said he was both pleased and saddened by his invitation to the event.

As a college student at UC Berkeley during the 1960s, he said, he never thought that university campuses in the ‘90s would still be trying to improve race relations.

“There’s a sadness in doing this,” he told the capacity crowd of about 60 people in the university Women’s Center. “We are about to enter the year 2000, and we still have racism--and, of all places, on campus.”

The panel of four black students tackled seemingly age-old questions about racism and what could be done at the university level to help improve the situation, on campus and off. The hour-long discussion was one of a number of academic and social events at the university in observance of Black History Month.

Each of the panelists Wednesday said they had experienced racism on and off campus.

“There’re a lot of myths out there about black people,” said Margie Holland, a senior English major.

Panelist Karen Henson, also a senior, agreed.

“The problem is that it’s really propagandized,” she said, pointing to the number of black athletes portrayed in sports-gear advertisements. “It’s just pushed and pushed and pushed.”

Panel members agreed that a solution to racism is education.

Gregorio McDonald told the multi-ethnic crowd of mostly women that mandatory reading lists should be included in the university curriculum. Then, he said, bigots would “no longer be able to hide behind the shield of ignorance that keeps racism going.”

Most of the panelists are involved in a project with other students on campus to make ethnic studies courses mandatory for everyone.

Some audience members raised the issue of “reverse” discrimination. And the panel members agreed that people of all ethnicities needed to work together to help improve race relations.

Kevin Nguyen, a junior computer science major who attended the discussion, said that as an Asian-American student who has been faced with racist attitudes, he was interested in understanding how black students handled the situation.

“I just wanted to see how they related,” Nguyen said. “I realized a lot of white people here have a supportive mind. They encourage minorities to stand up for themselves.”