"What’s Race Got to Do with It?”
By: Lawrence J. Mrozek
Happy New Year, CSJE!
What’s Race Got to Do with It? (Cheng, 2006) is the second training video released by California Newsreel about an intergroup dialogue group for college students, this one at the University of California, Berkeley. The dialogue group met for 16 weeks and consisted of an ethnically diverse group of students discussing their campus and societal experiences. In the DVD the participants also examined social justice issues related to power and privilege.
One of the benefits of this video is that it goes beyond Black/White issues and presents the stories of an ethnically diverse group. Many of the training videos currently available deal only with that racial dichotomy, which can be marginalizing for other student identities. What is presented here is a rich discussion of a variety of life experiences that is open and honest. Many SJ trainers have facilitated dialogues where there is hesitancy among the participants to get to the “real” issues. In What’s Race Got to Do with It? participants are not afraid to express their feelings and frustrations of having to face daily oppressions on campus and in the systemic culture. The participants from privileged backgrounds are also open about how they are dealing with this increased awareness as a result of the dialogue.
Although the group was diverse, the school had a very small percentage of African American or Black and Latino/Latina students. This demographic characteristic is similar to that of African American or Black and Latino/Latina students at Predominately White Institutions, which enhances the relevance for students at those institutions. On this issue, one African American woman describes her school experience in that, “Racism really crops up in our low numbers. There’s 94 Black freshmen this year. People don’t care about our low numbers.” (“What’s Race Got,” 2006, para. 2).
The DVD is only 47 minutes and is divided into scenes with distinct topics, which makes it very flexible for use in a variety of training situations. Although it may have been interesting to see even more of the experience the content is sufficient to start a rich discussion among viewers. There is also a web site available at http://www.whatsrace.org/ that includes transcripts from the film, a facilitator’s guide, a toolkit and other resources. To order the DVD contact:
California Newsreel
Order Department
P.O. Box 2284
South Burlington, VT 05407-2284
phone: 877-811-7495
fax: 802-846-1850
e-mail: contact@newsreel.org
References:
Cheng, J. (Producer & Director). (2006). What's race got to do with it? [DVD]. USA: California Newsreel.
What's race got to do with it? Film transcript. (2006). What's race got to do with it? Social disparities and student success. Retrieved from http://www.whatsrace.org/pages /transcriptfilm. htm
Lawrence J. Mrozek, is a faculty member at Wright State University in Dayton, OH and serves as publications coordinator for CSJE.
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Message from the Chair
The Millenial Pitfall
"What's Race Got to Do with It?"
Education, Citizenship & Social Justice
Naming the Elephant in the Room: Intersections of Identity and Positionality in the Work Place
Dial-a-Dialogue
2010 Convention
Call for Manuscripts
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The Newsletter: Winter 2010
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