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Show C2 CIVIL RIGHTS Racial etiquette and overwhelm them with questions, but just a few to get to know someone better is just fine. By Vanessa Fraga Perkins News Editor Being a Spanish-Nigerian woman in Utah County, I've inevitably dealt a lot with race. I'm by no means an expert on it, but here is a list of common things I've come across throughout my years in the Valley. ask someone "what are you?" I :.. I . ,41 would probably answer by saying = "a human being" or "a woman." If co you're not sure of someone's back= ground or race, simply ask, "what is your ethnicity?" 0 treat people of other races and cultures as individuals. This may seem like a no brainer, but it is very easy to rely on popular stereotypes to try to understand people around us. This, however, can be a mistake because everyone thinks and act differently. Not all black people listen to hip-hop, not all Hispanics are Mexican and not all White people love country music. D racially offensive terms ever, ...1.even use .IN if you're referring to your own = race. It's demeaning, disrespectful and unnecessary. If you don't want other races using those terms, don't use them yourself. Q 0 ask people of different cultures questions about where they come from. It's natural to be curious, so as long as you're respectful and sincere, it's okay to inquire about one's background. That doesn't mean you should hound them D ever say, "you people." Nothing good can even come from it, and = usually what follows "you people" isn't very nice. No one likes it, it's offensive and there's no need for it. :17. wi■fi Q 0 think before you speak. Race can be a very touchy subject and some people can be really sensitive about it. Saying the first thing that comes to mind is usually the worst thing you can do and it often makes people look ignorant. D :I° N. assume. You know what they say about people who assume, so don't ml■° do it. Just like you wouldn't assume = a woman is pregnant, you don't asCD sume you know something about a i=k person by just looking at them. Skin and features come in many different shapes and sizes, and not just in the U.S. Europeans, Africans, Asians, Hispanics, etc., come in all shades. Someone who you may think is African could really be Hispanic, while someone you may think is Hispanic could be mixed. It can get confusing, so you'd be wise to not assume. 0 remember you can't please everyone. Some people will choose to be offended regardless of what you do, and you can't help that. As long as you're respectful and considerate, don't take it personal. D With Utah's diversity growing, many students are encountering more people from different backgrounds for the first time. Photo by C,onner Allen/UVU Review Is Utah behind in diversity? By Tiffany Thatcher Co Editor of Special Section - If you ask an economist, Utah is behind. If you ask a fashion designer Utah is behind. If you ask a student from out of state how Utah does when it comes to minority races they might also say Utah is behind. According to Eric Lowe, a UVU student from Virginia near DC, Utah does seem to have differing attitudes about minority races. "Where I come from people see a group of minorities in public and get irritated," Lowe said. "But here there is not very much diversity so people don't think about it so much." Many students who have been out of state note that the main problem is not the same type of racism as some areas of the United States. It is not hate that it stems from, but ignorance. Rebecca Walker, a UVU student from New Jersey is one who believes this is true. "The east has so much diversity. Here there is much less so it just catches your eye more," Walker said. Robbin Anthony, assistant media coordinator for the UVU Review said, the amount of diversity has changed a lot in Utah Valley since she has lived here. "I have lived in Utah County my entire life, and met my first African American when I was over thirty. I don't want my grand children to be raised without diversity." Vanessa Perkins, news editor of the UVU Review, is a student from out of state. She has lived in the valley for several years and is amazed at how much people don't know about race. "I had a room mate who was casually telling a story about an asian person except she kept using the word oriental." Perkins said. "I told her that it is not good to say that, it hasn't been an appropriate term for years, and she just brushed it off. It was interesting to me that not only did she not know what correct term to use but she also didn't seem to understand the importance of it." Perhaps Utah will catch up in the amount of diversity it has, and with the increase in diversity, hopefully attitudes will change and improve along with those numbers. iterature section' or hasn't seen them, or defines the bubble by whiteness, one is doing a great disservice to one's own self. Some people think that the solution to the lack of exposure to minority literature should be solved by having a course that "samples" different cultures by reading a little bit from authors representative of their genre. This solution misses the boat entirely. One of the know how I can relate By Tiffany Thatcher Special Section Co-Editor UVU needs an official African American Literature class. Usually, it is unconvincing to argue for anything by saying, "everybody else is doing it" but, the fact is, the majority of universities in the country have a class offered with this title and the fact that UVU does not is unsettling. There have been courses that just teach African American literature at this school but the course titles have been "Multi cultural Literature Studies" and "Studies of the American Novel" etc. It takes quite a bit of cour- age for professors to take on these courses, choose the reading material and make it exclusive to African American Literature. One professor in the English department has brilliantly done this quite a few times and is often met with resistance from students who say things like, "This course is required for my major and I want to study AMERICAN literature, not African American literature." Because, of course, African Americans aren't American. The first day of some of these courses consist of teachers having to justify their reasoning for course material. Some students have said, "I don't think I should be required to read this because I don't to this material." As a black woman on this campus, I'm often intrigued by this argument because having to read classic literature written by white people all of the time, I never presuppose that what I'm reading is "unrelateable." If it was, I would have dropped out of school a long time ago. I was surprised when one of the white people in one of these classes said, "I'm taking this class because most of my friends aren't white... I'm kind of the black sheep of my family." As though taking a minority literature class is outside of the norm and a blatant act of rebellion. Someone else said, "I'm in this class because I'm not from here and I want to get out of the Utah bubble." Again, this dismisses the fact that within the Utah bubble are minorities numbering in the thousands. If one doesn't know them they can now throw your name around and prove they aren't racist. The only way to lighten the load on authors who always feel these pressures is to widen the scope of exposure. When one goes to a book store, there isn't a section that is called, "white literature" because that would include everything. It would include romance novels and how to manuals and One of the problems of racism is the reduction of an entire kind of people to a meager and unapologetic stereotype. problems of racism is the reduction of an entire kind of people to a meager and unapologetic stereotype. The idea that one author can wholly represent all others of their race and be presented to specifically, white people, and represent what their race happens to think is an absolute farce. It's a hard cross to bear to be the academically elected "Moses" liberating the white folks from ignorance because children books and reference guides and poetry. Problems would inevitably arrive if we tried to categorize what white literature consists of. Should it mean that the author is white? Should it mean that they are talking about the 'white experience?' What is the 'white experience' exactly? The absurdity of this question shouldn't be any less absurd when one considers "the black experience" but somehow people use this phrase surpisingly often. Should white literature be a particular way of talking? What if the author was born in Africa but has white parents? What if they are African American but have white skin and identify more with whiteness than with blackness whatever those two things mean? Minority literature encounters the same problems. The scope of the themes and the thoughts and the kinds of writing are just as diverse and it is counterproductive to lump them all together. Having a class that is officially called, "African American Literature" or "Latin Literature" or "Asian Literature" would also attract the kinds of people who need and desire to study these tropes. One might think, "no one NEEDS to study " but in fact, there's a dire need for minorities to congregate and talk about the literature and engage with each other. Finding others like you is an important part of surviving and excelling in college. There's simply no reason for these courses to not be offered. To graduate with a degree in English and not have to take an African American Literature course is to miss out on an astounding opportunity to experience what literature does best which is to destabilize the distinctions between what "self" is and what "other" is. Having a course on certain kinds of minority literature would help facilitate the understanding that "others" might not be as "other" as some think. |