UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesdav. March 2. 1994
5
I think heritage celebrations are effective.
I'm an African-American student, and I think Black History Month reminds Black people of the greatness and the accomplishments that we have achieved in this country when (for) so long we were told that we did nothing, and we were nothing but slaves. And that was the only contribution we had. We've had many more contributions than that.
And even if white people don't always realize what these contributions are, and if they don't celebrate Black History Month with us, it's still effective in that we recognize our culture and our heritage.
And that's the most important part — that's essentially what Black history is about. It is about Black Americans realizing what they have, done—and their contributions.
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Hitage month celebrations are important to the educational agenda here at the University of Kansas. They provide an opportunity to practice cross-cultural communications and to understand the similarities among different ethnic and gender groups. They should be supported by all people because they provide an education that cannot be received only in the classroom.
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First of all, I'm all for (heritage month) celebrations. But I'd have to say that they're going to have to focus on non-minority students.
The Kwanzaa celebration, for instance that was just going on last week, I noticed people handing out
On Friday, the Kansan asked for opinions on whether heritage celebrations were effective in educating students about other cultures. Following are the responses we received.
fliers to it. And they weren't handing them out to whites.
I'm in the School of Social Welfare, and we celebrate diversity. I think if there's any way it's going to be culturally integrated, it's going to have to have an open invitation to invite non-white — which in this case is non-minority — students to those kinds of celebrations.
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I don't go to multicultural events because, first, I'm not welcome at them. Secondly, my presence there is kind of antithetical to the purpose of the multicultural event.
I'm a busy computer science student, and I don't have time to go to them. As a computer science student, I've chosen to access the opportunities available here at KU to better myself. And, therefore, I'm not a member of this victim class that's celebrated at these events. So that's why I'm not welcome at them.
I suggest that these events be used as some kind of platform to encourage minority people to help themselves rather than just celebrating their victim status.
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I think that heritage celebrations are effective because they allow a culture to discover its own history and learn from the good and bad parts of it.
I personally find it irritating that they have their own month, and white men or white women or any other race doesn't. I'm talking about the Black month.
I don't find the fact that there are not enough statues with minorities on them a big deal. I think that they want more rights than white people have. They're probably going to get them, and I don't think it's fair.
It's reverse racism. And it's got to stop sometime.
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I think that the heritage celebrations are good because they do provide understanding — or if not understanding, at least awareness of other cultures, like with Black History Month.
I think that by doing it for a month it loses some of its effectiveness. I mean, there are other interests going on. You certainly couldn't add White Heritage Month. So it's kind of reverse discrimination.
About the minority statuses: We have enough things to spend our money on without complaining about that.
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