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Tuesdav. December 5, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Bird buff
Mike Wellman, director of building operations for the Adams Alumni Center, pollhes the Jahaywak statue in front of the alumni
center. Wellman was taking advantage of the unusually warm weather yesterday to give the statue one more shine before winter arrives.
Film used to teach class about racism
"These students have a deep concern about doing something about some of the problems that occur on this campus," Evans said.
By Cory S. Anderson Kansan staff writer
Evans said the film was the result of a project done every fall for his class. The class has about 720 students and meets in Hoch Auditorium.
Six different colors of make-up covered the face of the anonymous speaker as he told the story of his racist father.
The makeup represented skin colors of different races. The story represented his indoctrination into a judge's profession and gave the judge others solely by skin color.
Program continues with panel discussion
this father was a barber, Evans said, and at one point in time, when Blacks would come into his shop for haircuts, he would ceremoniously throw them out. During the civil rights movement, his father wouldn't throw Blacks out, but he would explain to them that he didn't have the tools to cut their hair. Then his father would explain to him, Evans said, that if his white customers thought his clippers had touched Black hair, he would lose all of his business.
The anonymous speaker was Daryl Evans, associate professor of sociology, and the story about his father was an introduction for a film on campus racism produced by several of his teaching assistants. The film, shown Thursday, is the first of a two-part program about racism being conducted in Evans' Sociology 104 class.
The film Evans introduced includes interviews with several students about campus racism, historic civil rights footage and movie clips and cartoons depicting racist stereotypes.
The next step will be a panel discussion on racism in 11 for 11
"One of the things that is real important to us is that if students are
going to be made to sit in a class this large, we want to give them something to compensate," he said. "I only give one direction to my teaching assistants and that is to do something creative that will help the students."
That is what the students who made the film had in mind.
"That was the point, to get real KU students to talk about what's going on here" said Tami Clark, one of the producers of the film. "We wanted to take a look at what's going on because a lot of students aren't aware of it."
Rebecca Merz film producer
'Racism is the result of ignorance, especially today. If we can get people to think about it, that will be a first step.'
Clark gave an example of how uninformed many students were. She said that when she told one of her friends that she was working on a film about racism, he asked her if racism really existed on campus.
Rebecca Merz, another of the film's producers, said that the purpose of the film was education.
"Racism is the result of ignorance, especially today," she said. "If we can get people to think about it, that will be a first step."
Representatives of the various minority student organizations on campus, including Black Student Union, the Hispanic American Leadership Organization and Hillel, will participate in the panel. Benvinci, also involved in production of the film, encouraged anyone who was interested to come to today's discussion.
"We're talking about minority groups," he said. "But it's not strictly a minority group affair. It has everything to do with all of us."
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