Even I, as a relatively educated and enlightened though admittedly white male, thought maybe things changed when we got a black president. I thought we had gotten to the point where, while we would still notice skin color, it might not affect how we interacted with each other.
Obviously, I was wrong. I base this partly on national events and partly on how I have become even more educated in the facts about race since the presidential election.
Western Connecticut State University lets me teach a writing class in which we study the Civil Rights era in the U.S. as fodder for research assignments. My students this semester frankly and honestly discuss race issues as they have experienced them.
It turns out that as a nation we are capable of electing a black man as president but not capable of eliminating the police practice of stopping young black and Latino males every two to four weeks as they drive through town. According to my students, the cops stop them, check out the car, and let them go. One of the white students says he was also stopped recently, and the only reason for it that he can think of is that he had some Latino friends in the car. My student was taken out of the car and handcuffed, he said, before he was released without charges and sent on his way. This young man plans to become a police officer himself.
We have admitted that race and the related issues can be difficult to talk about — most of us don’t too often and not in much depth. But we have all agreed that it’s important to discuss and we seem to understand each other better as a result.
AT 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 6, WestConn will sponsor a similar event that everyone can attend.
It’s called “The American divide? A discussion of the Henry Louis Gates incident that sparked a national debate.”
Dr. George Coleman, deputy commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Education will chair the discussion, which will be held in Ives Concert Hall, in White Hall on WestConn’s Midtown campus at 181 White St. in Danbury.
Gates, of course, is the Harvard professor who was arrested in his own home after he broke in when he forgot his front-door key. Gates accused the arresting officer of racism and you might recall that President Obama made a comment about the incident during a press conference.
Panelists include Al Baker, the Danbury police chief, Glenn Cassis, the executive director of the Connecticut African-American Affairs Commission; David Dear, publisher of The News-Times; Kerri Forrest, senior producer of “The Early Show” on CBS; Alice Hyman, well-known in Danbury as a community leader; Oluwole Owoye, a WCSU economics professor; and Harold Schramm, a WCSU professor emeritus of justice and law administration.
We looked for reasonable people who could talk intelligently about Gates’ arrest from different perspectives — the press, the neighbors, the police, the Constitution — and prompt the rest of us to think deeply about an issue that has the potential to bind or rip apart the country.
You should attend. It’s free. You’ll feel like you’re part of something important.
Follow WCSU at www.wcsu.edu, at facebook.com/westconn and at twitter.com/westconn
Follow Paul Steinmetz at facebook.com/steinmetzp and at twitter.com/pstein
I thought the conversation was interesting. Thank you WCSU for yet again taking the lead .
Comment by kwright — October 6th, 2009 @ 10:12 pm