Project addresses puzzle of racism

2.4.10 / Features / By Michael Collins

Students gather to listen to Brown’s race project and interview footage. (Justin Gmoser / The Clarion Call)

Racial or ethnical identification can be a sensitive issue.

Basketball “great” Michael Jordan once said, “I realize that I’m black, but I like to be viewed as a person, and this is everybody’s wish.”

Michael James Brown poses questions about race and ethnicity in his Other Awareness Project. The writer and producer spoke on the subject Feb. 1 in Hart Chapel at Clarion University.

Brown, a writer and producer, said the major goal of his project is to end putting people into racial groups.

Brown explained his project is designed and created for the current generation of college students because they have the best combination of actual experience and resources to end the discussion concerning the so-called perpetual puzzle that is racism.

Brown traveled to cities in the United States, interviewing complete strangers about race.

He shot 15 hours of interview footage and did all the editing himself.

His project, which includes discussions with many different people all across the country, shows that there is no legal definition of what it means to be white or black. It concludes that it doesn’t make much sense to include racial classifications on most state and federal forms.

Brown said, “that seeing people for more than the color of their skin has already happened for him, and for most people.”

In his opinion, mass media, marketing, entertainment and government are stuck in a rut, using old models and methods for gathering and distributing information and resources.
Sometimes the media seems to take advantage of these racial categories for good ratings, he said.

They tend to blow things out of proportion and focus on the negatives. They show news of racist events more than people doing good and getting along. People get the wrong idea when they see a single example on the news of some kind of racial conflict, Brown said.

The writer and producer pointed out that all the people in the world are considered to be one race even though they might have different ethnicities or cultural backgrounds.

He defined ethnicity as how people celebrate things. People might have different colored skin, but that is not what defines them, he said. Brown used several humorous quips to make his point about racial identification.

“Have you ever heard of the NAACP?” he continued.

“What does that acronym stand for? How much do you think it would cost the NAACP to change its name to the NAAAP — National Association for the Advancement of All People?”

“If it is very important to keep track of where people came from, how come athletes don’t have hyphenated names on their jerseys when they are bought and sold from team to team? Shouldn’t Allen Iverson’s basketball jersey read Sixer-Nugget?” he said.

Brown’s presentation opened up the eyes of many students listening in the audience. Several students reported the presentation was interesting and that they had never really thought about race and how they identify themselves.

At the end of the presentation, Brown asked people to list the three most important things in their lives. None of the answers had anything to do with racial background.

Brown explained that his project became a film project because he noticed that when he would talk with people who called themselves “white,” they would say, “I understand what you are saying, but what do ‘black’ people think about what you are saying?”

When he talked with people who called themselves “black,” they would say, “I completely understand what you are saying, but you will never get “white” people to go for something like that.

He said, “Really?” “Let’s give it a shot!”

Michael Collins is a staff features writer for The Call.

Tags: Michael Brown, Racism, Top Story |