Black Culture Awareness Week prompts discussion

The week's events focused on the complexity of equality.

By Dreana Johnson

Published Nov. 13, 2009

This week, the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center provided public events all centered around one theme: the Complexity of Equality. Events focused on black history and culture education.

MU Black Culture Week originated in 1992 and has since provided students and the community with different activities and events to give insight and information on African-American culture and history.

The 17th annual MU Black Culture Awareness Week began Nov. 8 with a soul food dinner.

Every day this week, there has been an event going on in the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center, from contests to forums about issues on campus.

Black Culture Center Director Nathan Stephens said he came up with each event by looking at issues on campus.

"We got feedback from our student programming committee," Stephens said. "That's why we had Play the Part on Monday. We tried to mix a little bit of traditional history with what is going on currently."

Play the Part was held Monday in the Black Culture Center. Contestants competed for a prize by performing songs and dancing. Sophomore Erica Terry, the first place winner, said the show went well.

"I like the fact that they incorporated a variety of arts, not only singing, but dance as well," Terry said. "It was a tribute to the good things of the R&B and Hip-Hop culture."

The State of Black Mizzou occurred Wednesday. This event gave students the opportunity to talk with other students as well as administrators about issues and problems on campus. The event also included a panel of experts who shared stories about how they handled individual situations.

One of the main issues discussed was students helping and communicating with their peers.

Junior Alex Holley, one of the panelists at the event, said she is willing to communicate more to help with this issue.

"I have now seen some of the issues that people had so I am going to be more cautious and aware," Holley said. "Now I can act towards the issues and try to change or make solutions to them."

Junior Bryan Like, another panelist, said students could help with some of the issues by mentoring.

"I believe that there is a fall out in leadership," Like said, "When leadership is on top of their work, then the students will be more interactive and will have a bigger purpose. Things should be good from there."

Another event held Thursday called Sambo, Mammy and Black Face Presentation was an open discussion and presentation on the history of blackface and why is it so offensive to most black people.

Stephens said he hoped students learned about some issues of race on campus and can now try to change these for the better.

"Hopefully the students learn some of the history of blacks in arts and some of the issues on campus," Stephens said. "I think it was a subconscious attempt to find out other collective issues with the things going on."

Black Culture Awareness Week will end Friday with spoken word, music and games for participants.