MU honors MLK Day with guest speaker

Williams discussed the racial gap in relation to Haiti.

By Ken Venkamah

Published Jan. 29, 2010

Patricia J. Williams, a law professor at Columbia University and columnist for The Nation magazine, spoke on constitutional and civil rights Wednesday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Williams was up against a formidable opponent for viewership; President Barack Obama's State of the Union address began in the middle of her lecture. Several students, especially education majors, filled Stotler Lounge to listen to Williams' talk about "Engaging the Community: Closing the Achievement Gap."

Williams also spoke about the racial divide she said still exists in America to some degree.

Williams said the achievement gap in the nation's high schools among students of different races is mostly blown out of proportion. She said the difference in high school senior success rates between white students, 32 percent, and black students, 29 percent, is a mere 3 percent.

"The achievement gap about which we ought to be most concerned, is the achievement gap between American students and the rest of the industrialized world," she said.

Poor handling of disasters in Haiti and New Orleans, shows racial injustices still exist, Williams said.

Williams attributes much of that racial gap to an under-appreciation of the black culture.

The traditional culture of the black community in New Orleans is being suffocated, Williams said, by a new ordinance that has imposed a $5,000 permit fee for those families who want to host the funerals of their dear ones on the streets of New Orleans accompanied by a jazz band. Those practices were common practice before the flood.

Williams, who spent several days last year in New Orleans for her work, deplored the reality of homelessness, exile and deprivation New Orleans has faced since Hurricane Katrina, which correlates to the tragedies in Haiti.

"If it is true that families can be broken up as a means of crowd control, then perhaps just a little public discussion might be important," Williams said. "If it is true that, for example, white foreign nationals have a higher priority than black sovereign citizens, to what then do we pledge allegiance?"

Stereotypical perceptions still exist in many people's minds and lead to poor judgment, Williams said. Photos in newspapers and on television of black men in New Orleans and Haiti carrying gunnies of rice from a crumbled store still connote looting and vandalism, when many are only looking for food to survive.

"The pictures are described in such similar language, and therefore the evocations of the captions in the newspapers are familiar, even though these events are each unique," she said. "And it is entirely familiar in a way that sounds predestined."

Williams said that racial divide is not the fault of only one group but can be created by the group itself.

Williams also cited many good works, such as those of Brad Pitt in building new homes for homeless people in New Orleans.

Junior Matt Maxon attended the lecture to receive extra credit for a class.

"When I came, I did not know very much what the lecture is going to be on," Maxon said. "But I learned that there's not much of a gap between students of different ethnic backgrounds and how that certain divide can be narrowed."