Black History Month

This year, Luther College was fortunate to hold the Black History Month Conference. This conference consisted of a weekend full of lectures dealing with issues concerning the African American community. I was fortunate to attend one of the lectures that was held during the conference. The lecturer's name Walter Benn Michael and he presented a lecture entitled "Model Minority." Michael spoke about race and the Luther community. He believes that ending racial injustice will not be the solution for ending all other injustices. He also claims that issues of poverty has to do with racial problems. He believes that "Ending racism will not end those problems." He states that the issues between races are fantasies that the American society created. Micheal goes on to relate the idea of race to the college setting. According to him, Asian-Americans are over-represented in American colleges and universities whereas blacks and African-Americans are under represented. His reasoning behind this is because Asian Americans are looked at as being "white" in the eyes of Americans. According to Michael, economic inequality is a bigger issue than racial disparities. He believes that if race was completely gone, there would still be inequalities in the United States.

I did not agree with much that Micheal said in his lecture. In my opinion, I believe that the economic issue for black Americans is a race issue. Many economic issues that are happening and happen in the United States are due to the issue of race. I believe if race and the issues behind race were abolished, many of the issues behind economic issues would be abolished as well.