Spring Break
MCC event questions racism
Lauren KawamIssue date: 4/24/08 Section: News
Decades after the Civil Rights movement, race issues remain.
Project Unite, a student group at Mesa Community College, is sponsoring an event to promote racial awareness across campuses.
The Human Race Machine Event will be held on the Maricopa Community Campuses all week, culminating in a forum on various racial issues on Wednesday, April 23.
The event's central focus, though, is a machine that snaps your picture and morphs it so you can see yourself as six races: Asian, White, African, Hispanic, Middle Eastern and Indian.
"If seeing their eyes peering back at them through a face that is still their own, and yet different, and if they could think to themselves, 'Well, if there is no gene for race, what does that mean?' If that happened - even if it only happened to one person - I would be happy," said Crystal Lopez, the vice president of Project Unite and sociology and political science junior at Arizona State University and MCC.
Lopez said that it is people who have not experienced racism first-hand that believe it is a thing of the past.
"As college students, it may be the first time for many students to truly interact with a broad range of people of different races, social classes and experiences," she said.
Project Unite was created to give students genuine interaction with a variety of people. "When people can come together and understand each other's experiences, we will learn that race still plays a huge part in our lives, school, work, places of worship, public policies, the list goes on."
Through this event, Lopez said that she wants to gain a greater understanding of people's "views on race and their opinions on how it matters (or doesn't matter) to people in their own lives."
"The more I can understand the thoughts of others, the better I can understand how to reach out and communicate with them," she said.
The Human Race Machine event is geared toward inspiring questions in the visitors, Lopez said.
"If it brings thoughts and questions to mind that weren't there before, that's a great achievement."
Project Unite, a student group at Mesa Community College, is sponsoring an event to promote racial awareness across campuses.
The Human Race Machine Event will be held on the Maricopa Community Campuses all week, culminating in a forum on various racial issues on Wednesday, April 23.
The event's central focus, though, is a machine that snaps your picture and morphs it so you can see yourself as six races: Asian, White, African, Hispanic, Middle Eastern and Indian.
"If seeing their eyes peering back at them through a face that is still their own, and yet different, and if they could think to themselves, 'Well, if there is no gene for race, what does that mean?' If that happened - even if it only happened to one person - I would be happy," said Crystal Lopez, the vice president of Project Unite and sociology and political science junior at Arizona State University and MCC.
Lopez said that it is people who have not experienced racism first-hand that believe it is a thing of the past.
"As college students, it may be the first time for many students to truly interact with a broad range of people of different races, social classes and experiences," she said.
Project Unite was created to give students genuine interaction with a variety of people. "When people can come together and understand each other's experiences, we will learn that race still plays a huge part in our lives, school, work, places of worship, public policies, the list goes on."
Through this event, Lopez said that she wants to gain a greater understanding of people's "views on race and their opinions on how it matters (or doesn't matter) to people in their own lives."
"The more I can understand the thoughts of others, the better I can understand how to reach out and communicate with them," she said.
The Human Race Machine event is geared toward inspiring questions in the visitors, Lopez said.
"If it brings thoughts and questions to mind that weren't there before, that's a great achievement."
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