Students learn about others at Culture Shock
About 30 students spent one hour in someone else’s shoes Wednesday evening.
Culture Shock, sponsored by the Multicultural Greek Council, allowed students to share and dispel common stereotypes.
“The goal is to learn ways we can stop discriminating and using stereotypes to describe people – we’re more than just black, white and Asian,” said Grand Blanc senior Jessica Porritt.
A label was placed on the back of each participant and judging by the stereotypes other students said to them, the participant was to guess what race or category they were.
The labels ranged from “African-American” and “Polish” to “gay” and “skinny.”
“Just because someone may look a certain ethnicity, that does not mean they embrace their heritage,” said Saginaw sophomore Rodney Austin. “We need start thinking outside the box and think about what we say and do before we do it.”
Multicultural Greek Council president Miguel De Jesus said he became defensive of his label despite not knowing what he had and he also found it difficult to say offensive things to the student wearing his ethnic label.
“I’m Hispanic, and I couldn’t say anything offensive to her because then I would have been offending myself,” the Sturgis junior said.
Nicole Kamidoi was labeled a “tomboy” and she said the exercise made her wonder if people she saw on campus judged her as easily when they saw her.
“It made me think if someone were to look at me would they have already stereotyped me,” the Fort Gratiot senior said. “I became self-conscious about how I looked.”
After 20 minutes of racial jokes and stereotypes, students shared their thoughts on stereotypes and racism in Mount Pleasant.
Many students said coming to CMU was a culture shock to them because in their own communities they were the majority. De Jesus said that the things minorities do is often heavily scrutinized.
“We’re under a microscope, if we do good things they’re magnified but if we do something bad, it’s magnified to a completely different extent,” De Jesus said.
Southgate senior Andrew Walton said that the fight for civil rights is one continuous cycle that has just shifted from one group to another.
“Racism really hasn’t gone anywhere we just don’t talk about it the civil rights fight the African Americans went through in the 60s is the same fight the gays/lesbians are fighting right now,” Walton said.
Porritt said the message that MGC seemed to get across to the students participating.
“Just because someone may look different and sound different, does not mean that they are any different from us,” Porritt said.
