Marable encourages graduate students to examine their academic environment

Identifying race as an "unequal relationship between groups that only exists in our heads," University of Colorado Professor Manning Marable told dozens of graduate students to examine their educational environment. The workshop, sponsored by the Greenfield Intercultural Center and the Penn Women's Center, was aimed at graduate students studying teaching techniques. Marable discussed methods to eradicate prejudice "using education as a catalyst." Marable believes that instituting and using a "lexicon of discrimination" to make people think in different "languages" is critical in abolishing prejudice. Marable's proposed "lexicon" would include words such as stereotype, ethnocentricism, intolerance, anti-semitism, homophobia and racism. He said students would discover parallels between the different forms of prejudice in order to create a diverse community. Marable said he believes it is possible to think in a non-racist context, but "we must deconstruct whiteness" first. A society that values openess in education and socialization will allow its classrooms, as well the society at large to become prejudice-free, he added. "Specialness in every human spirit deserves expression," Marable said. "[Right-wing politicians] want to get back to when blacks were seen but not heard," Marable said. "Conservatives see the utility of fear and will continue to utilize it with people like Jerry Falwell, David Duke and Pat Buchanan." Many students linked Marable's discussion to the diversity debate on campus. In an attempt to explain the diversity issue, Jane Miller, a student at the Graduate School of Education, said "the word multiculturalism has become mainstream, and it is begining to lose its power." Marable said a multicultural society can only be achieved if every member of society contributes. "We all have a stake in this," he said. Marable added that colleges play an important role in the path to a diverse society. "[They must] work on students from the very begining and establish certain parameters of free expression in an environment of learning." Marable expressed the importance of working with faculty in proposed "human relations workshops" and training them to be open to new ideas and change. "Racism has been around for four centuries," Marable said, "It is going to take a while to get rid of it, but with practical steps, like changing central power relations in politics and the economy, and sensitizing whites to differences and pluralism, we will get rid of racial prejudices." Marable said that by the year 2026 minorities will out number whites in the U.S. and predicted that teachers will be seen as crusaders for multiculturalism.