Forum addresses race relations

A group of about 40 concerned students gathered Thursday night in Vance Hall for an open forum on race relations at Penn, in the third segment of last week's Campus Organized Lectures on Racial Sensitivity. Dialogue between audience members began after a brainstorming session, which yielded a list of topics relevant to the issue of race relations on campus. These topics included multiculturalism, forced integration, cultural identity and assigned housing. Wharton junior Mitch Lucas, who addressed the realistic potential for integration in today's society based on his own experiences, was the first to speak. "In this society, integration is assumed to be assimilation," he said. "You can't just change into somebody completely different." Wharton junior and Black Inter-Greek Council President Wayne Wilson added that the choice of friends based on background is a result of the desire for an immediate "comfort level" with one's peers. But, graduate student M. J. Warrender, a Programs for Awareness in Cultural Education peer facilitator, stressed the importance of "looking at individuals as human beings, seeing similarities [rather than differences]." College sophomore Chris Greene said he thinks integration is not possible on a social level. "People are always going to separate into groups where they feel comfortable," he added. "If groups want to separate, it's not the University's responsibility to make them come together [through assigned housing]." Wharton senior Jim Padilla also discussed integration. "Integration doesn't work because people think it's a solution to social ills," he said. "It's an amoral social device used for appeasement." Students then debated the importance of starting from a common base when attempting to forge interracial and multicultural relationships, concluding that a strong sense of self is the first and most important factor. Some audience members spoke about their own experiences with discrimination and dissimilarity while adjusting to life at the University. "We all have problems assimilating in our own ways," said College sophomore Jessica Sadler. "It's hard to sort out who you are, regardless of what you are." College sophomore Marina Field, another PACE facilitator, expressed a slightly different opinion. "We want to understand each other, not just be diverse -- to get to a point where everyone has an understanding of everyone else's culture," she said. "We want to be acculturated, not assimilated."

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