Since spring, Janice Dow and Mansi Kothari, the Co-Directors of Penn’s Race Dialogue Project, have been working to “refound the organization, to build it from the ground up,” Dow said.
Under Dow and Kothari’s leadership, a rising College senior and junior respectively, from now on RDP — sponsored by Penn’s Greenfield Intercultural Center out of the office of the Vice Provost for University Life — will function as a grassroots organization aiming to compel the average student to think about race.
Dow explained, that beginning this fall RDP will focus on an annual theme, which will help narrow the broad topic of race.
This year’s theme will be race confessions. Stemming from the concept of restorative justice, Kothari said, this theme will allow RDP to cover a range of historical events — from the Holocaust to apartheid to the Civil Rights movement.
“We’re trying to get people to think about race at a deeper level,” she said. “This theme brings what people really feel about [race] into the open.”
In the fall, the group will produce an art installation on campus centered around race confessions and in the spring RDP will present a symposium or event series.
Taking a cue from RDP groups of the past — which launched an on-campus “White Week” and produced a documentary about diversity, among other unique initiatives — Dow and Kothari plan to undertake controversial projects in addition to their two main showcases of the year.
“It’s not exactly a guerilla movement,” Dow said of the RDP she envisions, “but we’ll be reaching out to people in unconventional ways.”
Sean Vereen — who served as the RDP’s first advisor for two years and helped create both White Week and the documentary — expressed high hopes for this year’s projects.
“I hope that the group continues to play a role to innovate and push the envelope” around the discussion of race, Vereen, currently an Associate Dean of Admissions, wrote in an e-mail.
The RDP’s programming will not be the organization’s only distinction this year.
In the past members of RDP typically flow naturally from the Greenfield’s Programs for Awareness in Cultural Education course. Starting this year the group will have an official membership structure which will include board members, individual committee members, liaisons from other student groups and general members.
Dow and Kothari began recruiting members this past spring and will finalize the group’s structure by the fall, after all applications for membership have been submitted.
“One of the most important things is sustainability,” Dow said. “We want the group to be able to continue once we graduate.”
Greenfield Director Valerie Decruz wrote in an e-mail that she is thrilled by Dow and Kothari’s ideas for a reinvigorated RDP. “I am really excited by their enthusiasm, energy and more importantly their vision to increase the visibility of the project.”
