Students discuss 'Shit People Say'

Last night, more than 40 Penn students gave their Twitter accounts and Facebook feeds a break and shared their thoughts about race in a live dialogue at the ARCH building.

Penn’s Race Dialogue Project collaborated with several student cultural groups at Penn to host a dialogue about race in light of the social virality of the “Shit People Say” videos.

This new social meme has recently been shared by Penn students on social media sites like Facebook, which inspired the RDP to host the event in the ARCH lobby.

Attendees included Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Program Associate Director Shannon Lundeen, the creators of the video “Shit Muslims Say,” and members of several student cultural groups including UMOJA, the Latino Coalition and Queer People of Color.

One of the primary purposes of the event was to engage students in discussions surrounding “issues of race that everyone thinks about but no one talks about,” explained College sophomore and event organizer Mariya Keselman.

The event began with refreshments, and was followed by clips from “Shit Girls Say,” “Shit White Guys Say to Brown Guys” and “Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls.” The dialogue began with questions as simple as “what were your initial reactions?” to ones as complicated as “how do the clips influence some of the biases in our society?”

Students discussed the limits of “funny” as opposed to “inappropriate” and questioned the value of this social trend and cultural phenomenon.

College sophomore Fabriana Larancuent was among the audience’s most active participants. Though she understands that the videos are often highly entertaining, Larancuent believes that they could easily be taken offensively.

“I don’t think they were created with the intention of offending anyone, though,” she added. “I just think that people get really wrapped up around these videos trying to fit every race into a box when these videos basically show how different we are even if we might be under the same umbrella.”

Wharton freshman Divanna Cedeno affirmed that these videos are not usually considered offensive to different cultural and religious groups because they are made by members of the group that is experiencing the stereotypes.

Lundeen explained that these videos could actually serve as a form of empowerment.

“They give the power back to the person who is disenfranchised and subordinated and being stereotyped,” she said. “The backlash from these videos can divest power away from those who are negatively stereotyping.”

College junior Seck Barry, however, expressed his concern about these videos.

“I’m not worried about kids our age seeing these, especially if they’ve interacted with people from all these different social groups … It’s the younger kids I’m concerned about,” he said. “These stereotypes may become ingrained in their thoughts.”

Wharton junior Sasha Lagombra was pleasantly surprised by the inclusive range of topics the attendees touched on.

“I expected it to be about how we felt about the videos but we ended up discussing issues as deep as how social media can affect the greater Penn community and the United States in general,” she said.

Also on theDP.com

Documentary sparks conversation about low-income students
Latino Coalition, SFS help translate aid materials for applicants
Graduate students seek to promote diversity

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