"The purpose of higher education should be to get rid of racism, not to declare the subject off limits." These words, uttered by keynote speaker Dr. Bonnie TuSmith (left), associate professor of English at Northeastern University, expressed the intent of "Teaching and Learning Race/Ethnicity in Higher Education," a two-day conference held recently at St. Francis College in Manhattan, co-sponsored with the Centre for the Study of Anthropology, Sociology, and Politics at the University of Birmingham, England.

The conference got off to a great start with a screening of "Under the Skin of Multiculturalism," directed by Keith Radley and Steve Spencer. This film contained brief sequences on racism to be used as visual tools in addition to written material when teaching multiculturalism.

The conference went on to feature five panel discussions, each of which provided valuable insight into how issues of race and ethnicity are being taught, how students learn the topic, and how to accomplish both tasks more effectively.

One panel included Dr. Malcolm Cumberbatch (right), who was born in Barbados and is now a political sociologist teaching at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. His topic was The Role of the Black Instructor.

After citing several different approaches to teaching racism, Cumberbatch noted that too often instructors talk about this or that theory and the white students, who are only about 19 years old, just sit there because they don’t really understand what's going on as to racism and they just want to pass the class. "So what we Black lecturers have to do is bring the concept alive by bringing to it our lived experiences," Cumberbatch said. "Very often, the human element has been taken out of the concept and we have to put real people back in. We bring theory to life. We tell students, ‘Listen, this has happened to me, my family, to other people I know in my community.’ We have students see that racism is real, and it’s happening now."

Ronald Tyson (right), an instructor at Raritan Valley Community College in New Jersey, spoke about his experience as a Black teacher of English who daily encounters – both inside and outside of the classroom - the perception that "African American male English teacher" is a contradiction in terms. Tyson pulled no punches as he told of students being too surprised that he’s so knowledgeable about his subject, and about always having to be well dressed on campus so he isn’t mistaken for a janitor.

Among the many other exceptional panelists was Dr. Flora Keshishian (below left), an Armenian from Iran teaching at St. John’s University, who spoke about the fact that you can't divorce discussion of economics and capitalism from discussion of racism. And there was Shirin Housee, a senior lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton, UK, who explored ways of reading racism and "Islamophobia" in the media and her belief that classroom debate really can make inroads into bigoted perceptions engendered by media.

During dinner, Dr. Max Farrar from Leeds Metropolitan University, UK, gave an outstanding talk on Identity, Emotion and Values in Teaching "Race." It led to a very meaningful discussion of racial humor in which participants expressed opinions all the way from, "If a joke is really funny it should be told," to "No one should make jokes of any kind having to do with race." Farrar stated his own opinion that "a good joke is like good sex: it has to be consensual and mutual."

Also featured at the conference was the exhibit All of Us Are Related, Each of Us Is Unique. This exhibit challenged the notion of human "races," showing how alike all humans are and how our differences are clearly not racial in any biological sense of the word.

There was also a judging of the research posters created by St. Francis students for an exhibit on race, ethnicity, and "minority" groups. First place went to the poster by Diego Martinez, Dina-Marie Florez, and Richard Loutfi titled Contemporary Perspectives on Immigration and Culture. It dealt with the question of whether immigrants embrace or lose their culture while adapting in New York City.

Accepting the award on behalf of his colleagues was Lebanese American Richard Loutfi (above left) who stated, "Every year New York City receives 200,000 new immigrants, and there is a growing concern about how to assimilate and value our new American culture while also trying to retain the culture from our immigrant backgrounds."

The conference, which was co-chaired by Drs. Emily Horowitz (left) and Athena Devlin, concluded as it began – with a film. Monique Walton’s  (right) "Still Black, At Yale" chronicled Black experiences at this elite college by challenging participants to reassess their own notions of Blackness, identity, and belonging.

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