- By -Staff
- Around Town
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After seeing the PBS film 'Race: The Power of an Illusion' in Ithaca, two Lansing women wanted to facilitate a conversation about race in Lansing as well. Wednesday Barbara Barry and Andra Benson sponsored a showing of the first episode of the series at All Saints Catholic Church."We both had seen the film," Barry says. "I felt it was really an interesting view. Very positive, but also a very interesting way of looking at the assumptions that we make about race. It certainly opened my eyes to some of the things that I had thought were taken as given. It made me realize that I tend to look at the world through a very narrow prism. This helped me see how others may view the racial situation and the things that have caused it in this country."
Barry says the film is part of an initiative called 'Understanding To Overcome'. The idea is to illustrate how race affects all of our lives, not just the lives of people of color, with the goal of overcoming narrow assumptions about people who look different.
"The privilege of having college admissions loaded toward one group makes a lot of people angry," notes Barry. "One of the things the film addresses is that we have had built into our system privileges on the other side. I certainly didn't see that myself. Just being born with white skin, I already come with a whole set of privileges that I don't even think about. We need to look at that and weigh them and see how that has affected the way other people look at us."
Part 1 was viewed Wednesday. The episode covers genetics. The second part, shown on October 30, shows how some of the things that came with slavery have been legitimized in our judicial system, and the third, which will be viewed November 6th, explores what race is in politics, economics and our culture. Wach of the three presentations are followed by discussions facilitated by Tommy Beers from the Multicultural Resource Center of Cooperative Extension. All viewings are at All Saints Catholic Church in Lansing from 7pm to 9pm.
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