Because race isn’t important unless melodrama is involved
CVK
I really shouldn’t make fun of this but I can’t help myself. I just read about this event at Oklahoma State University called “the Tunnel of Oppression.” Students were guided through different rooms where actors portrayed different scenarios representing various kinds of “religious, racial, physical and emotional abuse.”
The first room in the Tunnel of Oppression gave insight as to the difficulty that some people in interracial relationships have to face when dealing with racism from family, friends and even society…
The fourth room in the tunnel portrayed a college student coming back from a date and her date not wanting to take no for an answer. The scene ended with the screaming woman fighting not to be raped…
The second to last room of the night addressed the controversial issue of race. Tensions were thick while students watched an argument between college students based on race.
The last scene of the night began with a college student talking on the phone, telling the person on the other end how much stress he was going through at college. When the conversation ended, he hung up the phone, took out a gun and pulled the trigger.
Uh… how do these over-the-top, melodramatic scenes give you any insight into the realities of racism and rape and stress? I feel like this is just another example of how people only know how to talk about race in the most unrealistic, melodramatic terms.
Why does race have to be addressed in a scene where students are arguing about it? How often does that kind of in-your-face confrontation really happen? It seems to me that on college campuses, racism frequently manifests itself in self-segregation and talking sh&* about other racial groups behind their backs. But I guess Oklahoma State University takes the Bruno Wurgel approach: racism isn’t real unless it involves physical abuse and racial slurs.
Oh, and one more thing. “Tunnel of Oppression?” Sounds more like the “Tunnel of Embarrassingly Bad Lifetime Movies” to me.
the joy princess wrote:
Sometime ago now, there was a sexual harassment exhibit/media installation in NY that did something akin to what I guess that school is trying to get at with the tunnel of oppression. Except it involved the funny-irritating to threatening-violent levels of catcalling women have experienced so men could get to see and sort of feel the “street terrorism” women put up with.
Seemed like it was all too obvious to me, but some men were surprised, like, damn, guys really just shout out stuff like that!
Erm, yeah.
Posted 11 May 2006 at 10:59 am ¶
mtevc wrote:
oh baby…take me to the tunnel of oppression…sounds like an amusement ride to deprogram klan members…what fun
Posted 12 May 2006 at 9:01 am ¶
gatamala wrote:
I guess it’s the counterpart to the hall of tolerance
Posted 12 May 2006 at 11:11 am ¶
Lyonside wrote:
The problem w/ all of this is that if someone DOESN’T go out verbally or physically attacking someone, but has negative views of others based on gender, orientation, disability, ethnicity, etc., then they feel innocent.
Real bias is much more subtle. This is about as subtle as a Lifetime Movie.
Posted 13 May 2006 at 10:27 am ¶
Hoodwinked wrote:
tunnel of oppression is a program started at Northwestern that is now done at colleges across the nation. The format is similar but each school puts their own spin on it. There has always been controversy about it for different reasons but as someone who processes the experience with the students–I can tell you that it gets them talking. There is a lot of productive conversation and most students seem to come away with an experience they will remember. Again, there are different ways to construct the program so some scenarios might work better than others. At the three schools I have seen it at–they use a combination of actual incidents from the school–active and passive “scenarios”.
Posted 19 May 2006 at 10:18 am ¶