Healani Brennan
Staff Writer
On Jan. 14 Eric Davis graced our halls with his wit and humor, spreading wise words to the students who attended his lecture. Using examples including Common and Martin Luther King Jr., he taught us all a little bit about diversity and culture.
Davis was previously a professor at Pierce College but moved on to schools such as Green River and Bellevue. It’s unfortunate that he’s teaching elsewhere as his lecture was enlightening in many ways.
What is culture to you? This is a question he asked the audience, and it means something different to everyone. He used an example of how we order soda in different states. One state will call it “bubble wada” and another just calls everything “Coke”. He later joked that here in Washington “we don’t have soft drinks. We just have espressos.” His point was that the way we order things is an aspect of our culture.
Another good point he made was that we must all communicate with one another about who we are, but we also must know who we are as individuals first. Knowing our culture, or having “cultural competence” and self-awareness are the two pre-requisites Davis said we must possess for diversity. Understanding ourselves as ethnic beings is a way to be self-aware. It all goes back to knowing who we are.
“Hip Hop music does not represent black culture,” he stated while describing stereotypes within this society. Davis went on to describe that they all don’t have gold teeth and rap but that “we are all individuals.” It was a perfect way to shoot down stereotypes and to get across that the stereotypical person doesn’t exist.
“How is it that our news is to the point where we can’t talk about Sandy Hook,” Davis pointed out, “but we can talk about the Duchess Kate and Prince William’s baby and Kim and Kanye’s baby? Why do we even have a show about the Kardashians?” His point is that as a society we tend to look past tragedies such as this and focus on the pop culture news.
Davis demonstrated how the slave owners reacted to their slaves being freed with an analogy of the board game Monopoly. They were ahead of the game even after freeing the slaves. As Davis imagined that he was the one cheating, the crowd exclaimed that he “can’t take it back” and that the damage was already done.
Davis’ impeccable teaching style and examples taught so much in so little time. His speech on diversity ultimately asked, “why do we still have to talk about these issues? Why are they still around?” This point is especially relevant during this time of year, as we remember the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.
