A national conversation on race was held Thursday night at Tufts University; one of several colleges around the country that convened panel discussions addressing topics such as the Trayvon Martin case, the Supreme Court’s controversial Voting Rights Act decision and the just concluded 50-year anniversary march on Washington.
Four hundred people attended the standing-room-only event. Panelists included Tufts historian Peniel Joseph, writer Kim McLarin, Boston NAACP leader Michael Curry and University of Massachusetts political scientist Paul Watanabe. Four Tufts University students told WGBH News why they thought it was important to talk aloud about race relations in America.
“It’s absolutely needed,” said student Aparna Dasaraju. “Especially when you look at the hard facts, the numbers about how racism and structural racism manifest themselves, but also just at the experiences of a lot of different people — I think you can see the need for a discussion like this.”
“One of the main things I took away from this talk is that dialogue is power,” said student Rachel Thomas. “And that by having this dialogue, we can really exert our power to change things in society.”
“Another thing that I took away from this is the ways we can engage with everyone, and really bring everyone together for a dialogue on race,” said student Shelly Carpenter. “A lot of the time, this dialogue isn’t considered that — it’s a black problem, it’s a latino problem, it’s a gay problem, and it’s all of our issue.”
“Dr. Joseph, he’s been able to recruit a wide variety of very qualified people to talk about said issues, to bring them all together on one night,” said student Josh Swerner. “For such a big chunk of the Tufts community to hear it, that means a lot to me, and we heard a lot of really great perspectives on all this, and I got a lot out of it. I’m glad I came.”
