The conference was about the intersection of art, race and injustice, not about poor people. It dealt with race and participants in art, race and subjects of art, race and funding of art, as well as other subjects.
Ms. Shahidi was a child TV star, a participant in the arts. She spoke about race and childhood, at this conference about race and injustice in the arts.
Other participants included the musician Wynton Marsalis, as well as a rapper/record producer, a couple of photographers, an architect, a film director/producer, a composer, and various academics in the field of art or related subjects.
This conference seems so unexceptionable to me, so in line with what normally happens with academic conferences at elite colleges, that I wonder why it was even brought up. I wonder why someone reads about a conference on race and the arts and immediately jumps to the idea that it has to be about poverty, when poverty was never mentioned in the article.
It’s not about invalidating Yara but validating ones at Harvard who likely faced more ground realities than someone of her stature. Being black isn’t a total disadvantage for her, it also gave her many advantages.
@4kids4us Any kid not living in a protected elite bubble is an average minority kid. Its not that bubble kids are completely safe but they don’t face as many blows on daily basis as someone who doesn’t have a privileged bubble.
It seems odd to me for someone on this site to deride an academic conference. Are you saying that the subject of art and race is not worthy of academic study? I’m not an expert on either race or art, but off the top of my head I can think of many interesting questions that might be answered by looking into this subject.
Most low-income students, like most other students, would also not choose to attend a workshop on “Exploring Zapotec Wool-Dyeing Techniques.” Does that mean it shouldn’t take place at Harvard?
The world is wide. There are infinite numbers of ideas to explore.
Are we supposed to feel that black professionals are somehow not black enough for their experiences around race to be worthy of consideration? Shahidi might be just the right person to give the perspective of a woman of color who is NOT economically disadvantaged.
It is about time to deride some “academic studies” hosted by elite colleges, and I think it is the right of anyone (on or off CC) to question the values of such activities on campus when there are so many other worthy topics to study/debate about, just top of my head I could think of many too, such as “the consequences of inequality and the concentration of wealth in elite colleges”, “what could elite colleges do to educate more American students”, “race and gender, underemployed and overworked”, …
Are you asserting that “the consequences of inequality and the concentration of wealth in elite colleges”, “what could elite colleges do to educate more American students”, “race and gender, underemployed and overworked”, are not studied at elite colleges? That is incorrect.
@Sue22 She is not just some economically secure black professional, she is like among top 0.1% privileged people of any race. Her perspective is important too but disadvantage of race goes down drastically at her level. Anyone who is beautiful, rich, famous, connected, has an accomplished family and attends Harvard with Obama’s LOR doesn’t have a realistic perspective of how others live. She has her own unique gourmet perspective.
“disadvantage of race goes down drastically at her level”
How is the poster in a position to know that is the case? Why does it matter, as this wasn’t the topic of the panel?
What I see is that no matter how much fame, wealth, beauty, accomplishment, or other qualities this person has, someone seems compelled to knock her down. Let the woman live her life! She owes you nothing.
And maybe that’s a way of stripping socioeconomics out of the equation. The other person on the panel was a 12 year old who has done social justice work around gun violence in the black community, so personally for balance I would have been happy to hear the perspective of a privileged Harvard woman on the impact of race in her life.
Do I need to reiterate that not every woman of color’s primary personal concerns are inner city gang violence and poverty? Some are dealing with questions of things like representations of POC in the media and the ability to rise to the top of professions historically dominated by white men.
The reality of being minority is that one is constantly bumping up against someone else’s metric:
Are your grades/SATS top enough?
Does one codeswitch speech into sounding white enough?
Is your hair straightened enough? (Shout out to Meghan Markle)
Does one’s clothing blend in with the white folk enough?
Does one swallow anger at racist jokes enough?
Is this a suggestion that being successful and being a member of a minority group whose members may be subject to hostile discrimination is mutually exclusive?
Yes, even Oprah suffered from bigotry. But her growing up experience would shed a lot more lights on the plights of being poor and black than her encounter with arrogant high-end store clerk.
I don’t really care what Sasha or Malia Obama have to say about growing up black. Her parents’ stories, otoh, are informative and inspiring.
I found this poem on black privilege one of the most powerful things I have heard this year. It’s not off topic because it parodies the false assumption of assuming middle and upper class blacks escape racism.
The world is wide, and there is much to study. It is certainly worthwhile to deride some academic endeavors that take place at elite colleges-- but not on the basis of the subject. Rather, we ought to disparage academic work without intellectual rigor and scholarship.
For example, UNC set up what seems to have been almost an entirely fake African and Afro-American Studies department, for the purpose of offering bogus classes and phony grades to athletes. That is deserving of derision and contempt, not because Africa and the African-American experience are unworthy of study, but because the study wasn’t taking place.
If you have some reason to make us believe that the art and race conference, or the panel of which Ms. Shahidi was a part, was insufficiently academically rigorous, please bring it forward. Otherwise, it looks like you’re just hostile to academic endeavor if in your judgment the wrong people are doing it.
So, what, Riversider? You truly believe wealthier minorities don’t face prejudices and chalenges? You think one has to be poor to really be Black? Sheesh, there have been whole threads where non-minorities insisted only poor Black people suffer. Some rather outrageous comments made.
Maybe the non-minority privileged have lessons to learn and various sorts of conferences would open their eyes. And minds. Some in this thread are bordering on stereotyping.