The Office of Special Programs and Cultural Series held an educational race relations seminar presented by Dr. Jason McDonald in the Juvenile Justice auditorium Feb. 9.
The auditorium was filled with President Wright, faculty, and students in an intimate setting.McDonald is from Great Britain, a graduate of University of South Hampton, and author of the encyclopedia “On the Move”. He is also a historian specializing in the Progressive Era to the Great Depression. At the beginning of the seminar he presented statistics of race relations in America compared to Great Britain, and gave his impression of racism in America.
McDonald stated, “Ethnic diversity has always been a part of American history compared to Britain. Britain has never experienced segregation. In the 1970s I was introduced to racism and the civil rights movement, after watching the film ‘King’ by Paul Whitfield.” McDonald continued, “The definition of racism to me is the distinct differences between humans to cause segregation. Because of race issues, cultural differences arise which means certain genes affect that culture.”
McDonald also spoke of assimilation; which is the process whereby a minority group gradually adopts the customs and attitudes of the prevailing culture. He used personal examples in America of assimilation, “When I visited the University of Texas, I was astonished how the predominantly white institution had black students separated in their own dorms.”
He did state this was all from his point of view being a native European new to America.
He shared his observation of how white and black people view one another. McDonald said, “From my personal examination, I found lots of white people fear that blacks will punish them for past crimes in history. Whites are motivated by guilt, some don’t even want to be racist and others don’t share their views because it is socially unacceptable.” He continued, “On the side of African-Americans, I detected they are very suspicious of whites.”