Cultural Issues class - reading response

I am in a class which looks at cultural issues (essentially in higher ed, but it ends up about being in the world). This class is a GREAT class. We are going to be forced to look at ourselves and our world with new eyes and I love that.

Each week we have to write a reading response. I may not post my response regularly, but this week seemed like it would cause us all to think about what messaging we are producing and seeing.

My entry is intentionally "unfinished" - we don't have space in our reflection writing to really finish any of this work, but its just to get us thinking and help our prof know where our head is. I hope to continue thinking about this issue this week.

Blessings, Tiffani


Here follows an edited version of my response:

I came to my desk to write about stereotypes and prejudices. When I was reading yesterday, I thought I would be writing about ethics. I may still try to write about both those things… but my first order of business is the new Baylor homepage (www.baylor.edu). I don’t remember ever looking in depth at the photos on the old BU homepage (and I haven’t even done this work yet on my own department’s page). However, as I was reading about assumptions and stereotypes (i.e. “Whites are smarter than African-Americans.”), I happened to load up the internet. This wasn’t the first time I saw the new BU homepage, but I guess my reading just happened to make me look at it with more critical eyes.
I first saw a white male, with the words, “Be Strong and Courageous.” I decided to see what other messages we were sending. There was a white woman graduating (with “be transformed…”), white people in a computer lab (“give me wisdom and knowledge”), an African American male in his Baylor Line jersey – clearly running onto the football field with “live by the spirit” – he is surrounded by white women, and this is followed by a picture of the rock wall with two white males on it. The next photo is of an African American woman (with “give me in your truth…”), and the last photo is of white males and says, “nothing will be impossible.”
I have thought about this issue before. I have tried to imagine that I was a student seeking to find a college where I would fit and I look at websites to see if I’m represented there. What Baylor’s new site tells me is that BU is primarily a place for white people, and maybe some African Americans would feel Ok about attending, too. But if I were an Asian or a Pacific Islander, or a Latina woman (just to name a few), I appear to not be represented here.
Today, I was struck by the subliminal content of the messages next to the pictures. I feel like our new homepage reinforces the stereotypes that African American males are only interested in sports, not school. I see stereotypes that the worship we have here is only for white people (the first picture is one of students worshipping and only includes white students). I know that this is not intentional – in fact, I’m sure that if I mentioned this to the office that controls the webpage they would be surprised by this messaging. They might even disagree.
This makes me think about the ethical concern of “Do no harm.” I appreciated the perspective of Pope when she mentioned that even ethics can contain cultural bias. That the intent to do no harm isn’t good enough, as professionals we have to consider if someone received harm from our actions (even if it was unintended). I don’t know that I had really thought of that before – but thinking about it, especially in light of what I know is white privilege in my case, I wonder how many times I’ve had to apologize because I’ve hurt someone’s feelings or been insensitive to a cultural difference even though it wasn’t my intent. Incidentally… a lot of times.