BSA May Back Professor's Protest

The president of the Black Students Association (BSA) said this week he will bring before the BSA a proposal to support a professor's letter protesting the screening of a film at the Peabody Museum.

S. Allen Counter, associate professor of Biology, last month sent the BSA a letter charging that the film is an example of "insensitivity and a flagrant disregard for the feeling of our black students and staff." The film shows an African woman performing clitoridectomies on young African girls.

"The showing of the movie will not go unanswered," Eugene J. Green '80, president of the BSA, said yesterday. "We plan to unite forces with Professor Counter," he added.

Counter, invited to see the film by Tom Harkensson, the Swedish anthropologist who showed it, said yesterday the particular film was "sick," adding that these "explicit photographic materials" should not be presented as serious scholarship. To say the film is a legitimate scholarly subject because the practice is widespread in Africa is "totally insensitive," he added.

"Serious scholars with a sense of morality wouldn't present these things under the guise of academic freedom," Counter said.

Problems

Clifford C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, director of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, said Monday he has seen the film and that Counter's criticisms are "completely out of place." He added, "It is the result of his narrow view of a situation he doesn't know anything about."

Melvin Konner, associate professor of Anthropology, who did not see the film, said generally African clitoridectomies are a topic "of clear interest to people who are studying the range of human activity." This "is certainly legitimate material for scholarly study," he added.

Lamberg-Karlovsky said he believes the film worthy of showing because it represents an "effort to show something which is an extraordinary world health problem."

The film shows girls at age five or six getting clitoridectomies from women of their community who use pieces of glass and other crude instruments to perform the surgery, Counter said.

Insensitivity

The insensitivity of members of the Harvard community has resulted because blacks, students and faculty have not protested such unfavorable and unjust portrayals, Counter said.

The showing of films like these hurts people's images of blacks in a subtle way, he said. "Watching something like clitoridectomies, showing people as barbaric as possible, stays in the back of your mind," he said, adding, "People cannot help being influenced by it."

Amazed

George Wald, Higgins professor of Biology Emeritus and a person who invited Harkensson to show the film, said Monday he is "amazed at Allen Counter," adding he does not believe the film was racist.

Stephen Williams, Peabody Professor of American Archaeology and Ethnology, refused to comment on the specific incident but said he is "concerned" about the nature of films that are shown to the public because of the easy misunderstanding that takes place in seeing members of another culture doing things."