AWARE Continues With Speech, Forums

Public service volunteers working in minority communities must make an effort to understand cultural differences, speakers at a Philips Brooks House Association (PBHA) forum said last night.

The presentation, part of the second Actively Working Against Racism and Ethnocentrism (AWARE) week, was designed to draw attention to racism at Harvard.

Helen L. McCreedy, a social worker who helps Southeast Asian refugees adjust to life in the U.S., introduced the forum by stressing the importance of understanding cultural differences when helping immigrants adapt to this country.

Joined by representatives from the Boston area's Black, Hispanic, Chin- ese and Southeast Asian communities, McCreedysaid volunteers working with newly-arrivedimmigrants face both profound challenges and greatrewards.

"[Volunteers become] both student and teacher,"McCreedy said. "We not only enrich them--they alsoenrich us."

Participants then split into four discussiongroups led by minorities with experience in publicservice.

Gail Epstein, the College's director of publicservice programs, said the AWARE program was moreeffective this year than last because it focusedon individual cultures, rather than trying toconsider minorities as a whole.

AWARE events continued with a speech byVisiting Lecturer on Afro-American Studies JulianBond and discussions in Currier, Dunster, Lowelland Winthrop Houses led by members of VigorousInterventions In Ongoing Natural Settings(VISIONS), a local consulting firm specializing inracial awareness.

At the Lowell discussion, VISIONS' executivedirector Valerie A. Batts asked students todescribe their backgrounds and then launched intoan explanation of the differences between"old-fashioned" and "modern" racism.

"Old-fashioned" racism, which is overt andoften institutional, has largely vanished, Battssaid. But a subtler, and perhaps more insidious,form of discrimination has taken its place, shesaid.

From the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Actuntil the mid-1970s, society made steady stridestoward eliminating discrimination, Batts said.

But in 1977, she said, many observers began todrop their guard by assuming that becausediscrimination had become illegal, it thereforeceased to exist.

"By 1977, many public policy organizations werepushing against affirmative action and otherprograms designed to help minorities," she said.

Still, Batts said, racism often arises out ofignorance rather than malicious intent.

"In most cases people are not trying to injureothers. They do so only because of their inabilityto put themselves in a different culturalcontext," Batts said.

"We all live in a society where racism exists,"she added. "What is important is to realize thatcross-cultural misunderstandings do occur, and wemust be willing to make mistakes in order to learnfrom them.