AWARE Week Discussion of Racial Issues Starts Today

A week-long program of workshops and speakers aimed at spotlighting race relations and cultural diversity on campus will begin tonight.

Termed Actively Working Against Racism and Ethnocentrism (AWARE) week, the programs will get underway with a keynote speech tonight on "Racism Among the Unaware." The speech, which Assistant Dean for Minority Affairs Hilda Hernandez-Gravelle called a highlight of the week's programs, will be given by John Dovidio, the president of Colgate University.

Hernandez-Gravelle and a student committee took charge of planning the week-long program, which is the first of its kind at Harvard.

AWARE week comes in the wake of several racial incidents at Harvard and on campuses nationwide in the past year. Hernandez-Gravelle said, however, that the purpose of the week's events is to explore the more subtle forms of racism which occur in the Harvard community on a day-to-day basis.

"The primary form [of racism] at any institute of higher learning...is in unconscious behavior, actions and words that people use without meaning to [be racist]," Hernandez-Gravelle said.

The idea behind the conference--and the keynote speech on racism and the unaware--is that racism exists even among those who try to avoid it, Hernandez-Gravelle said. She added that this is the result of the subtle stereotyping on the basis of race that is made throughout our society.

Some of the issues which will be covered in discussions this week include the lack of minority professors and racism and sports.

For example, Nitza Agrait '91, a planning committee member, said that one form of racism occurs at Harvard with the dearth of minority faculty members. Because teachers may bring racism into the classroom by displaying their implicit biases against one race, both students and professors must be aware of such inequalities, she said.

"It's true that Harvard is a very diverse community, but we still see some vestiges [of racism]," said Agrait.

The programs aim to address the problems of racism and ethnocentrism through "a multilevel approach," said Hernandez-Gravelle. To that end, the workshops are directed at individuals, institutions and communities, she said.

And Hernandez-Gravelle said that the issue of race relations would not fade after the week's events. "The community knows that AWARE week is not the only activity my office will engage in to fight racism," she said.

The student planning committee will continue to meet after AWARE week to plan follow-up workshops. Evaluations of the AWARE week workshops will be collected so the committee will know what issues to address in student workshops to be held in the houses later this semester, said Hernandez-Gravelle.