Muhammad Funded for Talk About Rap

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Allan S. Galper's editorial, "The Foundation for Intercultural Hypocrisy" (March 6) criticized the Harvard Foundation for funding a project which included a speech by Conrad Muhammad, national student representative of the Nation of Islam, claiming that some financial support "directly contradicts" the Foundation's mandate "to improve relations among racial and ethnic groups within the University." We disagree with this assessment and find it necessary to respond.

The Harvard Foundation awarded a grant to the Black Student's Association for a project entitled, "Rap and its Influence on the Liberation Struggle," which was to include rap artist Chuck D and Nation of Islam representative Muhammad. It is interesting that Galper does not even include the title of the project in his editorial, but instead focuses almost entirely on Muhammad's participation in the program. Galper quotes heavily from Muhammad's speech, characterizing it as racist, sexist and anti-Semitic. Had we known that this might be the substance of his speech, of course we would not have funded the project.

However, by limiting the scope of his piece to Muhammad's speech, Galper misses the point that the project was neither presented to the Harvard Foundation nor promoted to the Harvard community as "one of the most racially divisive speakers this campus has seen all year." Rather, the project was presented as a discussion of rap and its influence within the Black community and society as a whole. "[C]ould he [Muhammad] be expected not to focus on the divisive doctrines of the Nation of Islam during his speech?" Galper asks. Yes, he could. If we had expected otherwise, we would not have funded the grant.

As is widely know, rap has emerged as one of the most popular forms of music, among people of all colors, in this country. What is perhaps not as well known is that much of rap has been strongly influenced by Islam, and particularly by the Nation of Islam, one need only take an introductory course in Islam, or a course on Islam in America, to learn this. It would be ignorant, if not naive, not to recognize this important influence. For these reasons, the Harvard Foundation Student Advisory CommitteeandFaculty Advisory Committee deemed the BSA project one worthy of Foundation funding. We had no reason to believe that Muhammad would veer from the topic he was invited to address. In fact, we had every reason to believe that he would constructively contribute to the discourse on rap and its influence. Clearly, this did not happen, but Galper is misguided in faulting the Foundation for this outcome.

Finally, we would like to address Galper's assertion that "funding a Nation of Islam speaker does anything but follow the Foundation's motto to 'enhance the quality of our common life'" It is neither our place nor our intent to defend the Nation of Islam, but we raise the point that not everyone views every project the same way.

For example, in 1988 the Harvard Foundation the Harvard Foundation funded a project celebrating the fortieth anniversary of Israel, much to the anger and disappointment of many Palestinians on campus. Should the Foundation not have funded that project? Imagine if it had not.

The process of improving race relations is an imperfect one in which celebration for one may mean offense for another. Imperfect though it may be, it is a learning process as well, one which encourages discussion as a means of understanding each other. In approving BSA's grant request for the "Rap and its Influence of the Liberation Struggle" project, we endorsed the intent to explore the influence of rap in our multicultural environment. Galper calls this "irresponsible," but in fact we would have been irresponsible to do otherwise. Muneer Ahmad '93   Natosha Reid '93   Co-Chairs, Harvard Foundation   Student Advisory Committee