The Miseducation of Cultural Rhythms

Harvard left Saturday's annual Cultural Rhythms show in high spirits, pleased with a $5 well-spent. Indeed, host Will Smith was hilarious, and any event that brings together so many different student talents is bound to entertain. All of the student performers and coordinators deserve applause for their hard work.

But some students also left the show feeling as though they'd done their part to further the interests of "diversity" by watching exotic dances and eating spicy foods. In fact, they had not.

Diversity-speak is seductive, but its "happy multiculturalism" often anaesthetizes the more dangerous implications of a plural society and overlooks the sly maneuvers of a University administration that is more concerned with appearances than with addressing substantial minority (and non-minority) student concerns. At the risk of offending some of the very people whose interests we hope to support, we'd like to offer a new interpretation of Cultural Rhythms.

First, Cultural Rhythms is a minefield of convoluted social logic. The premise behind the show is quite simple: the "culture"-free audience observes a parade of "cultural" student groups on stage as they display "ethnicity." Somehow along the way, the audience is supposed to learn, engage and share in our multicultural campus. Unfortunately, little learning actually takes place as they display ethnicity through dance and song.

The show progresses generally without delay, only pausing for the host to mis-pronounce the name of the next act (and, on a rare occasion, read a sentence about it). However, without a significant descriptive or educational component, the show gives the audience few tools to make appropriate meaning of what's happening on stage. For much of the show, we watched performers in costumes dance "traditional" programs that could be centuries--or weeks--old. We had no way to know. Such ignorance is dangerous because without context we are likely to conflate the students' portrayal of their culture's historical heritage with their own modern-day selves.

By contrast, the French Club's modern French rap performance at this year's show was particularly refreshing. One club member began the performance by coming on stage wearing a beret and carrying a loaf of bread. He immediately dashed both to the ground, grabbing instead a microphone and starting to rap. His implicit statement: yes, berets and French bread define one part of my heritage, but don't think that you completely "understand" my sense of identity or me. Rather, he chose to show us the influence that hip-hop music and culture have had on his identity. If other performers were attempting to make similar theoretical maneuvers, the show didn't provide us with enough context to understand them.

What's the solution? Don't cut the program--turn it into a more substantive affair. There needs to be some sort of educational component to the show. Prepare the host to read the names of the groups appropriately (Halle Berry and Will Smith both butchered their pronunciation), and give the student performers a minute to describe the significance of their performance. Provide additional context about the performances in the brochure, and hand out information about each individual ethnic student organization at the food fair. At least that way we're making an effort to extend the discourse on difference beyond exoticization.

Second, the Foundation's diversity-speak seems designed to protect the University from having to address difficult issues. The whole show kicks off with Dr. S. Allen Counter, director of the Harvard Foundation, describing how the show represents the "full spectrum" of Harvard students.

Of course, no one in the audience really believes that the performance they're about to witness represents the full diversity of the Harvard campus. Instead, it is a sampling of performances by selected campus ethnic organizations--not the entire campus. We wholeheartedly support the real reason Cultural Rhythms should exist: to give ethnic minority and cultural organizations at Harvard an occasion to put on a show of their own. Let's be honest: there is nothing wrong with having an event about minority student interests (which non-minorities, of course, are encouraged to attend). But why couch Cultural Rhythms in the language of diversity? In the end note to this year's program, Counter tosses words like "race," "culture," "ethnicity," "cultural expression," "differences" and "sharing" into a PR stew that may taste good but satisfies no one with an appetite for deeper engagement of serious social issues.

"Diversity" is cool, and, best of all, diversity is safe--it doesn't bring up scary ideas like affirmative action, racist police, white privilege, economic inequality or even (at Harvard) a multicultural student center and ethnic studies. The kind of "diversity" the University encourages doesn't depend on small groups of people meeting and talking through real problems but rather on diversity brokers who urge the students to create brochure-friendly diversity.

There is a political usefulness in making a specifically minority program one of Harvard's biggest annual campus events. And we are not criticizing the important roles that individual ethnic student organizations play on Harvard's campus. Cultural Rhythms provides significant benefits for those communities: it provides a reason and means to create intra-group community via a yearly performance--enabling students who might not otherwise be able to explore a culture the opportunity to participate in some of its traditions. We are also excited by the numerous groups who invite students from all ethnic backgrounds to join in the group learning.

However, just because Cultural Rhythms is "about" diversity doesn't mean that it actually pushes us in a direction we ought to be moving. It is easy to forget, but "diversity" is not the same as social justice. The time has come for us all to re-examine the dangerous logic implicit in some of our "rah-rah diversity" claims. True progressive thought, according to Professor Cornel West, overcomes racialized ways of thinking and replaces it with moral thinking. It dares to critique even the "minority" component of the establishment to work towards social justice for all disempowered peoples.

We focus our critique on a University and College administration which refuses to provide adequate funding and space for student groups, especially minorities. Why is Harvard sinking $4 million into a pretty, new tower atop Sanders Theatre while the students smiling and dancing for admissions brochures inside plea for a student center? It is as though the University is using student groups to authenticate Harvard's "diversity" (its latest marketing gimmick), while ignoring all of serious needs of students.

As enjoyable as the show was, students were the losers Saturday. The real winners were the University administrators who've duped us all (perhaps even themselves) into thinking that they actually understand the real issues involved in the word "diversity." Let's remind them of what really matters.

Geoffrey A. Fowler '00 is editor-in-chief of Diversity & Distinction magazine and webmaster of The Crimson. Kamil E. Redmond '00, a Crimson editor, is the Vice-President of the Undergraduate Council.