Goodbye to Archie Bunker

This is the beginning of my second year as chair of the department of African American and African Diaspora Studies. As a gesture of goodwill this past spring, in the aftermath of the IDS cartoon controversy, I assured the faculty adviser of the IDS and the newspaper's student diversity point person my department would do all we could to help the IDS become more effective in this University's transformation into a truly anti-racist campus. Standing by that pledge, I continue to believe the IDS is interested in becoming much more informed and sophisticated in how it addresses sensitive racial issues in a society no longer tolerant of the racial prejudices of yesteryears. \nGiven the pluralism of today's society and world, I am confident the IDS realizes their fellow students deserve to have a student newspaper with a staff that desires to understand what racism is and is dedicated to finding ways to become anti-racist in thought and deed.\nAs well-informed American citizens and residents now realize, when we spread racial stereotypes and indulge ourselves unintentionally in insidious racism, no matter our own ethnicity, all we are doing is demonstrating how much out of step we are with the realities of the 21st century. The recent University of Michigan affirmative action case, which undoubtedly has many uninformed, if not racially prejudiced people angry, demonstrated how much the core of American leadership realizes blatant and insidious racism can no longer be tolerated. It is the reason why Trent Lott was forced to leave his position of power rather than merely being tapped on the fingers. \nIgnorance and not knowing any better are no longer excuses for treating others prejudicially just because you look at them and assume that due to their phenotype they must act a certain way, have certain tastes or certain lapses in their moral character or in their ability to achieve academically or socially. People who are like that, irrespective of their ethnicity, are racists and racist people simply do not make it very far in life as in the past, perhaps.\nCorporations, courts, universities, newspapers, television stations, Congress, hospitals, retail stores and other employers simply cannot afford to have Archie and Susie Bunkers employed, elected or appointed who just might embarrass them and in other ways that do injury to their institutional reputations. Thus, just as much as it is important for IU students to master the traditional rudiments of liberal arts, it is just as critical to grasp what it means to be anti-racist in a new century which demands that effective citizens have such life skills. This is why this past spring my department launched "Mobilizing for a Just America," a series of public lectures and conversations about the real meaning of American racial justice and how we can all become anti-racist. \nPersonally, I was disappointed the IDS did not to cover any of our activities, though we invited the IDS staff to come. It was particularly disturbing that the IDS forgot (so I was told) to have a reporter at the Joe Feagin lecture in April. Joe Feagin, is a distinguished sociologist of racism and anti-racism I am sure the IDS would have profited from interviewing him. \nNevertheless, my department looks forward to working closely with the IDS next year and with other student agencies and organizations as well as with their administrative and faculty colleagues as we continue to build into what we hope one day will be the most distinguished College of Arts and Sciences department; and while doing so, contribute to the tireless efforts of many members of our esteemed University community to transform IU-Bloomington into the model anti-racist campus it deserves to become and shall one day be.