Conference discusses how skin color, race are viewed

The Variations on Blackness conference brought scholars and professors from IU and other universities together to talk about how the issues of race and skin color are viewed in America and all over the world.\nThe conference was a three-day event from Thursday to Saturday, featuring lectures, dialogues and discussion, as well as a dance performance and the opening of an art exhibit at the IU Art Museum.\nEdmund Barry Gaither, director and curator for the National Center of Afro-American Artists, was the first to speak at the conference. His lecture, "Still Life Revisited," focused on the art of Eldzier Cortor, who is famous for his paintings depicting black womanhood. The painting Gaither emphasized is a still-life titled "Life Revisited," which depicts the progress of blacks, Gaither said. \nGaither pointed out a that the successes of Madame CJ Walker, which were depicted in one painting, represented blacks' growth in the business world. Walker made her own beauty products and was the first black female entrepreneur in America. \nGaither said he thinks this artwork applies to all people in America and in the world today.\n"Our job is to understand (the artwork) better, and that is work for now, and is also work for our future," he said.\nA dance performance that IU African American and African Diaspora Studies professor Iris Rosa choreographed followed Gaither's lecture. The opening of an art exhibit at the IU Art Museum featuring the art of Cortor followed this. The exhibit will remain open until the end of the semester.\nA series of lectures, titled "Blackness as Commodity," discussed being black in a commercial sense. Jacob Dorman of Stanford University gave a lecture, "Savage Blackness: Skin Bleach and 'Negro' Racial Formation," in which he showed ads from the 1920s for bleaching creams for blacks. These ads, Dorman said, suggested that being black meant that you were a savage, and that blacks needed to "protect their future" by bleaching their skin. \nShanthappa Japhet, a law professor from India University, gave another lecture, "Caste, Race and Blackness." Japhet talked about the prejudice against dark-skinned people in India based on the caste system. Japhet said this issue is not being discussed openly in India, and he suggested this is because people from India do not realize the issue.\n"Since it is on an unconscious level, I think it is even more problematic," he said.\nAfter Japhet's speech, IU law professor Kevin Brown compared India to America. Brown emphasized the fact that both India and America have different ideals, beliefs and traditions, but there were still similarities on how some people from both countries viewed skin color, having a preference for light skin.\n"Color (of the skin) is tied to the idea of beauty," he said.\nAnother series of lectures, "Mixture and Hybridity," discussed biracial people and how the world views them. Zeta Elliot from Louisiana State University gave a speech titled, "Exotic Gumbo: Lynching, Hybridity, and the 'New' Tragic Mulatto." Elliot explained that there is no good representation for biracial people in the media, referring to a skit on "Chappelle's Show," featuring a racial draft for mixed and biracial people.\n"From 'The Boondocks' (comic strip and television show) to Dave Chappelle, there is hardly any positive representation for biracial people," she said.\nIU assistant professor Vivian Nun Halloran was a co-chair of the event and said the conference was a success.\n"We had great support," she said. "People were listening, paying attention and applying it to their ongoing work"