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(03/25/13 3:33am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Junior Pearl Scott said Mariah Carey’s song “My All” seemed right for the Atkins Living Learning Center Showcase. Her talent and the song won over the judges, and she took home the $300 prize. “I wanted to give my all,” Scott said. On Friday, the Atkins LLC had its annual talent showcase titled “Evening Affair in the Willkie Quad Auditorium.” On every table of the formal event was sparkling grape cocktail, candlelight and rose petals.The “Dress to Impress” event was led by the presidents of the Atkins and Media LLCs, freshmen Frank Bonner and Daion Morton, respectively, as well as junior Tom Walker and senior BJ Grimes in the later half. The Indiana Hoosierettes dance team donned cream and crimson and played a medley of hits from “NSYNC” to “This is Indiana.” The Alpha chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi, the co-sponsors of the event, had a dance competition between two girl groups called “So You Think You Can Shimmy.” Senior Joe Musiel did a contemporary dance to Maxwell’s “Woman’s Worth.” There were nearly 300 people in attendance. There was a raffle throughout breaks in the competition, and people who had the best tweets won an Atkins LLC T-Shirt. The two big names behind the motivation of this event: Thomas Atkins and B-Scott. Thomas Atkins is known as the first black student body president at IU, which also made him the first black student body president in the Big Ten. The Harvard Law School graduate was also known as the first African American to serve on Boston’s state cabinet secretary. Atkins was an essential part to desegregating the busing system in Boston. Branden Scott, whom the showcase is named after, was a Groups and an Atkins LLC resident years ago 10 years ago. He went by the nickname B-Scott. He, along with Eric Love, the director of Diversity Education, came up with the idea of an open mic night at Buffa Louie’s every other Thursday to create an outlet for artistic students like himself. Love was very close to Scott. “He came to me just about fiveyears ago, and he said that he wanted to do an open mic night,” Love said. “At the time, my friend had just taken over Buffa Louie’s. So I went to her, and I asked if we would do an open mic night at Buffa Louie’s. I thought it would open business for them and also provide a venue for us.”Love said the open mic started small with only about five performers and 20 people in the audience, to having up to 30 performers and nearly 100 people. A few years later, tragedy hit the Groups and Atkins community. “He had moved to Atlanta and, I didn’t know this, but apparently he was dealing with depression and he took his own life,” Love said. “That has been two and a half years ago now. Even though he moved, he was still a major part of your campus while he was here in my office, in Groups and Atkins LLC. He had so many friends. He was really popular.”Love said for the past couple of years there has been a separate showcase in dedication of B-Scott. This year, they combined the two showcases together. Love said in previous years they have made about $400 for the B-Scott fund. Love said the B-Scott fund would help students by providing financial assistance for counseling services. “CAPS provides two free counseling sessions each semester free for students, but if you need a third one or fourth one, you have to pay 20 dollars,” Love said. “That’s a great deal, if you have money, but if you don’t have any money, then that’s really difficult to come up with. So this fund would kick in and help students who need another session or two to help them finish the semester.”B-Scott was a poet and artistically creative, Love said.“He was an incredible guy, great looking young man, great personality,” Love said. “He loved hip hop, he developed open mics, he put together some poetry slams, bought artists from around the region — we haven’t had that kind of energy since he passed.”Sophomore Kira Ferguson, the co-chair of the event and an Atkins LLC resident, said she never thought she would’ve planned something like this showcase. “I decided to ado it because it was appointed to me last year, but things kind of fell through, so I was like OK, we’re going to do this next year,” Ferguson said. “We going to do it right and get it done.”Ferguson said she believed it was a job well done with the others who helped organize the event with Atkins LLC, those groups being the Media LLC, Collins LLC and Kappa Alpha Psi. “I think it went great. I was behind stage the entire time, but I could see it from backstage, and I could see that the audience liked it,” Ferguson said.Ferguson said the Atkins residents are like family. “Our floor is one of the best floors at IU,” Ferguson said, “Everybody comes to our floor and says, ‘I wish our floor was like this, everybody is just so close’. We get along, we laugh together, we have fun together.”
(03/22/13 3:43am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>There are 11.1 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, according to a 2010 Pew Study. Roberto Gonzales, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago’s Social Service Administration, began his talk mentioning a boy he met named Alex. Gonzales met Alex when Alex was 6 years old.Gonzales said that Alex spent a lot of his time drawing. Because of his passion, Gonzales and others raised money to enroll him in an art school when he was 14. However, he couldn’t get into the school because he did not have a social security card. Alex went from high hopes to neighborhood schools and suddenly losing hope. He soon became a part of a gang and ended up getting murdered by a neighborhood gang. He did not make it past the first semester of high school.On Thursday night, Gonzales gave the keynote address for the Cesar E. Chavez Undergraduate Research Symposium for Latino Studies. This kicked off the beginning of undergraduates presenting their research the next day. “The talk tonight is based on my book project that I’m finishing up on of ten years of research in Los Angeles,” Gonzales said, “The broad question is what happens to undocumented children as they make a transition through adolescence and adulthood. These are migrant children who come with their parents to America at early ages, some as early as 6 months old.”Gonzales told his audience that the children grow up legally integrated into the public school system and internalize values of the American dream, that if they work hard enough and dream bold enough they could be something in society. However, Gonzales said, they hit a wall by the time that they’re in their middle teenage years. “Their immigration status doesn’t affect them until about 15, 16, 17 years old when they can’t get driver’s license, they cant legally work, they’re not eligible for financial aid,” Gonzales said. Gonzales pointed out that in the 1980s, an immigration reform law made border and immigration laws stricter. This law made it hard for immigrants to find work and move their families to America legally. He discussed personal anecdotes from students that were a part of his research in East L.A. for 10 years. He said there was a process that undocumented young adults go through: First a “protected status” then a “transition to adulthood” and then “awaking to a nightmare” instead of living the American Dream. He described that there is a diversity of outcomes: either they go to college, or they leave school because of lack of social support and resources. Aide Acosta, a visiting professor in American and Latino Studies and also one of the organizers of the symposium, said Gonzales was their first choice because of his work with undocumented youth. “He was very timely especially given the context of some of the political debates that are taking place in the country as a whole, but particularly in Indiana,” Acosta said. “So I thought that it would be a nice choice for just the broader context...He just seemed like a natural fit.” The Latino Studies Program, along with the Office of Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Affairs, College of Arts & Sciences and La Casa sponsored the keynote as well as the symposium tomorrow.
(03/18/13 1:05pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Undergraduate students in Latino Studies Program classes applied for a chance to showcase what they learned at the first Cesar E. Chavez Undergraduate Research Symposium in Latino Studies. The symposium will take place this Thursday and Friday. The participants will present on a variety of different issues that affect Latino Americans and Latinos abroad from immigration to education to social justice. The symposium will feature Roberto Gonzales, an assistant professor at University of Chicago, whose research focus is on undocumented immigrant young adults in the United States. He will present the keynote address titled “Lives in Limbo: Undocumented Adults and the Conflicting Experiences of Belonging and Exclusion.” The Symposium is named after Cesar E. Chavez who, according to the United Farm Workers website, was the co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association with Dolores Huerta, which became the UFW in 1962. Chavez dedicated his life to social and economic concerns of labor workers, and especially empathized with Latino American workers. He died in 1993.Aidé Acosta, a visiting assistant professor in the American and Latino Studies Programs, and Mintzi Martinez-Rivera, a Doctorate (Ph.D Candidate) student came up with the idea of having a symposium named after the late civil rights activist.“We talked to the director of the Latino Cultural Center, Lillian Casillas, and we tried to figure out the place, the date, and it coincided with some of the activities with the date in March, in the celebration of the civil rights leader, Cesar Estrada Chavez,” Acosta said.Acosta said they initially had a discussion about ways they could engage and include undergraduate students with the Latino Studies Program.“And we came up with, just talking and passing, that we would both be interested in doing a one day symposium and ... that it would be a great idea to showcase to other people the things that they are producing in their classrooms.” Acosta said. Acosta said they wanted to engage undergrads in interdisciplinary research and at the same time give students the opportunity to develop the skills to engage in scholarship type of work. “Every one on the project was paired up with a mentor in Latino Studies, either a professor or a graduate student,” Acosta said. “We also did workshops. We did a workshop that particularly covered presenting skills and also working with the mentor and engage in the workshop to be able to develop these skills.” John Nievo Phillips, director of the Latino Studies Program, said the symposium includes a dozen students and faculty and graduate students. He said in the last 15 or so years, there has been a lot of literature that has come out recently, relating to the borderlands between U.S. and Mexico and the U.S. and the Caribbean. “Our hope is it may stimulate some of them to want to go to graduate school,” Phillips said. “Whether they do want to go to graduate school or not, this is a good chance for them to work closely with faculty members or graduate students in a project.” Phillips said because of the expansion of Latinos in America it pushes for more issues to be studied, like immigration, citizenship and education. “This is the first time that IU has ever had such an event focusing on Latino research,” Phillips said, ”We hope that its going to be an annual affair.”
(03/08/13 5:35am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Laura Eads said she knew a lot of faculty and staff were talking about it. The Commission of Multicultural Understanding invited IU faculty and staff members on March 7 to discuss problems concerning masculinity on campus. Eads and Brian Morin, the co-conveners of COMU, named the meeting “Teachable Moments Committee Staff Luncheon.” Eads and Morin both said their main purpose was to bring faculty and staff together to discuss relative issues on campus so they could promote healthy masculinity in their lives and workplaces. “I wanted to get us to start having conversations and get people sharing ideas and forming partnerships,” Eads said. “We know that all these people here are interested in this, so if we go back to our office and they need help with something, we have like 60 or so colleagues that we could call and ask and try to make this a place where men and people who identify as male could come and feel like they can express themselves in a healthy way and don’t feel like they have to live up to negative stereotypes.”Eads, who also works as associate director of Student Support Programs and Conduct, says she sees a disproportionately high number of males in the judicial conduct system. “They are the main perpetrators of crime,” Eads said. “We’re trying to combat that and say that there’s more to being masculine than some of these negative stereotypes. ”Morin, assistant director for Office of First Year Experience Programs, said the event would help faculty and staff realize they have colleagues who care about the same issues. “Sometimes when you’re doing work with social justice, you feel like you’re doing it alone, and it’s helpful to see that there’s other people doing it with you,” Morin said. The first question to start off the discussion asked for the most current song attendees listened to.Lyman Montgomery, a Residential Programs and Services human resources consultant, said the song that came to mind was a song he didn’t like. “I don’t like it because it’s a racially charged song,” Montgomery said. “It’s by Rick Ross and it’s called “These N-Words Can’t Hold Me Back.” Montgomery said that as a man, he felt perspectives of masculinity have shifted over time. For example, his father’s definition of masculinity was a hard-working man who comes home smelling like a workout. Montgomery said his son’s definition of masculinity was having “swag.” He said masculinity in general was defined by having confidence and being vulnerable. The group talked more about certain terms that society gives men to live by, such as “man up.” Sarah Nagy said we live in a “box-checking culture” where you’re either feminine or you’re masculine. This culture reaches to careers and gender-associated jobs. In the end, a group shared what they defined as healthy masculinity. Laura Wheaton, assistant director for development at Residential Program Services, spoke for her group and said healthy masculinity blends responsibility with compassion for others.“Without that, you can’t be a man in society,” Wheaton said. COMU is a group of students, staff and faculty dedicated to increasing multicultural understanding on campus. COMU puts together programs throughout the year, ranging from retreats to discussions about policy issues, Eads said. “Basically anything dealing with multicultural understanding, we would take it on in various different ways,” Eads said. Wheaton said that she is also part of a committee that organizes educational opportunities relating to diversity, inclusion and social justice issues. “Since I serve on that committee, I wanted to find out what else was going on campus,” Wheaton said. “And how we might be able to connect and maybe share resources and get some other ideas on how we can educate our staff. I also want to get to know more people.”Wheaton said she believes learning about multiculturalism is important at IU. “There’s no place more multicultural than the university,” Wheaton said. “It’s becoming the microcosm of the world. We have to be able to understand other cultures and just other ways of being and not judge them.”
(03/05/13 4:07am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Senior Jamel Hill broke some good news to Leah Davis, Groups Program STEM initiative adviser. “I am going to be participating in a research lab about how people’s body responds to fast food,” Hill said.Hill said he is going to be a doctor when he completes his many years of schooling. Hill is currently the president of the new Groups Program STEM Student Organization. The Groups Program STEM Initiative fits under the umbrella of IU’s joint effort with certain programs in order to encourage underrepresented students to study science, technology, engineering and mathematical fields. The IU STEM Initiative includes many different programs, such as the Women in Science Mentoring Program, IU Office of Diversity, Equity, Multicultural Affairs and Historically Black Colleges and Universities Summer Scholars Initiative Program, along with many other programs in relative departments. Leah Davis is one of the advisers of the Groups Program STEM Initiative, along with Vince Isom. Davis said the Groups part of IU’s STEM Initiative grew from the Women in Science Mentoring Program — a program that started in 2010 with the now-defunct Office of Women’s affairs. “Janice Wiggins had a vision to want to see a little bit more in terms of STEM, and she really wanted to see young men in our mentoring program,” Davis said. “So we decided to fully develop a more comprehensive STEM program.” Davis said the Groups Program STEM Initiative started off with 50 students, both men and women. Its goal is to provide first-generation college students the opportunity to engage in fields they don’t usually gravitate toward.According to the Groups Program STEM Scholar brochure, the STEM Scholars participate in mentoring, presentations, tutoring and research experience. STEM Scholars are required to choose between three career tracks: Ph.D., Public Health and M.D. “That’s the ultimate goal. That’s how we frame it,” Davis said. Last year, Hill started a student group from within the organization to increase peer mentoring within the program. It’s called the STEM Student Organization. “Our organization is in its infantile stage, so a lot of the things that I have implanted in our organization is things that we could use in the future, like how to run a meeting,” Hill said. Hill said they will be volunteering at a career fair today, and it will put them in contact with professionals in different fields. They will also be volunteering at an elementary school science fair.“Little things like that, helping out the community and getting to know each other has really been the focus,” Hill said.Hill said the reason he wanted to create the organization was so there could be a community feeling within the Groups Program STEM Initiative Scholars. “That’s part of the biggest ways I’ve contributed to STEM, is wanting to have a place where students can be a part of that can help them succeed,” Hill said.Davis said Hill’s success with the STEM program is a sign that the program is indeed working. She said there are specific requirements in the STEM Initiative when it comes to medical fields, because it is not directly related to a STEM field. However, when it comes to students like Hill whose focus is to attend medical school, they don’t want to exclude them. IU’s STEM Initiative and its many programs are a part of President Barack Obama’s “Educate to Innovate” program he initiated nationally in 2009. “Part of the Obama Administration’s platform, his goal was to be sure that our country stays No. 1 in the world,” Davis said. “He believed that investing more into the STEM areas will be more profitable for this country, because STEM drives the economy, and so in order for us to be No. 1, we have to have more people going into these areas.”
(03/04/13 4:02am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Students in the Department of Central Eurasian Studies, Turkish Flagship Programs and Near Eastern Language and Cultures gathered Friday and recited Uzbek poetry from a man six centuries before their time.According to Uzbek Lecturer Malik Hodjaev, the poet’s name was Ali-Shir Navoi and he is widely known as the founder of the Turkic-Uzbek literature. Although the political activist wrote much of his poetry in the 1400s, many people today — including the Uzbek Student and Scholar Association that put on the event — still find relevancy in his poetry. Umida Khikmatillaeva, the UzSSA founder and adviser, said this recital is not just a celebration of Navoi’s birthday, but also an example of culture awareness in the IU community. “Our goal is to introduce Uzbek and Turkic culture to more students,” Khikmatillaeva said. According to Khikmatillaeva, there were nine poetry competitors who were judged by the Less Commonly Taught Languages professors. The professors judged the performers’ physical presence, dramatic appropriation and level of difficulty of the poem, along with other criteria.The first, second and third place winners all won an English translated book called “A Collection of Uzbek Short Stories” by IU alumnus Mahmuda Saydumarova. The performers donned traditional Turkic Uzbek atlas fabric and doppis — traditional hats worn by men and women. Benjamin Brunett, a second year master’s student in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, won the competition. Brunett said the most challenging thing about learning the poetry was understanding Navoi’s language style. “It was difficult,” Brunett said, “I’m just a first year student of Uzbek and Ali-Shir Navoi was writing in the 15th century so the language is different. There’s a lot I don’t understand. It’s a little difficult to get the rhythm and intonation right. It just takes a lot of practice.”However, Brunett said his knowledge of Arabic and Persian helped because of the similarities in the three Eurasian languages. “It’s just easy to see all the connections in those languages and so that was helpful in translating a little bit,” Brunett said. Brunett said Mufarra Musaeva, the vice president of UzSSA, helped him and the other students learn about the Uzbek language. They both agreed reciting and translating Navoi’s poetry was like understanding Shakespeare. “Mufarra is very enthusiastic in Uzbek culture and I think she really inspires us all to participate,” Brunett said. “I like to do things outside the classroom and outside grammar and the vocabulary. I like experience to culture, so learning and reciting a poem was a good way to do that.” Musaeva, who is also a Fulbright foreign language teaching assistant, organized the Uzbek poetry recital for her students. She said Navoi was the father of Turkic literature deriving from Uzbek to Uyghur languages.“At that time, everybody spoke Turkic language but nobody used it in literature,” Musaeva said, “He is the one that used this in the language.”
(02/28/13 4:39am)
The four teams — Higher Purpose, Black Men, Phi Beta Sigma and Voices of
Hope — all answered various questions from several categories in a
Jeopardy-style format of three rounds, a final round and Daily Doubles.
(02/27/13 4:52am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>James Green, a history and Brazilian studies professor at Brown University, gave a talk Monday about the history of Brazil, its dictators, its activists and preservation of documents during its military government era. This lecture was part of a two day symposium, “Human Rights, the Right to Memory, and the Truth Commission in Brazil,” organized by Luis Gonzalez, the librarian for Latin American, Iberian, Latino, and Chicano-Riqueño studies.Green said Brazil is becoming a rising power in the world despite its complexity. “One of the ways how to understand this complex country is to understand this recent past,” Green said. “That recent past is complex because the president is a former guerilla fighter and the country is going through a debate now about human rights.”Gonzalez said he invited Green to talk because of his knowledge and research of the authoritarian Brazilian military government that ruled the country between 1964-1988. Gonzalez also wanted to discuss the newly formed National Truth Commission, a national organization dedicated to investigating records of the military’s criminal actions against political and social activists. “The IU Libraries, in collaboration with the Center of Research Libraries, is supporting a digitization project of records of military treatment of this period,” Gonzalez said. “So in the light of the Truth Commission and the opening of these records, I think it gains more importance and it shows how libraries provide support to projects that help disseminate information to society by making records during the military era widely available.”Green said his goal was to make people at IU more aware about a project that will share this formerly confidential information. “IU has been supportive of a project that is a part of making available documents that were secretly copied during the dictatorship and then stored in the United States and then digitalized and made available to the public as a whole,” Green said. The project is connected to the book, “Brazil Nunca Mais,” or “Brazil Never Again” and describes the torture activists faced with the Brazilian military government forces. “The material and the information in these documentations is very valuable for those people who were working with Truth Commission to find out document reveal what happened,” Green said. Matthew Lebrato, an anthropology Ph.D student, said he attended the talk not only because he is in Center for Latin American and Carribean Studies but also because of his interest in human rights. Lebrato said he learned detailed information about Brazil that he didn’t know before, like Green’s discussion about the relationship between the impunity of crimes during the military dictatorship and crimes against the urban poor that’s going on now. “That was kind of the most important thing that I think that I will take away from it and continue thinking about aside from the historical facts,” Lebrato said. “That point is really important to keep in mind.”
(02/25/13 5:53am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Black Market burned down on Katrina Overby’s birthday. On Dec. 26, 1968, just more than a decade before she was born, two Bloomington residents affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan threw a Molotov cocktail in the windows of Bloomington’s Black Market, destroying $20,000 worth of property inside the building, including dashikis, music albums, jewelry and natural hair products. Now, at the corner of Kirkwood Avenue and Dunn Street, there are no remnants of the store, only People’s Park.Overby led the charge to revive the spirit of the Black Market, even if just for an evening. She coined the term for the event that took place last Friday when black-owned businesses met in the Bethel A.M.E. Church — another historical black landmark in Bloomington — Black Market Friday.“My colleague, Carl Darnell, kept making mentions about the Black Market,” Overby, vice president of the Black Graduate Student Association, said. “So the more and more I learned about it and looked it up on the Internet and saw the story, I thought that it would be a great idea to do it for Black History Month. It doesn’t seem like it’s been done before.” Rollo Turner, who founded the Black Market in 1968, was also a graduate student when he was at IU. “So I was like ‘what better way to try help remember black businesses back to Bloomington?’” Overby said. Bloomington native and IU Health Professions and Pre-Law Center staff member, Betty Bridgwaters said in the 1960s, nationwide social movements like the anti-Vietnam counterculture movement and the Black Power movement provided impetus to improve black life at IU and in Bloomington. “During that period, things came to a head,” Bridgwaters said. “Young people, black and white, were protesting the status quo and the norms. They wanted to overturn and change a lot.”Bridgwaters said black graduates and faculty members had two goals: create the Black Studies Department, which later became the Department of African and African American Diaspora Studies, and create a place where students and the community could buy African and African American made products like jewelry, head wraps, artwork and figurines. “That was the one place you could go and see something that you wanted to buy,” Bridgwaters said “They wanted it right here in Bloomington.”This place became known as the Black Market.Bridgwaters remembers the Black Market as a place where you would see black people and others from the community buying African-derived items. However, Bridgwaters remembers there was always tension going in and out of the shop, because of racial intolerance in the Bloomington community. Three months later, the racial intolerance exploded with the building’s destruction.A few years later, the owner of the Black Market, Kathy Canada, who is also a Bloomington philanthropist and an Eli Lilly heiress, donated the land that would became People’s Park.Forty years later, the Black Market’s activities have moved from People’s Park to Bethel A.M.E. Church on a cold, winter Friday night in Bloomington.In a spacious room in the church, there are remnants of the Black Market. Just like the old market, the new event included about 13 black innovators who created products, whether it was cheesecake, jewelry, music, shea butter, ribs or scarves.Now, however, the old vinyls of the ’70s are gone, replaced by a MacBook Pro and handheld speakers.One United States National Track and Field qualifier expressed his love of art at his booth with paintings and self-portraits of his hardships in college. One graduate student had her own cleaning service. A young woman named Jasmine had recently started her own blog called “The Journ3y” to inspire and promote self-esteem in young women like her. Rob gave samples of caramel and chocolate cheesecakes. Bloomington resident Patricia Carolyn Coleman has her own shop, called Patricia’s Wellness Arts Cafe which is filled with a potpourri of homemade items she had on display like certified organic teas, jellies, dolls, local artworks and quilts. “I love making things and I think that every person is creative and I like sharing that with them,” Coleman said. “I love seeing the creative talents of people. And the thing is, there are people here that ... I just know that there are so many creative people here in ... so much light is being hidden under the bushel and this is a shining. We need all the people to shine.”Overby said the main goal for this event is to give others in Bloomington’s black community an opportunity to network and communicate.“There are a lot of students on campus that don’t know that these businesses exist,” Overby said. “We just want to get black people more exposed to each other and fill this gap in what we call community.”
(02/25/13 2:26am)
The Black Market was open for three months before it burned down in 1968. The Black Graduate Student Association held the first black market Friday for the IU community Feb. 22.
(02/19/13 4:21am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When Mandisa Thomas asked the small, diverse audience how many black atheists they knew, only one black student raised his hand. He went on to state he had only one friend he knew was atheist.Thomas, the current president of the Black Non-Believers organization, visited IU to talk to students about an issue that is nearly taboo in the black community: atheism.In her seminar, “Don’t just talk about it, be about it: Secular Efforts in the Black Community”, Thomas presented the common misconception in America that it is impossible to be a black atheist. Thomas named well-known black intellectuals of the past such as Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston, as some members of the black community who doubted the structure of religion.The Black Non-Believers use these people in their billboards to spread knowledge about the atheist community.Thomas was even featured alongside Hughes in a billboard in Atlanta, the headquarters for the Black Non-Believers. Thomas said their main purpose is to get people out of their shell if they are feeling conflicted in their religion and to inform people about black atheists in America. Thomas said there are misunderstandings between the black religious community and black atheists, humanists and freethinkers.“The most common misconception is that we don’t believe in anything, that we have no morals, that we’re angry with God ... that we don’t understand ourselves and that we don’t understand God per se,” Thomas said.She said they can be good people just like everyone else and do everyday things, like go to movies, bowl and socialize. They just don’t affiliate with any religion.According to a Pew Research Center study done in 2007, 87 percent of African Americans described themselves as being a part of some form of religion. As studies show, African Americans are the most religious out of any of the racial or ethnic minorities in America. Thomas said this is mostly due to the strong sense of togetherness and political agency in black churches during slavery and the civil rights era.Thomas said she believes it is important for black atheists and black religious communities to come together to solve disparities in their communities.“Many of us care about our communities, we care about our families, we want to see everyone do well,” Thomas said. “But sometimes the issue of religion does get in the way. If you don’t believe in God, then it’s supposed to be tantamount to not being black at all. I think that once we get past this idea that you must believe in a God to be good, then we can work together to solve our communities’ problems.”Jessika Griffin, president of the Secular Alliance at IU, said she invited Thomas to speak because she felt the black community needed more awareness aboutatheism.“I was really feeling like we have a pretty cool black population at IU, and at the same time, blacks, especially black females, are the most likely to be religious,” Griffin said. “And that made me think, if you’re the one person who is doubting religion or is an atheist, and you don’t have anybody else, that’s a really hard position to be in. So I wanted to make an effort to say that black atheists exist. There are whole movements for that, so people on campus could feel like they had an outlet.”
(02/18/13 4:08am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Morning Lark Baskett was one of the Indiana residents who showcased homemade products at the First Nations Health and Wellness Community Dance Saturday. Baskett, an Indiana Orange County Native American, calls herself the walking, talking poster child for natural homegrown foods.Baskett claims growing and eating natural foods is the reason why she isn’t in a wheelchair and on oxygen support, considering the fact she has Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and uses only 25 percent of her lungs. “Last year, I was reevaluated at the hospital in Bloomington, and the doctors could not believe that I was doing so well,” Baskett said.The First Nations Education and Cultural Center co-sponsored the event with many Native American organizations in the Indiana community, such as the American Indian Association of Indiana, which provided free health services for the participants. The gathering also included vendors, gourd dancing, intertribal dancing and dinner. Brian Gilley, the director of the FNECC, said they partnered with the American Indian Association of Indiana to educate Native American people about the importance of health care. Gilley also said in order to get many Natives talking about health care, you have to have to plan it as a social event. “If you say ‘hey, we’re going to be doing health screenings,’ there is no way that they’re going to come, but if you hold a dance, then you’ll get lots of people to come out,” Gilley said. “So it has a dual purpose of getting the community together and doing outreach for better health for American Indians in Indiana.”According to Gilley, the FNECC has pow-wows in the fall and community gatherings in the spring. This is the first year they have had a combined community dance and wellness fair. He said because of the successful turnout, it’s likely they will do it next year.“We want to remind people to take care of themselves and when you’re doing that, you can’t just be in a room and just talk at people,” Gilley said. “You need to bring people together for a good reason and sneak the health message in, so it’s just the community taking care of itself and taking care of each other.” Throughout most of the eight hours of the Health and Wellness fair, the gourd and intertribal dancers from tribes ranging from Sioux to Cherokee danced traditional dances in a circle with their colorful regalia. Tony Nantanluan , an elder of the Ojibwe Tribe, promotes medical and social awareness in the Native American community. He also participates in intertribal dances around the state. He said normally these traditional dances are considered warrior battles. This particular night, it was more of a social gathering among the different Native tribes. “The gourd dancing is more of an elderly veteran man group to honor vets,” Nantanluan said. “The intertribal is what you’ll see in pow-wows. All the different nations have their own ceremonies and dance styles and gatherings.”Nantanluan said he believes it is important to teach his children and grandchildren the old ways so it’s never forgotten. As the executive director of the American Indian Association in Indiana, Doug Poe said not only is the organization’s goal to inform Native Americans about health concerns, but it is also to educate colleges and hospitals about being culturally sensitive to some Native American traditions. Poe gave an example of their sacred tribal use of tobacco. Poe said the association does about six to eight glucose screenings a year and goes to every pow-wow in the state of Indiana to promote health and wellness in the Native American community. He said Native Americans are heavily affected by numerous issues like diabetes, obesity and suicide. “They have the highest rate of diabetes and the highest rate of obesity of any minority,” Poe said. “Suicide is becoming very prevalent. Suicide across the country for Native Americans is the number eight killer. Native American health is a important part for me and what we do, and it’s saddening to see how much health disparities there are in the Native American nation.”Poe said the current average life expectancy of Native American men is 48 years and the average life expectancy for women is 52 years. Poe credits the forced migration of Native Americans from their homelands throughout the late 19th and early 20th century to be one of the reasons why Native American’s health has been going downhill. “Generations go from eating a healthy lifestyle to eating junk food, and so all of that is catching up with the DNA makeup in Native Americans with diabetes,” Poe said. Baskett picked up one of her many jars filled with natural ingredients at her table in the Willkie Auditorium. She kissed the jar of peaches with cinnamon and vinegar and called it “a doctor in a jar” because of its benefits with curing arthritis. Baskett, who grows heirloom seeds among other natural plants in her 25-by-25-foot garden, said there was a time when she wasn’t living as healthy. “I got bronchitis all the time, and I was raising two kids by myself, and I was going to school and I didn’t have time to stop and take care of myself. Finally it scarred my lungs so bad and finally it turned to COPD,” Baskett said, “I’m somebody who wants people to get back to the traditional ways and get healthy, you know. That’s the whole goal because if it worked for
(02/14/13 4:08am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Senior Jeremiah Reed remembers the first time he participated in a date auction. His freshman year, he was auctioned off at $40. “I just did it as a network opportunity since it was my first year at IU,” Reed said. “Last time, it wasn’t really for a reason. I thought that this time, I could do it for a reason.”Reed, currently the vice president of the Gamma Eta chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, originally participated through McNutt Quad’s Kelley School of Business Living Learning Center’s date auction to raise funds for the American Heart Association. “It really wasn’t a date date,” Reed said. “We just had a little ice cream at Foster. It wasn’t like a real date. It was just for fun.”Now, he is participating with his fraternity brothers and the Epiphany Modeling Troupe models in a special event planned for those who weren’t struck by Cupid on the day dedicated for love, chocolates and roses. On Friday, Epiphany Modeling Troupe, a multicultural organization that uplifts and builds confidence in aspiring student models, will collaborate with the men of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity to hold a date auction open to campus. The highest bidder will win a date with one of the members from either organization. Junior Trebby Ellington, EMT public relations specialist and chair of the event, said people often misunderstand the idea of a date auction. “People hear ‘date auction,’ and they’re a little intimidated because you’re buying someone, but essentially that’s not what it’s for,” Ellington said. Ellington said there would be about 25 participants collectively from both organizations who will be auctioned off to other students on campus. “We got Alphas, and we got our models who are willing to be auctioned off to the campus,” Ellington said. “We have a social mingle following the event so that it’s not so awkward for people that are purchased. Really it’s just a classy night, a fun night for a good cause. It brings people out of their comfort zone.” Ellington said even though they were too busy to do the date auction last year, EMT tries to put on the event annually. In past years, since their modeling troupe is mostly females, they usually collaborated with organizations that were mostly male to get an equal representation of people being auctioned off, Ellington said. This year is the first year the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity will be a part of EMT’s date auction. Andrew Adeniyi, president of the Gamma Eta chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha, said one of the reasons his fraternity got involved with the date auction with EMT is because of the concept. “We liked the idea of the programming with the organization,” Adeniyi said. “We saw it as a great opportunity and also an opportunity to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity where a majority of the proceeds are going towards.” Adeniyi said the proceeds to Habitat for Humanity come from the $1 entry fee that everyone would have to pay to get into the event and a minimum $5 bidding rate for the auctioned off members. Every additional dollar that people bid toward their prospective dates will be given to that date’s organization to give to their philanthropy of choice. The two organizations have not yet chosen what their philanthropies will be.This isn’t the first time that Alpha Phi Alpha has partnered up with Habitat for Humanity. Adeniyi said that in the past, the fraternity worked with other greek organizations in an initiative to help build houses in the spring for those in need called Project Alpha. It all worked out, since EMT had plans to partner with Habitat for Humanity, as well.“That’s the organization that they’re very passionate about as well,” Adeniyi said. “So to go to that, it’s a way for us to help them and also give back to Habitat for Humanity.”Ellington said gift baskets are also up for bidding, so it is not just people being auctioned off. “These gift baskets include items like a free manicure, movie passes, restaurant gift cards,” Ellington said. “So if someone doesn’t want to purchase someone, they can purchase a gift basket and those proceeds will be donated as well.”After the event, there will be a social gathering at another location for people to mingle and talk to each other. This is the first time Adeniyi will witness a date auction event.“I definitely think there will be some funny moments,” Adeniyi said. “I think that anyone who goes up there to be auctioned off is a brave soul.”
(02/13/13 3:17am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>This summer, the Helene G. Simon Hillel Center at IU is offering a unique opportunity for students to go to Israel to analyze media coverage of the Middle East. The Hillel Center at IU has taken numerous trips to Israel with their financial sponsor Birthright-Israel, an organization that provides a free 10-day trip for young adults between the ages of 18-26 years old. However, this is the first time that they are partnering with the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. According to its website, CAMERA is a nonprofit and non-partisan organization dedicated to media-watching, researching and educating news consumers about misleading news coverage concerning possible inaccuracies in the Arab-Israeli conflict. CAMERA encourages fair, accurate and balanced news coverage, especially for stories that may be misportrayed to the public. Lance daSilva, program director of the Hillel Center at IU, said this is an opportunity for 40 IU students to learn about Israel. “We have essentially been recruiting people all year, just like gauging interests,” daSilva said. “So we have a long list of people at IU that we know are interested.” daSilva said the registration opens this Wednesday for interested applicants and closes within a week. He said there are certain requirements for applicants who want to go on the Israel trip with Birthright and CAMERA. “Basically to be eligible you have to be between the ages of 18-26 and be Jewish,” daSilva said. To be Jewish as defined by Birthright, one must have at least one Jewish grandparent. daSilva said they normally get many eligible people and weed them out through a lottery process. They then send them through an interview process and lead them through orientation for the trip. The students pay a deposit of $250 that is refunded after the trip to make sure they’re committed. “It’s our job — IU Hillel and every other organization like us — that when the students get back from the trip they use that excitement and get people involved within the Jewish community here at IU,” daSilva said. “That’s actually one of the goals of the trip, to make you feel good about Israel, but then to also give someone a stronger sense of their identity.” Senior Evie Salomon said that her trip to Hillel as a sophomore inspired her to do some reporting abroad in Israel her junior year. She said that being able to see Israel from all different kinds of perspectives was her favorite part of the trip.“We really got a plethora of experiences, like all the different kinds of living you could do in Israel. We did hikes, we did night life, we did Shabbat dinners,” Salomon said. “You didn’t feel like anything was being pushed on you.”Students develop a love for the country and amazing friendships due to their shared experiences on the trip, daSilva said. “As you see the entire country, as you get to go from one landmark to the next and learn more about the country and form that connection to Israel...students tend to feel overwhelmed that they’re actually in this sacred, holy land,” daSilva said. “Each place affects someone differently.”
(02/11/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU Auditorium was filled with loud school chants, banging Dandiyas and vibrant hues of green, blue, yellow and purple.To get the different schools and the crowd pumped up, one school started off with a shout out: “IU, where you at? Let me see your hands clap!”Indian dance competition Raas Royalty took place Saturday night in the IU Auditorium with a sizable crowd. Eight Raas dance teams, from as far as University of California-Irvine to as close as Purdue University, competed in a traditional Indian dance.Even though IU’s own Hoosier Raas, as host, could not compete, they still performed an exhibition act using a bootcamp theme.Senior Nithin Reddy, the director of Raas Royalty, said the competition derives from a traditional Indian folk dance called Garba, which is a dance from a state in Northwestern India called Gurjarat. Over the years, Raas has evolved from this traditional folk dance to an intercollegiate competition held at different universities across the United States.“It’s nice to see the generations continue the traditions and cultures of their family,” Reddy said.Reddy said the dance includes twirling and hitting a pair of sticks, called Dandiyas, together to a rhythmic beat.“The main aspects are very high energy and partner interaction,” Reddy said.Reddy said this competition is one of the few in the Midwest and competitions like it take place across the nation, eventually leading up to the Raas All-Stars competition every year.“There are 13 competitions that are qualifiers for the national competition,” Reddy said. “If you qualify then you have the ability to earn points for the competition at the end of the Raas circuit and compete in Raas All-Stars Competition.”This year, Raas All-Stars will be held in March in Dallas.Reddy said the collegiate teams often spend a lot of time practicing their routines in the beginning of the school year. The amount of time the teams practice throughout the year varies from two to five times a week. He said around 30 teams each complete an audition video for the competition, and only a few are chosen from two rounds of judging for IU Raas Royalty. He said that as a second generation Indian American, this event is special to him and other Raas Royalty dancers.“It’s something that we could take pride in, and it’s fun to see our tradition and culture amongst other people who may not be able to witness it anywhere else,” Reddy said.IU Raas Royalty donates some of their leftover donations, those not used to put together the competition, to a locally-founded organization called Timmy Global Health Foundation.“Fundraising is a big part of our organization,” Reddy said. “We do try to keep ourselves involved with charities, so we make sure we donate some of our proceeds to the charity.”Eric Love, the advisor for Raas Royalty and the director of the Office of Diversity Education, said this event is something you can’t see anywhere else in Indiana.“The students in Raas Royalty do so much work,” Love said. “They raised over $20,000. They organize the whole thing. It just gets bigger and bigger every year — big like 2,000 people attending. It really has put Indiana University on the map with a high-charged event.”All of the dance teams had their own themes. In their dances they infused popular hip-hop music such as Kanye West songs and New Boyz, “You’re a Jerk” into the beginning of their percussive traditional Indian rhythms.The competition commenced with Michigan University’s football-themed dance, which included pom-poms and a huge handmade Jumbotron. They interpreted their own school’s colors, wearing bright, electric blue and yellow.Even though sports themes were particularly common, throughout the night there were some more creative performances as well. Houston University’s “Roarin’ Raas” team decided to go with a zombie apocalypse storyline and incorporated a “Nightmare/Thriller” dance sequence.Purdue University danced and twirled with a Wheel of Fortune-themed dance. University of California-Irvine high-kicked to a Monster’s Inc.-inspired routine with decorations of doors in the background.University of Pittsburgh performed a piece called “Aladdin’s Final Wish” with a dancer dressed in deep purple like the famous Disney character Aladdin.Trisha Patel, a senior at Ohio State University, said the girls’ outfits are called “chaniya cholis,” and the guys’ pants are called “dhotis.” She said her dance team has been practicing since September and she sees Raas Royalty as good competition amid all the tension.“Personally, it’s a really fun accomplishment to be here this year because I was here my freshman year, so it’s like we’ve come full circle,” Patel said. “We just want to put on a good show, and at the end of the day, show everyone what we’ve worked on.”While the judges took time to deliberate on whom should win and get points to possibly head to Nationals, Bindi-ana, an all-female Indian dance group, and InMotion, an IU contemporary dance group, performed for the audience.In the end, Saint Louis University took home the first-place trophy with their hip-hop and vinyl records routine and scored the most points toward the national competition.Fallon Baden, a junior, said she absolutely loved the show.“My favorite part was just seeing all the different personalities in the music and also seeing the modern and the Indian music, just like having those different cuts and the reactions of the audience as well,” Baden said.
(02/07/13 4:07am)
In an effort to repurpose Franklin Hall last summer, several offices,
including the Office of Overseas Study and the Office of International
Services, were relocated to other buildings. The Office of Overseas
Study took the place of the Leo R. Dowling Center. The Office of
International Services was transferred to the Poplars Building.
(02/05/13 4:22am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Monday night, music executive pioneer Logan Westbrooks gave advice to IU students: “Do what you love to do.” Westbrooks, who has been in the music industry for more than 40 years, led the beginning of a month-long celebration of black history at the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center Grand Hall with a lecture titled “Bustin’ Loose: Breaking Racial Barriers in the Music Industry.” Students, faculty, staff and community members gathered to hear Westbrooks talk about his journey from becoming the first black territory salesman for Capitol and Mercury Records in the 1960s to becoming CBS Records’ first director of special markets in 1971. After his lecture, the IU Archives of African American Music and Culture unveiled the “Logan Westbrooks: Music Industry Executive, Entrepreneur, Teacher, Philanthropist” exhibit in the Neal Marshall Bridgewater’s Lounge, which will be on display throughout February. The director of the archives, Portia Maultsby, served as a liaison between Westbrooks and IU. Maultsby, who is also a folklore and ethnomusicology professor at IU, said she met Westbrooks while doing research on the black music industry in the late 1970s and early 1980s in Los Angeles. “While I was there I was introduced to him by a major contact that I had who was the editor of Soul magazine, the first black publication on black music,” Maultsby said. He was only one of the many black executives she met as she interviewed and gathered archival information about the pioneers of black music in conventions around Los Angeles. “I realized history was being made,” Maultsby said. “These units and these African American executives were putting together units and developing marketing strategies that would ultimately cast black music into the mainstream. It was a story that needed to be documented as it was unfolding and preserved, because now nobody knows anything about it.”Westbrooks said that he has been in contact with Maultsby for the last decade as she visited Los Angeles to work on her collection of Westbrooks’ saved archives. Many of those archives include record vinyls and hundreds of photographs of famous people and places throughout his career. Westbrooks found his niche in promoting black music to the mainstream working throughout the United States in various promoting manger positions for Capitol and Mercury Records. While he was there, he promoted several artists, from Nat King Cole to the Beatles. In 1971, Westbrooks broke barriers by becoming CBS’s first director of special markets, which was dedicated to promoting black music to mainstream audiences. This position also opened the doors for several black marketing staff and other black executives to recording companies.“Some of the things that I did was opened doors and created positions for other young black executives in the music industry,” he said. “At the time, I didn’t have no idea that I was establishing the ground rules, but as I look back, that’s exactly what took place.” Westbrooks’ advice to the audience was to find a career they enjoy.“I worked for a number of different companies and each day getting up, I looked forward to it,” he said. “You should enjoy what you do. If you don’t, stop doing it and find something you enjoy doing. Find something, something you enjoy doing, and the world will come to you.” Westbrooks’ arguably greatest achievement was creating Source Records, which was responsible for making Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers’ “Bustin’ Loose” a nationwide hit.Landon Jones, a first-year graduate student in African studies, said Westbrooks’ lecture was influential to undergraduates who are trying to break into the music business.“I thought the lecture was really good, especially for undergrad students who are wanting to find their way into the industry, and then also for undergrads of color who are trying to find music industry and also understand that it’s not just as much as to breaking into the music industry, but trying to make milestones on your own behalf, especially as a person of color,” Jones said. “I think it was important for him to come here to speak, especially this being one of the first black history events.”Maultsby believes that Westbrooks’ exhibit is an important addition to the campus because of his contributions to black history.“It’s an insight into the life of a pioneer in the music business, and I think there are many lessons to be learned from interpreting the present and the future and understanding the past and to look at the successful during a period where there were many obstacles,” Maultsby said. “I think there’s a lot to be learned through a journey of his life, and I think for anyone interested in the industry today, it’s useful, even though there are many changes in the industry.”
(02/04/13 2:54am)
The International Latin American and Spanish Students Association
began the semester with its usual coffee hour Friday, which included
enchiladas and flautas from El Norteno, Latin American music and an
introduction by the executive board members.
(02/03/13 9:51pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A year ago, the International Latin American and Spanish Students Association had its coffee hours in the Leo R. Dowling International Center. However, ever since the center closed last summer, international organizations such as ILASSA plan their events and meetings in residential halls around campus. Last Friday, ILASSA began the semester with their usual coffee hour, which included enchiladas and flautas from El Norteno, Latin American music and an introduction by the executive board members. ILASSA President Jose Toledo stated that the main purpose of the organization is to create an environment where every Latin American and Spanish student has the opportunity to contribute to the IU community in their own way.“The idea is to promote and create this volunteer feeling in all our members,” Toledo said. “The second idea is to create the opportunity to open different task forces, like environment work, social work, academic issues, human rights and gender equality.” Sophomore Jeannette Heusca, the vice president of ILASSA, said that she personally joined because of the connections she gained while learning about different cultures. She said she wants to get the word out about the organization so others could feel welcome to join as well. “My parents are from Mexico,” Huesca said. “I grew up here in the United States and you kind of get disattached from your culture, and knowing from other cultures in Latin America, everyone has their own culture. You can learn so much from different people. You would think that since you speak the language it would all be the same, but it’s not.”After Toledo, Huesca and other executive board introduced themselves and the organization in Spanish, Toledo explained why they were in Teter Quad : they don’t have a permanent residence place. “It’s difficult for us,” Toledo said. “The Leo Dowling International is no more, they closed down. We don’t have physical space to meet.” The international student organizations are now located in the Office of International Services in the Poplars Building. Toledo stated that if international students want to have a meeting or an event, they have to rent rooms in the residential halls. Toledo said he feels the center was closed due to the University’s efforts to equate education with business.“For me, it’s sad that education equals business, and when education is equal to business, you have this difficult situation,” Toledo said. “More students is business, but you don’t have no place for them.” Toledo said he believes international organizations like ILASSA need to have more discussions about this issue. “We need to not only have happy hours or coffee hours but we need to speak about our reality for students and because we are a minority,” Toledo said.For some, this coffee hour was the first time they heard the Leo R. Dowling International Center had closed. When the topic was brought up, many people in the room joined the discussion.“I think it came as a surprise to a lot of people,” group member Alexandria Toledo said. “They didn’t know about it closing over the summer, so some people are pretty upset about it and they would like to see a space on campus for international students to meet — if not there, then somewhere else.” Alexandria Toledo said she thinks that students aren’t sure what measures to take concerning the closing of the center. “I think a problem is that people don’t really know what happened, or they aren’t opportunities to show that, or international students might not know the system for doing advocacy or for kind of protesting the decision,” Toledo said. “We know that (the center) is missed, so maybe we could make that public.”Mintzi Martinez-Rivera, a Ph.D. candidate and a former co-president of ILASSA, remembers the coffee hours held at the Leo R. Dowling International Center. “Everybody knew that every Friday of the month, there was always going to be a coffee hour between 4 and 6, and all the student organizations would have a coffee hour. The idea of the coffee hour was to have some form of cultural and educational event…and you would have food and music education”. Martinez–Rivera said without the international center, all the student organizations are scattered throughout the campus without a central place to gather and learn about different cultures around the world. Even though she said she sees this as a great loss for IU’s international community, Martinez-Rivera said she believes that last Friday’s coffee hour was beneficial. “Hopefully for ILASSA this would be a good jumping point for having the strength we once had when we were in the international center, ” Martinez-Rivera said.
(02/01/13 3:28am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center will have its First Friday
celebration from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday in the center’s Bridgewaters Lounge.NMBCC
Graduate Assistant Muhammad Saahir said the First Friday events at the
NMBCC started two years ago when Stephanie Power-Carter became the
director of the center.
“First Fridays began with the intent of having more of a community
program,” Saahir said. “It’s a way to make a more inclusive environment
for all students, so we decided to try to do it once a month.”From a
national perspective, the First Friday celebration is an
African-American tradition that started in the late 1980s to create
opportunities for young professionals through social, political and
artistic networking.
This event provides students and professionals the chance to exchange
and share ideas on professional, educational, political and social
issues. First Friday celebrations take place all over the country, from
Los Angeles to Detroit to Richmond. Every First Friday event is different, however. The events vary from art shows, block parties, music performances and dinners. Saahir said this month’s First Friday at the NMBCC is a family dinner. “We
will have some sort of traditional soul food type of menu,” Saahir
said. “The overall theme is to try to have that family atmosphere as if
you were eating at home, and that’s pretty important if you are at a
collegiate setting. It could be their first time away from home and this
could be a way to relieve that missing feeling of home.”
Mark Baker, the owner of local mobile trailer restaurant Pitt Boss, is providing and preparing the food for the event. “I’m
providing ribs, rib chicken, red beans and rice and salad,” Baker said.
“The red beans and rice I make from scratch. I do a lot of catering
events.”
Baker said he hopes to reach out to as many people as he can with his food. “I
wanted to give out my food to as many people as possible and I feel
like this is an event that really shared the way I cooked food with the
audience that I will be serving,” Baker said.
Baker said this is his first time going to a First Friday event. “I’m
looking forward to going there and seeing what it’s about myself,”
Baker said. “This is my first one and I never have been a part of it. I
didn’t know of it until recently.”