Brittany Moss

4/21/14
Campus Event Assignment
On Thursday, April 17
th
the Sophomore Class Council hosted a campus extravaganza in
the form of a cookout. The cookout was designed to foster interactions between students around
campus while at the same time providing a positive atmosphere for students to enjoy themselves
and some great food. I value events of this nature because they put everyone in a good mood and
at the same time give us a chance to meet new people in a safe environment and build friendships
that can last forever.
This event was publicized heavily at the Student Union as well as on social media to
encompass much of the student body in a relaxed setting. The way this event was publicized is
important because it illustrates how quickly information can travel just through word of mouth as
well as lightning fast through technological modes of communication. Technology has most
definitely enhanced communication capability between people and is the reason that the world
we live in has become so globalized today.
This event was held in the Lynch-Wallis courtyard and was a great location because
many students live in this general area. I thought that the idea for this program was excellent.
The point of this program was to try to bring people of different cultures together and nurture
interaction between them and I feel that this is indeed a very noble idea. It is important for us to
step outside of our comfort zone and push ourselves to break down barriers and recognize that
we are all one race, and that is the human race.
Unfortunately the Sophomore Class Councils goal of reaching a broad variety of people
did not come to fruition. As I approached the event around 6:15 on Thursday I quickly noticed
that many of the people standing in the courtyard looked just like me. This was very surprising
considering the goal that the council had for the event. There were generally African American
students sectioned off in different cliques from athletes, to Greeks, to nerds, just cliques
everywhere. Not only did Sophomore class council not accomplish their goal of having people of
different cultures come out but also even divided the groups of people with similarities to them.
This is extremely relevant to the society we live in because people get so caught up in trying to
be like dominant culture and follow the hegemony that they forget about those similar to
themselves. As time passed I just kept wondering if other groups of people would show up.
The courtyard was buzzing with energetic and happy people just having a good time.
There were people eating, dancing, singing, chatting, and some playing games such as water
pong and tug-of-war. The atmosphere was amazing but it still seemed like something was
missing. You wouldve thought based on the representation of people at this cookout that the
flyer said African-Americans only, but this was most-definitely not the case. I was not alone in
this thinking and others pointed it out as well and thought that the only way to make this event
something truly special was to make students of all races, religions, ethnicities, and creeds feel
like they belonged there too.
Later that night three boys walked up to me and inquired about the event One of the guys
was a friend of mine who is a very nice Caucasian guy who is very involved around campus. He
asked, Whats going on out here and am I even allowed to be here He continued by jokingly
expressing how out of place he felt being at a Black Person event. After that I felt compelled to
explain to him how the event was hosted by Sophomore Class Council and how it was for
everybody. I thought that it was an outlandish notion for him to think that an event on UNC
Charlottes campus would be discriminatory in nature and host an event just for one specific
group of people. He understood me and thanked me for enlightening him on the situation;
however his friends were not so responsive to this idea. They saw the event as a joke and
mocked everyone and everything involved in it. They even went to the extreme of recording an
African-American girl eating watermelon and posted it on Snap Chat a popular social media
outlet which made me very angry. I thought that in 2014 people wouldnt discriminate on this
level and allow people to just enjoy themselves and have a good time. Watching this take place
made me really sick to my stomach. I just really thought we were past this sort of discrimination
and had learned to treat each other as humans.
In class we talked about stereotypes as well as discrimination. These topics definitely
stood out to me during this entire experience. Instead of seeing a guy picking on an African-
American girl for eating watermelon I saw stereotyping and this popped into my head A widely
held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular group of people or thing He was
discriminating on this innocent girl based on the stereotype that all black people like to eat
watermelon. This made me hurt because I now realize that no matter how hard the push for equal
treatment, some people will just never understand where you came from.
I very much enjoyed and appreciate this event, but at the same time it was an eye opener
that discrimination is still alive and well today. I took this experience as a learning point and
hope to enlighten many of the people around me that discrimination will likely never truly die
but we need to learn how to combat it with a sense of humility that will overshadow it.