Before Stonewall

19 minutes

Between martial art and dance, Capoeira has a wide range of blows and acrobatics. Learn how to master the basic techniques like Ginga, kicks, cartwheels, dogdes, blocks, feints, and many more typica movements with the group Capoeira Brasil and master Paulinho SBIA.

Enter thr Roda (circle) and let yourself be guided by the dibolic and sensual rhythms of Brazil. Based in Rio de Janiero, the group Capoeira Brasil was founded in 1989. Today it is one of the most famous in Brazil. It is present inthe whole world and has a reputation of great acrobatic and spectacular rodas of a high technical level.

Discovery Channel - A Question of Race
2 tape set

This short video features stories from Slavery: A Global Investigation, and is an effective tool for raising awareness about modern slavery.

Thirty years after “Freedom Summer” in Mississippi, this ABC News Turning Point program retraces the dramatic events of that summer, and examines how the murders of three young men by the Ku Klux Klan shocked the nation and changed the course of the civil rights movement. The program recounts the events leading to the presence, and then the murder of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner and explores the volatile atmosphere following the discovery of their bodies; the reaction nationwide to their deaths; and the long process involved in seeking justice in a place where segregation was part of the state constitution and violence against blacks was common. When the river was dragged for the missing civil rights workers, nine bodies were found of black men who had been lynched. As one of the volunteers wrote home at the time, “Dear Mom and Dad…Finally people have become concerned, but it is really a judgment on us all that it did not happen until northern white boys were involved.”

Artenstein, Isaac-
Tijuana Jews & the Mexican Jewish Experience

Asante, Molefi

Aslan, Reza -
"The Future of Islam"

In January 2003, Dr. Edgar Beckham, one of the leading educators on the diversity initiative in the country, spoke to professors and students at Miami University on "The Campus Diversity Agenda for the Twenty-First Century." He explores this often controversial topic by speaking of the various explanations for the need of diversity, and how people of different races and backgrounds often view diversity in dissimilar ways. Beckham believes that even the concept of diversity can help to spawn discourse, which can ultimately help to break down the barriers of structural racism. He argues that the teaching of diversity, both to the advantaged and disadvantaged, is the most effective resource we have to learn to live in a world in conflict with others, where it is valued to be both different and the same. Beckham asserts that by replacing deficits with constructions of meanings that serve as assets to understanding, we will be able to help build our democracy.

Bussgang, Drs. Julian and Fay Vogel-
Holocaust Awareness Program - Polish Jews Then and Now: Children of the Holocaust Speak

Diversity, Inc.-
Women of Color Round Table 2006

"Beyond the Hyphen: Identity in the Age of Multiculturalism"
In the fall of 2003, Cristina García, author of such critically acclaimed books as Dreaming in Cuban and Monkey Hunting, gave a lecture at Miami University entitiled "Beyond the Hyphen: Identity in the Age of Multiculturalism." Although the narratives of her novels are different (the former explores the displacement of personal and cultural identity of Cubans in the U.S., while the latter details the life of a Chinese man settled in Cuba) there are similar themes that connect all of Garcías' works, such as migratory drifitng, displacement, centrality of place, real and imagined communities, and intergenerational relationships and conflicts.
In this thought-provoking lecture, García delves into the meanings of multiculturalism, and more specifically, the multiple uses of the "hyphen" to denote ethnicity. Does the hyphen symbolize both an attachement and permanant disconnection from European society around them? Or has it become a positive source of identity and a way to resist mono-culturalism? García notes that currently, many groups in the United States use the hyphen to reclaim their identity that was lost from European society. But what makes an Irish or Italian American different from an African, Latino, or Asian American? García answers these questions by exploring the history of multiculturalism, and how youth and "street" culture has actually helped to bridge the gap between races. She questions the effectiveness of multicultural education, and briefly explores the problems that minority groups still face in trying to overcome their feelings of displacement from dominant European culture.

Racial Identity Issues in Transracial Adoptive Families
In 2001, Ruth McCoy, teaching professor and director of the Center for Social Work at the University of Texas, came to speak to Miami University students about the controversial topic of transracial adoption. Having worked for an adoption agency, she is extremely aware of the struggles that families face when adopting a child from a different country or of a different ethnicity. Although she acknowledges that transracial adoption has been treated with far more acceptance than it was a few decades ago, she reveals that there is still a multitude of struggles that adopting families must face, such as coping with racism and understanding the significance of racism. In her lecture, she emphasizes that families who adopt must be aware if the unique issues that these children have, and to raise them so that they are aware of both their racial and adoptive identity.

Fighting Back Against the Empire
In the fall of 2003, civil-rights activist Eric Mann, a leader of the Bus Riders' Union in California, came to speak to Miami University at the same time of the worker strike. His organization, a self-described "grassroots, militant, multi-racial organization that believes you change things through none of the branches of government," but through direct action of independent working class politics. In this presentation, Mann's goal is to try to engage students in a social revolution despite living in a counter revolution, and questions how we can offer hope to a new generation of organizations when revolutionary politics have been extinguished to the naked eye. He reviews instances in history, such as the Civil Rights Movement, where change did not occur as much from governmental policies and decisions (such as Brown vs. Board of Education) but from the action of the people during the Civil Rights Movement. He also discusses the current environmental crisis, and how this has also been as a result of our culture's apathy. His Bus Union, however, has worked to attain clean fuel and develop auto-free zones, so that they can dramatically try to reduce harmful pollutants. He urges Miami University students to make life changes and decide what one's views are, and asserts that the first point of hope is one's own willingness to fight, and that it begins from a strong ethical, moral and political stance.

Mitchell, Jerry-
Searching for Justice

Pergram Panel -
Hey, Kleiman, DeLue

Teters, Charlene-
Founding Mothers Series