Poetry

This event was very interesting for me.  I have never been to poetry event....ever.  The entertainer was just that very entertaining.  On the other side, the poems read were very serious and very touching.   The works were written about identity, trying to figure out WHO YOU ARE.  The piece presented by the TESOL minor student gave me goose bumps.  She had a lot to say about growing up Asian and some of the racist events she has had to go through.  When she talked about being stuck on an elevator with 10 white male students and they called her asian and a chink, I could feel the hair raising on the back of my neck.  I just couldn't believe it.  I think her whole writing connects with bell hooks nicely.  She explains how racism still exists, how she can't get away from it.  She talks about how it is cruel but it is what rules.  bell hooks   talks about how people think racism doesn't exist anymore, well here is a perfect example that it still does.  bell hooks chapters were a call to action and I feel this poetry reading about identity is a call to action as well.   Everyone struggles with identity, it is up to us to look beyond the stereotypes of identity and find out really WHO these people are.  It is not are place to decided that by the color of their skin, by their cultural heritage.  It is our place to dig deeper,to discover the WHO, not the label attached, and to celebrate  differences.