Participants at the Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Reception learned a lesson about tolerance through a peer’s poor choice of words during his speech Tuesday night.
SG presidents from LSU, Southern University and BRCC gave Statements of Commitment to unity to the diverse crowd.
Well-dressed students and other guests sat poised around elegant tables, until snickers escaped during the speech of Baton Rouge Community College’s Student Government Association president.
During his speech, Sam Farbe, SG President of BRCC, said he did not know about civil rights struggles until he came to BRCC. He said a professor brought to his attention his subconscious prejudiced feelings and actions.
Farbe spoke of his old ways of thinking and how he used to associate black people with bad attitudes.
In his speech, he used the word “colored” to describe blacks and the word “oriental” to describe Asians twice, while speaking about unity. This caused some of the students to snicker and try to hide their smiles.
During commemorative speaker Molefi Asante’s closing remarks, he spoke of how unity came through people having a similar consciousness and purpose. He said that achieving this starts with education.
He used Farbe’s speech as an example of this and said it was a “beautiful thing, the sincerity of his face.” He said Farbe needed to be educated to properly communicate his feelings to the audience.
He also addressed the crowd’s reaction by saying they should be sensitive to people whose hearts are in the right place, but are not educated on the proper manner to deliver it.
“We have to all understand a similar language,” Asante said.
After the ceremony, Asante approached Farbe to shake his hand as Farbe wiped his eyes to hide his tears.
“I wanted to crawl into a hole,” Farbe said about how he felt during Asante’s speech. “It’s a learning experience. It’s new to me. It just didn’t connect.”
Jason Wesley, LSU’s SG vice president, said Farbe’s speech was passionate and, “we should look past the mistake and look at his intent.”
LSU marketing junior Tashawa Denials said she was offended and stopped listening when Farbe used the word “colored,” but she added that she understood after she heard Asante’s speech.
“When he used stereotypical names, all it did was show how genuine his speech was,” said Wayne Haydin, SU SG president.
Haydin spoke about how King’s vision of unity helped him decide to attend a historically black university and allowed him to become SG president even though he is white.
The reception included a poem about unity by an LSU Black History Month Sankofa Poet, an interpretive dance to “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” by the SU Smith-Brown Memorial Union Look Dancers, and a rendition of “His Eye is on the Sparrow” by a BRCC choir member.
The chancellors of BRCC and LSU and the vice chancellor of SU signed a resolution document committing them to continuing the efforts to unify universities and races.