Wednesday, April 17, 2002

Rah Digga spreads the message
Performer among features at Culture Shock
By Alisha Wassenaar
Staff Reporter

RollingStone compares her to Queen Latifah and says she’s a twist on the traditional bad girl. Blaze Magazine called her the, “Emancipation Proclamator.”

digga

TCU students will be able to form their own opinion about Rah Digga when she performs 11 a.m. today at Culture Shock 2002 in the Student Center Lounge.

According to her official biography, Rah Digga, the only female member of Busta Rhymes’ Flipmode Squad, travels across the country rapping and speaking about issues that affect minorities.

Pepe Cisneros, chairman of the Student Government Association Multicultural Committee, said Culture Shock was created to give minority students an open forum for expression.

“I chose (Rah Digga) because she’s not only a good female rapper and performer, but she’s also a multicultural speaker,” Cisneros said.

Each minority organization will have a chance to come to the stage, state their values and perform a skit to show what their organization stands for, Cisneros said.

Rishad Gandhi, president of Students for Asian-Indian Cultural Awareness, said that in the past programming has reflected an Anglo viewpoint and has left out minority organizations in the past.

“Last year, there was not anything like Culture Shock,” Gandhi said. “But now, I believe TCU is trying to become more diverse and aware of minorities on campus through their mission statement and the Multicultural Committee.”

Victor Payne, president of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., said he is looking forward to a great show and hopes something positive will come out of the event.

“I think it is safe to say that people come to TCU, get in their groups, and then rarely venture out of their comfort zones,” Payne said.

Cristina Ramos, treasurer of Sigma Lambda Alpha, said organizations often become too involved with themselves.

“We want to make the campus more aware of diversity issues,” Ramos said. “The TCU community is not completely ignorant, but relations between the minority organizations and the rest of the campus could be improved.”

Prateeshka Singh, a freshman international finance and Spanish major, was recently elected as president of SAICA for fall 2002. Her goal is to include all students in SAICA, regardless of ethnicity.

“A lot of American students just don’t know about the minority organizations,” Singh said. “They think that minority groups are only for minorities, but that’s not true. They are open to everyone and that is one misconception we want to clear up at Culture Shock.”

Kellen Correia, president of the Inclusiveness Task Force, which oversees the 12 minority organizations on campus and encourages them to work together, has been working on Culture Shock with Cisneros.

“The first goal of ITF is to work with minority student organizations to enhance efforts and to embrace inclusiveness within the organizations and activities,” Correia said. “We want to get to the point that if one minority organization has an event, we want the other minority organizations to get involved and support them so they will have more impact on the TCU community.”

Alisha Wassenaar
a.a.wassenaar@student.tcu.edu


credits

TCU Daily Skiff © 2002


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