Rah
Digga spreads the message
Performer among features
at Culture Shock
By Alisha Wassenaar
Staff Reporter
RollingStone
compares her to Queen Latifah and says shes a twist on the
traditional bad girl. Blaze Magazine called her the, Emancipation
Proclamator.
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 shes not only a good female rapper
and performer, but shes 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 dont know about the minority
organizations, Singh said. They think that minority
groups are only for minorities, but thats 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
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