Seminar invites some, excludes others

In reading Wednesday's Daily Forty-Niner, I was shocked to read that the 21St annual Black Consciousness Conference was being advertised as "open to all student's – red, yellow, black or brown," by the vice president from the Black Student Union, which is hosting the event.

Then again that list does not include whites. So I shouldn't have been surprised when a man in my black studies class obviously excluded the girl sitting next to me and myself from his invitations to the conference.

As an Anglo studying to be a teacher, I have chosen to learn more about the cultures of the children I will likely be teaching in the future.

I have made this decision because I feel that learning about different cultures is the only way I will be able to teach in a multicultural classroom.

However I feel I have been excluded from an event within the black community at this educational institution. Does this person not want me to be an effective teacher to my black students? Or is he just another racist?

Jennifer Anderson is a liberal studies major at Cal State Long Beach.