Noted author and speaker Tricia Rose will deliver a keynote address tonight exploring black womens’ sexuality as part of the University’s two-week celebration honoring Martin Luther King Jr.’s life.
Rose’s lecture, which begins at 7 p.m. in 100 Willamette, will discuss the politics surrounding sexuality for black women and issues of race, love and desire.
Kimi Mojica, director of diversity education and support for the Office of Student Life, helped bring Rose to the University and said she asked Rose to link the speech to current-day issues as well as King’s life.
“I wanted her to be able to connect with the community on campus and bring it to a level that reaches (students),” Mojica said. “To kind of bring it down to (current) day life and the decisions we make. She was excited to do that.”
Mojica said Rose was selected because she can attract the attention of educators and students and make her speech relevant to their lives.
Rose wrote a book called “Longing to Tell: Black Women Talk About Sexuality and Intimacy” that was put into print in June 2003. The book is a collection of sexual
testimonies by 20 black women, which “dispel prevailing myths and provide revealing insights into how black women navigate the complex terrain of sexuality,” according to Rose’s Web site.
Multicultural Center Program Advisor Steve Morozumi said corporate America often presents black culture in inaccurate or romanticized ways, adding that he thinks Rose will present a more critical and honest analysis.
Rose is also author of “Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America,” which was awarded the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1995 and made The Village Voice’s top 25 books
of 1994.
Mojica explained that the book is important because it “intellectualizes” rap music and has been accepted by the intellectual
community.
Hanif Panni, a student and hip hop performer on campus, said the material in the chapters he read was very accurate.
“I thought that a lot of the things in that book were right on,” he said.
The Diversity Education and Support Office, the Multicultural Center and the Black Student Union are all sponsoring and organizing tonight’s event.
The speech kicks off two weeks of celebrations at the University, which include a unity celebration with a candlelight vigil Wednesday evening and a speech by lecturer and human rights activist Yuri Kochiyama on Jan. 31, Mojica said.
The candlelight vigil will start at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 28 in the Gerlinger Lounge. The procession will then go on to Agate Street, to East 13th Avenue and back up to the EMU Amphitheatre.
The Oregon Students of Color Coalition conference on Jan. 31 will feature Kochiyama’s address at noon in 129 McKenzie. Kochiyama was a friend of Malcolm X and lived through World War II and Japanese-American internment camps.