The Definitions and Perceptions of Blackness forum hosted today by the Graduate Education Student Association raised questions about cultural identity and addressed the many aspects of “blackness” that pervade society.

The forum, part of the series of events scheduled to honor Black History Month, was organized by Kimberly Folkes, a graduate student in the Bilingual Multicultural Education department.

The forum dealt with how people view “blackness” and the different ways they have to deal with the definition of it.

“It is an open forum where we are trying to find how African-Caribbean, African-American and Africans interact with each other and how they define themselves,” Folkes said.

The forum opened with a group of four panelists who were briefly introduced and asked about some of their personal experiences with discrimination.

Panel member Darryl Freeman, a graduate from the Government Department, expressed what he believed to be the main outline of the event.

“The idea behind this is to see if there are similarities between the black society not just from an external sense, but an internal sense as well,” Freeman said.

“We are trying to define what exactly is the African Diaspora,” he said.

Throughout the forum, topics such as what students see themselves as – black, African-American or even colored – were brought up.

Audience members were convinced that “blackness” could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

Blackness in the media and pop culture was one aspect of the forum that greatly intrigued junior Sociology major Anthony White.

“This is a very interesting topic. From basketball to movies to music, the question of ‘what black is’ is looked at everywhere,” White said.

Events for Black History Month will be held throughout the month of February. Visit www.csus.edu/mcult for more information.

Vanessa Johnson can be reached at [email protected]