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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2002

"For years I've supported my family by conducting seminars on intercultural and interracial communication. Learning about how people talk differently depending on their backgrounds and upbringing wasn't easy. I had to risk making lots of mistakes, even offending people -- and, by those errors, learn how to communicate more effectively and sensitively with friends and neighbors who were different from me. I enjoy telling the stories of the silly or dumb things I did or said as I tried to immerse myself in Yup'ik Eskimo culture. And people from my own majority background identify with me and laugh. People from a traditional Native Alaskan background understand my dilemma and laugh too. Sometimes our differences across racial and cultural boundaries can be hilarious.

But sometimes they're not funny at all. Recently I was asked, as a member of the Governor's Commission on Tolerance, to facilitate discussions at a middle school in Anchorage where a few honor students had composed a deeply hurtful and insulting rap song that circulated widely within the African-American community. . ."

Get the Story:
Oleksa: We're in a race for racial justice (The Anchorage Daily News 2/17)