“Who defines the terms by which we live?”

This is the question the Rev. Joseph Brown asked audience members during the “The Status of Africana Studies” panel as a part of African American Heritage month.

Brown, who is a black-Catholic scholar with a doctorate from Yale University, is currently the director and a professor of Africana studies at Southern Illinois University.

Sundiata Cha-Jua, an associate professor in the history department at the University of Illinois from where he earned his doctorate, said the essence of Africana studies is to be a problem solving discipline.

“It combines research and teaching and comparative justice,” Cha-Jua said. “It looks at the past and present social historical experiences of those from African descent.”

Brown agreed, continuing with his original question made to attendees in the Charleston-Mattoon Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.

“I just want to know when we’re telling the story, who told the story, what was left out and who benefited by the way the story was told and studied,” Brown said. “That to me is one of the problems Africana studies is meant to be solving.”

Cha-Jua, who has been the president of the National Council for Black Studies since last year, said another facet of Africana studies is to focus on telling the stories from the vantage point of African people. He stressed while doing this, it is important to understand the diversity of African people, but also “look at them as a group and the things that unite them.”

During the discussion, Cha-Jua explained the difference between African American studies and Africana studies.

“Generally, when we say African American studies, we expect we are going to enter into a curriculum that predominantly empty people are the defendants of Africans who were enslaved in what became the United States,” he said. “Africana has been more inclusive.”

He continued that although Africans are a common people, they have different social and political experiences, depending on their heritage.

Janice Collins, an assistant professor in the journalism department and a member of the Speaker’s Bureau who moderated the panel, asked both panelists their perspective on “the theory that (the country as a whole) is post racial.”

Cha-Jua said he does not believe the country follows this theory. As an example, Cha-Jua said the Tea Party’s belief of limited government could have a negative effect on society because many people rely on employment through the government, many of them from the black community.

“If you follow that logic in a post-racial America, the disproportionate impact on black (people) is so great, we can’t even begin to conceptualize something as silly as a post-racial society when you live in a society with a built in racial hierarchy.”

Brown agrees.

“America has become more intensely racial. They simply wont discuss it,” he said. “Denial won’t help that society has a real racial problem.”

Collins stressed minority studies were only actualized as a result of student protests during the 1960s. She added one of the important aspects of Africana studies, as well as other minority studies, is they give students an opportunity to actually learn and discuss these issues.

“I think it is a great pop on college campus to actually create these platforms and all races should be encouraged to learn from each other,” she said.

Shelley Holmgren can be reached at 581-7942 or meholmgren@eiu.edu.