Welcome to February! And Black History Month! Columbia’s 22nd annual celebration of African Americanness kicked off last night in Roone Arledge with, among other attractions, the best catering this Bwog reporter has smelled at a Columbia event. People of many shades attended the affair, made more festive and vaguely African by gold kente cloths on white. After a hauntingly beautiful rendition of the Black national anthem, Office of Multicultural Affairs dean Ajay Nair welcomed the assembly with lovely phrases like the “political and aesthetic power of the polycultural” and “counterhegemonic dialogical paroochialism” (ok, those words came separately).

Amidst the presentations of awards, musical productions, and introductions of speakers came a brief address by President Bollinger, fresh from a junket to Tanzania with J. Sachs. After a brief mention of the Institute for African Studies, Prezbo launched into a sermon on the insidious forces “chipping away ever so significantly from Brown vs. Board of Education”-referring to the recent court ruling that overturned his work at the University of Michigan in 2001. He predicted dire consequences should the Seattle and Louisville cases concerning race-based admissions currently under review by the Supreme Court go the same way.

He stepped down to less-than-thunderous applause, and the show went on. Meanwhile, Bwog can’t find the Black History Month calendar of events. Little help, anyone?

– LBD