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Today's Poll!11th annual Multicultural Fall Festival on tap Saturday
The Order of the Arrow, Wiechcheu Chapter Dancers perform during the 2011 Multicultural Fall Festival in downtown Jefferson City. This year’s festival will be Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Festive colors, ethnic foods and unique sounds will fill downtown Jefferson City 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday as the Multicultural Forum hosts its 11th annual Fall Festival.
A block north on Madison Street, the Governor’s Mansion will host its HarvestFest. And around the corner at Capitol Avenue and Jefferson Street, the Special Olympics’ fundraiser Over The Edge will send volunteers repelling down the Jefferson State Office Building.
About 7,000 visitors are expected to be downtown this weekend. Since moving downtown from Memorial Park at the invitation of the Downtown Jefferson City Association three years ago, the event has seen substantial growth, Vogt said.
Visit www.jcmcf.net for more information about the fall festival.
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Comments
spelchek 7 months ago
Why not tag LGBT onto the title? I'm down with all folks and walks of life, I believe in liberty and justice for all. Why can't it just be a fall festival? We are not ignorant of our surroundings and in fact I find these PC tags a little condescending. The word multicultural is code for "LOOK! A black person..." Are we not one nation? Is our pot not melting? It's the differences that make Americans great and this should be common knowledge. Highlighting our diversity to me seems to create more diversity. Let it be.
JCLifer 7 months ago
It is important to keep highlighting our differences constantly. By letting us know that we are not all the same, we continue fighting and mistrusting each other. A divided citizenry is much easier for the government to control. Heaven forbid if we all just become "citizens" or "taxpayers" or "voters"! We might all agree that we are tired of the schananigans that our elected officials have been doing to us and our country at our expense.
Instead of voting split tickets like we used to do, it is important for them to get us to demonize and fight the "other side", as well as say things like "all democrats are..." and "All republicans want to ..."
Until we get tired of the media and the government constantly pitting us against each other, this bs will continue. Hopefully some day soon we will get sick ot it and start fighting the real enemy: evil government and media who are the only ones who profit from all the bickering, fighting, and stereotypes.
As for me, I refuse to participate in this politically-correct festival. Spelchek is right- why don't we embrace the diversity of LGBT's in this uptight and hypocritical little town?
Sequoia 7 months ago
theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/the-past-aint-even-the-past/263853/
Sequoia 7 months ago
I don't think it is about race as much as the idea of what's "normal."
I think that some people are really invested in a very specific idea of normal, like a kind of Leave-It-To-Beaver, Norman-Rockwell type image of what's normal (which includes race and a lot of other things).
You can hear it in the way Mitt Romney talked about women the other night. After all his years in business, he couldn't simply name one woman he had worked with and admired. Instead he had this weird statement about how much research he had done on this creature he had learned about called "the working woman."
You gotta remember, Mitt Romney is the guy who in high school led a group of other boys who held down another kid and cut his hair off, just because the kid had strange-looking girlie-looking hair. Some people have this idea that it is WRONG to not be normal. They get anxious when someone isn't normal.
It's okay to think the kid has weird hair. Just don't get nervous about it. Some people get so nervous.
Like people on here saying, "Okay, we accept the fact that we can't just kick you out of town for being different, but the least you could do is be quiet about it. If it ain't meat, I don't wanna eat it. If it ain't what I'm used to, I don't wanna see it. If you don't like what I like, then I don't want to hear about what you like."
The idea that one person or another has authority to deckare what is normal and not normal is called "a sense of entitlement."
asb 7 months ago
Some posters are doing the "we're all the same now (damnit!) so let's quit celebrating our differences" bit. This common theme that diversity is destructive is both wrong and an illness. The longer humans have a large population on the Earth, the more diverse we'll become in many ways, it's how nature works. Yes, an increasingly common language (yay English), technology (yay science), economy (yay Dollar), and legal system (yay common law) will get less diverse in organization and implementation, but what they each deal with will get more complex (it's called evolution). And Sequoia is right, the only way we could possibly all be the same is for all but one group to dissolve into that one group, the oldest racism of all, and the basis of racial mixing fears. Racial differences actually are NOT important, biologically. But the cultural differences that have developed from racial distinctions ARE important. My lineage is from #($*S)KJD and I'm inately proud when I see my cultrue expressed in the larger, more diverse culture. I do not fear others and am, in fact, facinated with and drawn to those differences as an enrichment of my life. The bigot fears that difference, and any attempt to institutionally celebrate differences frightens the bigot. The LGBT component of a diversity festival is actually a good idea, except there would be bloodshed. Wait a few years, it'll happen, and it will be good. The key here is that culture can cross racial, religious, political and gender lines. There ARE black gay mormons, and some Muslims do put up Christmas trees because they're cool. Bigotry is a pathology, natural, yet destructive. Work on it, because YOU are the problem here, not the proudly diverse.
JCLifer 7 months ago
Notice too, that the diversity celebrations are always so sanitized and culturized. "Look and the cute little Indian girl!" "Isn't it great that we have gotten black people and aisian people here?"
BS- instead of cute little indian girls diressed in clean cute little 21st century Indian uniforms that reinforce the TV and pop culture show images, how about a display or demonstration of the attrocities and difficulty of daily life, instead of a cute little Pilgrim thanksgiving where everyone is holding hands and singing Amazing Grace and dancing. How about some authentic slave reinactments to remind us of the atrocities and poor living conditions and disease, instead of the sanitary little dance show of black people dancing together?
This is all Disneyland BS. It does nothing but put warm feelings in little old grandmothers and Sunday school teachers who are trying hard to repress their feelings of guilt.
Diversity celebrations do nothing to BRING US TOGETHER. They are so fake. How about some real and honest and open discussions of how we can work together to actuall improve some things? How about we work together to get government off our backs and get rid of the waste that goes to the leaches and fatcats?
GET REAL, PEOPLE.
asb 7 months ago
That warm and fuzzy bit is the whole idea. The realism you offer as an alternative is out there in documentaries and other literature. Yes, the actual style and content of these celebrations can be quite trite and even silly. But that's what happens when the details are left to the enthused.
connor 7 months ago
Good analogy JCLifer. Really instead of a Multicultural Festival is should be called simply a culture market. It's like a racial super market where liberal feminist who hate their own race/culture can get together and shop for bits and pieces of other cultures they want to play house with. Don't forget the food vendors they really like those food vendors.
TickledPink 7 months ago
You really have a problem with women.
connor 7 months ago
NO. I really have a problem with feminist who try and claim they are simply women to try and get all their gender behind them. Not all women are feminist thankfully.
asb 7 months ago
Political activists trying to bring attention to themselves? Now you've gone to far there Mr. Clay! To far!
jcguy25 7 months ago
This is a festival for crying out loud. Festivals are usually named after their theme. For example, the Apple Festival in Versailles, the Pumpkin Festival. There are Fall Festivals which just celebrates the changing seasons. These are social events for people's entertainment. And multicultural is not a specific designation to race or in no way implies sexual orientation. There are many white people who are born and raised in say Africa for instance and adopt that culture as their own. This is about celebrating the different cultures and their traditions, foods, music, etc. This is the only time some people who don't travel get to experience things specific to other cultures.
Sequoia 7 months ago
I enjoy the differences in people. Why should we all do things the same way?
I love tasting different food, seeing different costumes and dances, checking out how other people define "the good life."
It is good to take a few minutes to marvel at how big and varied the world really is. People who do things differently than I do make me curious, not nervous.
People are awesome.
spelchek 7 months ago
" People who do things differently than I do make me curious, not nervous." -- That's very grown up of you, welcome to the club.
asb 7 months ago
Conversations about diversity often include the question; "all these cultural events are about other folk, but if I want to hold a White People Festival, it's racist!" This deserves a reasonable answer. There are cultural festivals about white people, but they're cultural, not racial. Greek, German, Italian, Irish, English (Rennisance), etc. are about cultures that were historically white. If you try and hold a yellow people festival, or a black people festival, or a white people festival, you're weird. There is nothing about any specific race to celebrate, it's always about culture. This is absolutely critical to this conversation. No matter how Avatarish or sophomoric a stage full of costumed indians may be, they're not celebrating their race but rather their history, language and other elements of culture. Sure, race and religion often follow the cultural distinctions; a line of white guys stomping the dust in a Zulu dance is just silly, until you live white in South Africa and, having grown up there, actually do so. There are generations of chinese americans, african french, hindi british; all who take part in their local peoples' festivals, with no sense of oddness (until the news guys show up). It's culture, religion or hobby; NOT RACE; that drives every such festival. OK, I just remembered having a perm, a very tight perm, done on my hair so I could take part in an afro doo day in college. Damn those gray areas, and I don't mean my hair color! And while that was a celebration of a racial characteristic, the afro had become a cultural, not actually racial, element that even white boys could take part in if they needed attention badly enough.
spelchek 7 months ago
Our nation is multicultural, thus any activity that brings us together by default is, multicultural. Nothing more, nothing less.
JCLifer 7 months ago
Can you think of anything that brings us together? Is there anything we all can agree on? How about starting a list?:
informurself 7 months ago
If you had attended the festival, you would have seen it was a celebration of all cultures.... INCLUDING LGBT organizations. The reason it is called a Multicultural Festival, is because the organizers are the multicultural forum. The name of the festival nor the forum says....."Look, we're black" your remarks are racist themselves. Again, if you had attended, you would have seen that many ethnic, racial, religous, community, business, charitable, government, associations and organizations participated. the following are just a few cultures that were represented: Native American, Brazillian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Jamaican, Argentenian, gay, straight, black, white, rural, urban, Presbyterian, Catholic, healthcare, local craftsmen, artisans, Asian, schools, jazz, gospel, profesional associations, community organizatons, Lions, gardeners, youth groups, dance acaddemys, musical groups, local manufacturers, banks, support groups, and so many more. Before you speak about something, you should become informed. Culture is not defined as black, white, or race. There are as many cultures as there are people. Everyone thinks RACE is a culture, yes, it is, but so are all the other things that define us or interest us . The definition of culture is as follows: The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively. For your information it says nothing about race. It was a celebration of everything that Central Missouri has to offer.
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