Internationally renowned, award-winning diversity filmmaker Lee Mun Wah will open Case Western Reserve University’s 2014-15 Power of Diversity Lecture Series with his talk, “The World is All Around Us.” The event is Thursday, Sept. 4, at 4:30 p.m. in the second-floor ballroom of the new Tinkham Veale University Center.
Wah’s work is based on his belief that, as a nation, we cannot wait for some charismatic leader to appear and bring us all together. He also writes that, as a nation, we cannot continue being separate and unequal without a cost to each and every generation. “Our survival and the very future of our children depend on all of us embracing our differences as well as our mutuality,” he has said.
In his bio, he calls for individuals to confront their fears and begin conversations not only with those they love, but also with those they have been taught to fear.
Wah promotes his message through his films, writings and as the executive director of Stirfry Seminars & Consulting, where he leads diversity-training workshops on cross-cultural communication and awareness and conflict mediation.
For those who would like to preview Wah’s film before his talk on Thursday, there’s an opportunity to view his latest production If These Halls Could Talk at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 3, in the Tinkham Veale University Center’s Ballroom A.
The film is a documentary that focuses on college students and their dialogue about race and racism, as well as other diversity issues, in higher education. Wah will also lead diversity workshops for CWRU faculty and staff and student leaders while on campus.
In addition to his latest film, Wah has produced Stolen Ground, his first film to win recognition from the San Francisco International Film Festival for his portrayal of the Asian American experience.
His most widely recognized work is The Color of Fear, a groundbreaking film that explores the state of race relations in the United States as seen through the eyes of eight men of various racial and ethnic backgrounds. The production received a Gold Medal for Best Social Studies Documentary from the San Francisco International Film Festival. The movie’s second part, Walking Each Other Home, received the Cindy Competition Silver Medal for Social Science.
Wah is also an author, and his latest book is Let’s Get Real—What People of Color Can’t Say & Whites Won’t Ask about Racism (Stirfry Seminar & Consulting, 2011).
Before forming Stirfry, he was a resource specialist and counselor in the San Francesco Unified School District for 25 years.
This event, sponsored by the Office for Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunity, Office of Multicultural Affairs, First Year Experience and Family Programs and the Social Justice Institute, is free and open to the public.
Registration is recommended by emailing diversity-rsvp@case.edu. For information, email janetta.hammock@case.edu.