ENTERTAINER AT SEMO TALKS LIGHTLY OF BIGOTRY

Bertice Berry, voted Campus Entertainer of the Year this year, flies so often she frequently upgrades her ticket to first class. For some reason, she says, stewardesses think this African American woman in dreadlocks is in the wrong seat.

In one case, Berry said, "Girlfriend was so upset she tried to give me every peanut on that plane."

About 75 people went to Academic Auditorium at Southeast Missouri State University Tuesday night to hear Berry jest about bigotry.

That is not to say she made light of a volatile subject. "That's why I'm a comedian so I won't kill people," she deadpanned.

Berry combines a Ph.D in sociology with a sharp-tongued comic delivery. Her message is that racism hurts everyone.

"It hurts you," she said. "Why? The self is social. If I hurt my interaction I hinder my own growth."

She urged the audience to learn from the differences they will encounter during their years in college.

"This is the most diversity you're ever going to experience," she said.

Charles Darwin's point was that diversity is good, she said, yet "We've all learned in subtle ways that different is bad."

The audience contributed examples of stereotypes that separate people from each other:

Black people love watermelon. "If they can bring watermelon to Missouri in the middle of November, you know they're not bringing it here for me," she said.

Blondes are dumb. Berry countered that blonde jokes usually are one-liners "so the men can understand them."

Girls aren't good at math and science. Berry said girls are good at math and science until the eighth grade. They aren't good after that "because we tell them so," she said.

Berry joked that she had her own stereotypes about white people when she went to college "That you are all rich; that you are all brilliant."

"We know the stereotypes you hold of us," she said. "The majority of it is all false. This hurts you. Racism hurts everyone."

People of all races have these tapes in their heads about people who are different from them. "You've got to erase that information that's incorrect," she said.

Once erased, the information has to be replaced, Berry said. She urged students to read books and open themselves up to new ideas. She told the black students to go sit with white students in the cafeteria, and Christian students to go sit with gay students.

"Confront things right here in this institution," she said.

Berry has appeared on TV's "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and "Crossfire." Next year she will host her own nationally syndicated talk show on the Fox Television Network.

Her appearance Tuesday night was sponsored by the Student Activities Council.