Race: “Are We So Different?” is a powerful exhibition now on display through April 27, 2008 at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, New Jersey. This nationally traveled exhibition gives visitors to the science center an opportunity to view the issue of race in America with a new innovative approach. Demonstrations throughout the exhibit are a mix; they take the form of first-person video accounts, historical artifacts, large text and photo panels, and interactive computer programs, allowing you to see “race” through a new lens.

The theme of this important exhibit brings to the forefront the everyday experience of living with race from a biological, cultural, and historical point of view. Throughout the exhibit, the layout lends itself to that theme--first with the “Science of Human Variation” and moving on to the “History of Race” and ending with “Race in our Culture.”

Taking the scientific view, the exhibit describes what determines racial characteristics, why we are so different but yet so alike, and how ideas about race can be so inaccurate. To quote one such display, “Race is the least important aspect in determining character, yet it is often the most significant factor on how we are perceived.”

Historically, the exhibition demonstrates how economic interests, power struggles, scientific research and popular culture have provided frameworks for discrimination in our society. Of particular interest regarding discrimination is a video of students from Central Park High School in Saint Paul, Minnesota, who talk about race in terms of “Where do you sit in the cafeteria?” In addition, there is a hands-on exhibit that shows how the sound of your voice can result in unfair treatment and/or employment practices. One panel display featured the quote of Robin D.G. Kelly, noted historian, “Racism is not about how you look, it’s about how people assign meaning to how you look.”

Rounding out the exhibit are displays depicting early Americana, the native Indians, the history of Blacks in America, and closing with the resounding message of the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” We could learn so much from our forefathers.

Elizabeth A. Fleming
Travel Writer

To learn more about this outstanding exhibit, Race” Are We So Different?” visit www.lsc.org/race or www.understandingrace.org

Plan on spending the day at the Liberty Science Center! Featured are over eight new exhibition galleries, gathering spaces and superior resources. Appearing in the nation’s largest IMAX Dome Theatre through July 2008: “Hurricane on the Bayou” shot in the midst of Hurricane Katrina; “Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs, exploring history of early Egyptian society as told through its ancient mummies; and “Roving Mars” to experience the reality of the Mars surface as seen through the eyes of two intrepid explorers—the rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Now playing in the Joseph D. Williams Science Theater is “3D SUN”, a digital 3D film that chronicles the story of NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STERO) mission from the eyes of key NASA participants.

For more information about the Liberty Science Center, please call 201-200-1000 or visit www.lsc.org.