Former Penn professor discusses race relations

For Yale University Professor of Sociology and former Penn Sociology professor Elijah Anderson, race relations can be defined by “ethnos,” “cosmos” and “canopies.”

Anderson defines race issues with his own terminology in his book The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life. He came to the Penn Bookstore Thursday afternoon to speak about his book at an event titled “A Look at Race and Civility in Everyday Life.”

In his new book, Anderson focused on places where white and black people live together and get along in a peaceful environment. The book employs terminology to define the setting: a “canopy” is a place where people from different communities or races get along. Anderson uses Rittenhouse Square as an example of a canopy, although he acknowledges there are many other canopies in Philadelphia.

Anderson referred to an occurrence on Penn’s campus last spring, when College of Liberal and Professional Studies student Christopher Abreu described in a Daily Pennsylvanian guest column his “nigger moment” — a term Anderson used to describe a moment of acute disrespect black people usually experience in their lifetime no matter where they live.

“This point comes out of the blue when you least expect,” he said.

Robert Alsbrooks, a colleague of Anderson’s in the past, said “a lot of people live what he talks about but he gives it terminology. Seeing him take all his ideas and bring them together is fascinating.”

Anderson said that the “big thing is education” in order to deal with the problem of the “moment” people such as Abreu still continue to experience. Penn “educates people and promotes diversity,” he said.

With respect to Philadelphia, he said the city has more canopies than New Haven because it’s a bigger city. But still, he said, “Philadelphia is a large city and has a history of ethnic racial relations which are not always positive. People compete for place and position.”

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