Ohio U & Oprah Too: The Racial Makeover Machine

ATHENS, Ohio (TDB) -- Ohio University students got a chance last week to slip into somebody else's skin. A computerized booth was set up in the campus student center that overlayed faces with the characteristics of other races, and there were large crowds at the exhibit. The races students morphed into were Hispanic, Asian, Indian, black, midde-eastern, and white.

Not too long ago, Oprah tried out The Human Race Machine, switching skin tones and racial features. The results are worth seeing and offer a glimpse of what the Ohio University campus experienced. You can watch Oprah changing HERE.

Instead of marches -- which are the traditional ways to celebrate the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday -- maybe these booths should be set up on city squares and in auditoriums. They would powerfully demonstrate King's point: Human racial differences are skin deep; the content of one's character is what truly counts.

In Athens, the machine was sponsored by the Black Student Cultural Programming Board, which wanted to raise awareness about racial issues and make people think about skin color in different ways. A story by David DeWitt, campus reporter for the weekly Athens News, said the exhibition (which has since moved on) was a major hit. "The machine has been drawing large crowds since its arrival last Friday and has been opening each day three hours earlier than originally scheduled,'' DeWitt reported. He added the machine came with a sign that reads: "There is no gene for race."

Nancy Burson is an artist who created the device, and she has been a visiting professor at Harvard University. She has called mankind the ''hue-man" race. There is some information about Burson at THIS WEB SITE and a longer article about her in the Village Voice from a few years ago.

The machine does more than alter racial characteristics. It offers a program that ages a face, another that can create bizarre distortions and a ''couples machine" that melds two faces to give a glimpse of what the prospective parents baby might look like.

DeWitt, the reporter who covered reaction to the machine at OU, said not everybody was awed by the technology and quoted a student who thought the exhibit promoted stereotypes. Still, he said some campus instructors made their students experience The Human Race Machine, which took 10 minutes to sit through.

America's Nazis: Getting Active In Ohio?

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Chatter has been growing that the American branch of the National Socialist movement -- the neo-Nazis who think Hitler was right and most of the world was wrong about him -- are headed for Ohio Monday. They passed out leaflets at the University of Cincinnati over the school's winter break, and it appears they may be planning a rally Monday on or near Fountain Square, which is the symbolic heart of the city.

City officials have tried to keep this hushed. But the ADL, a militant Jewish group, says it keeps track of the Nazis and reports that they will be in Cincinnati Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday. This is what the ADL has been reporting to the entire world about the group's activities in Ohio.

Meanwhile, the Nazis aren't exactly shrinking violets about race hatred and their belief in white superiority, and seem to relish publicity whenever they can get it. There are apparently three National Socialist movement chapters in the state. They are open about their existence and can be found by searching the Nazi's Web site. One of the chapters is located in Cincinnati.

Here's an account of what happened in Toledo after the Nazis tried to rally in that city last year.

Meanwhile, Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory had an off-the-record conversation with some of the city's editors and TV station honchos earlier this week to brief them about the Nazis possible appearance during the MLK holiday. Mallory was probably trying to pre-empt another slap at his city's reputation as a town where race relations are uneasy and sometimes explosive. But meeting with editors and local TV execs won't get it these days -- the 'net has made the world a wide open place. Didn't he know the ADL had the Nazi event marked?