Briggs is presenting her final, performance art on racism, today at 11 a.m. in the Kleinau Theater.

Briggs said she found SIUC students tend to be less racist than those she surveyed from the surrounding community.

Briggs said some of the questions she asked included:Do you consider yourself racist? Is your family racist? What do you think of affirmative action? How many friends do you have of a different race? Do you use racial language or laugh at racial jokes?

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The survey included closed and open-ended questions.

She asked good questions, Adeline Anthonysamy, a freshman in electrical engineering from Malaysia, said. I think by her questions she accomplished what she wanted to know.

Briggs said everyone surveyed had used racial language or laughed at racial jokes.

I can’t tell if people are telling the truth, but I asked them to be honest, Briggs said. I really liked one comment a girl put about racial language. She wrote Of course, (I use racial language) who hasn’t you can’t escape it.’

Briggs said rather than attempting to gather statistical data, she collected individual quotes and opinions on racism.

Briggs said although her liberal family does not condone racism, she realizes now that they are racist in some ways.

I think that hidden and educated racism is sometimes worse and more dangerous than uneducated racism, Briggs said. I wanted to recognize my own racism and try to help others recognize their racism that they may not be aware of.

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Other students in the class are doing performance art on pornography, abortion, gender identity and violence, according to Ron Pelias, a professor in speech communication.

We occasionally have people that try to censor the class because of the extreme political issues, but for the most part our discussions stay within the class itself and it works as a lab for students to deal with their own beliefs, Pelias said.

The University is generally supportive on the standpoint of protecting the student’s interest.