"Race in 21st Century America," a three-day conference that brought out scholars, activists and students from all over the country, wraps up today in the Kellogg Center.

This is the third year for the conference, sponsored by James Madison College and the Midwest Consortium for Black Studies.

Curtis Stokes, associate professor in the college, said this conference is at the perfect time because it falls in the backdrop of war with Iraq, affirmative action debates and Census statistics revealing that Latinos are the nation's largest minority.

"We feel this conference is a vehicle to find fresh approaches to aggress this very conscientious and difficult problem of race," he said.

The conference's keynote speaker was Maivan Clech Lam, a professor at the City University of New York.

Lam lectured about the struggles of all races and the implications of the war with Iraq in her speech titled "Race and Human Rights."

"We live today in a mean, dangerous time," she told a crowd of about 200 people.

She said although many white people don't realize they have inherent race-based privileges, some are using it to help advance other races.

"Together, we are now moving forward," she said.

She added that blacks, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans must also play their role in ensuring that their respective cultures do not dissolve, and that everyone must know where their race stands.

She used black people as an example, saying that for every black male in college there are three in prison.

"It is outrageous that we tolerate a society that tolerates these statistics," she said.

Concerning war, Lam compared America to a "child with a very big butcher knife."

She said because America is such a young country, it should not try to solve every international problem.

"The reasons for going to war are not the real reasons," she said after her speech. "Something is wrong here."

James Madison freshman Chris Johnson said he was required to attend the conference for a class, but he ended up learning something in the process.

"It's definitely a learning experience," he said.

"We learn about this stuff in class, but this is the first time hearing someone speaking on it at an educated level."

Lam's speech "was open-minded, especially for me coming from a white, middle-class background," he said.

For more information on today's forums for the "Race in 21st Century America" conference, visit jsri.msu.edu.