Dimly lit coffee shops with clever names like The Bean’s List or Caf?© Diem regularly lure hip, young college students through their doors with poetry readings, live music and stimulating discussions, but $4 lattes and $2 muffins oppose the undergrad’s “I’m-there-if-it’s-free” ethics.

Grand Valley State University’s Student Senate will encourage those ethics plus poetry, music and critical discussion on Friday when it hosts the week’s final Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration event.

“The Art of Reflection: Listen, Watch, Dance” will begin at 4 p.m. in the Pere Marquette Room of Kirkhof Center and will feature vocal performances, poetry readings, a film screening and a subsequent discussion. The three-hour event is free, and food and beverages will be provided.

“This is a relaxing way to reflect on the week’s events and Martin Luther King’s message,” said J.J. Manser, Student Senate vice president of Diversity Affairs. “The poetry, music and film all have to do with the theme of using the past actions of Dr. King to affect the future.”

“Shake the World,” the theme to this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Week, reflects the societal changes King represented and our own ability to instill change, Manser said.

Christina Jackson, a graduate student in the Office of Multicultural Affairs, said her poem, “Hoses,” challenges the acceptability of using race to categorize people.

“It is a response to my position as a person of color living in a space that undermines my abilities by virtue of a socially constructed category: race,” Jackson said.

Senior Donald Curry, who will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” said he is involved in the event because he enjoys singing and wanted to contribute to the Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Week.

“I try to get involved in opportunities that allow me to share my culture and talents with others,” Curry said. “Martin Luther King Jr. is very important to the Black community, and he deserves a campus-wide celebration.”

A screening and discussion of the 2004 documentary “The N Word” will conclude the event. The Student Senate has chosen play the 86-minute film because it explores the word’s impact historically and in the present, said Manser, who will lead a discussion following the screening.

The documentary, which features interviews from actors Whoopi Goldberg, Samuel L. Jackson and Ice Cube among others, asks if the meaning of the word has changed and what factors may have caused those changes.

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