Event Response #1

The event I attend was an event that was held by 2 student led groups on campus, the event was all about what it is like to be black at HPU. The event started out with a short documentary that shared the stories and opinions of students and professors at high point that are black. After the documentary there was a panel of people from the documentary but also other students where they also answered more questions about their experiences at the school. Something about this event that I thought was interesting was the fact that they made a documentary to share their stories in a different perspective. I expected to see a panel which is something that I think is a great way to get opinions out but also allow questions and opinions from the audience. I liked the documentary because they were able to get their stories out without being interrupted, all the audience could do was watch and listen. I was really nice to hear the experiences of minorities on campus, because while I am not black, I am Hispanic and there are even less of us on campus, so it was kind of nice to hear that other people feel the same way as you do and that brings a feeling of comfort and support whether you know the people or not. It was interesting because I feel like we haven’t talked about race very much yet in class, but because we talk about culture and intersectionality race for sure plays into that. Something that the students spoke about in the documentary is that the culture of HPU has created a stigma for what it means to be black on campus even though they are like everyone else. The students at HPU has basically created a single story for the minorities on campus and the minority can see that and want to change that perception of themselves. A lot of the literature we have read in class have been about how women keep having these single stories placed on them and they don’t go unseen, we know they exist and want to change them; and I think this goes the same for the minorities on campus. Overall, my big take away from this event is that everyone’s experience on campus is going to be different and any and all minority shouldn’t be discouraged by the stigma/single story the majority created and instead find support from people who may be experiencing the same thing on campus and create our own story. I think it was really important that they brought to light their experiences on campus because there is probably more people on campus who feel the same way.