Tonight, the night of February 19th, I attended the Student Life Multicultural Center’s featured keynote address and celebration for United Black World Month entitled, “Education, Civil Rights, and Equality: Cornerstones For Our Future” as it pertains to the month’s theme of “Imagining Black Futures.” It started a little after 6pm and was so moving I couldn’t wait to write about it. The event was advertised to have current CNN commentator Bakari Sellers as the keynote speaker but he wasn’t able to come due to unforeseen weather circumstances. In his place, a well-regarded professor that teaches African-American history in the History department at Ohio State, Dr. Hasan Kwame Jeffries, spoke on the topic. My observation I made of this event even before I attended was the focus being on the African diaspora as whole instead of just African-American history alone.  This explains the month being called United Black World Month instead of Black History Month, the name February is most widely called and the only name I’ve ever heard until now. This event relates to the topic of International Affairs because it recognizes the entire diaspora, all communities worldwide that are descended from Africa.

The event not only consisted of the keynote address but it also had food and entertainment. Entertainment included spoken word poetry, ethnic African dance, and singing all from black artists sharing their experience of being black in an American context and global context. Through watching the entertainment, I gained other perspectives on the injustices happening against black people and gained a new way of thinking about my identity as an African-American at a predominantly white institution.

There were two spoken word pieces given by a young guy about the destructive cycle of lacking good father figures, violence, police brutality, and over-incarceration for African-American males and how it can be broken. The poet emphasized how it was up to the black community to build each other up because we aren’t getting positive reinforcement from the predominantly-white society they live in and we are not seeing enough positive representations of ourselves in the media to know we have the potential to be better and break the cycle. Being told who we are by people who historically oppressed us and don’t want us to progress can subconsciously cause us take on the identity and that future for ourselves. Right after this piece, a black woman performed a spoken word poem intertwining with the song, “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and its imagery of rising up to share her experience of understanding her identity and the powerful narrative that comes with being an African-American woman in America as it pertains to all her ancestors struggled and died for. She proclaimed that she came from a legacy of strength and endurance and only she can set her limits and define herself. She inspired me by saying that she values herself by what’s inside and not by how society sees her physically.

The last thing that stuck with me was the keynote address. Dr. Jeffries centered his talk around the importance of people of color especially young people of color to imagine their own futures. He spoke of the African diaspora and how many people were dispersed to predominantly white countries to be slaves. He said that ever since this time, descendants have been struggling and working to be seen as equals to their oppressors and what that means for our futures and identities. He referenced the historic success of the movie Black Panther and what the fictional country of Wakanda represented for people of the African diaspora as a prosperous society where people are equal and foreigners, later, are welcomed and included. Dr. Jeffries mentioned that history has always shown how we imagined our future to conflict with how white people imagined our future and how we cannot sit and hope the progress happens. We have to act. We have to act because of proof from recent years and a different presidential administration that things don’t naturally get better. If we do nothing, they will always get worse. He ended by saying that we should act unified with our different educations and backgrounds. This event gave me so much to think about and to relate to. I’m so glad I went.

P.S. Steven, I’m really sorry I exceeded the word count by about 200 words.

For my Campus non-IA/community event, I chose to attend the viewing of the Columbus Crossing Borders Project film Breathe Free and the accompanying panel afterwards at Gateway Film Center on Sunday, September 16th. For the panel discussion, the speakers were Ohio filmmaker Doug Swift, Columbus Crossing Borders Project Director Laurie VanBalen, leaders of Community Refugee and Immigration Services or CRIS, and local refugees. This event relates to the topic of International Affairs naturally because it deals with bringing awareness to our country’s corrupt immigration policies and our country’s mistreatment of refugees and their stories of immigrating to America. The film allows its viewers to meet several male and female refugees and follows them on their journey and resettling in the United States. It also includes an emotional, heart-wrenching segment of the refugees sitting down and telling their story of why they decided to leave their home country and the high stakes of their decision. They told detailed stories of what happened as they crossed their borders leaving their country to seemingly safe. Hearing their truths was hard to process. I felt like I hearing stories from a scary, horror storybook. They were bravely revealing things that were hard to imagine and understand. The film also shows how America’s border issues and the refugees’ stories led to local artist Laurie VanBalen being inspired to create the Columbus Crossing Borders project. She eventually recruited 34 Ohio artists to translate the refugees’ life experiences to artwork. The project is now touring the country.

From this event, I have gained more academically and personally. I have grown academically by learning so much about immigration policy and what Columbus is doing to help incoming refugees. Before this event, I did not have much background about this because I only knew about CRIS and what it was doing to help teenage refugees by providing willing mentors from our campus. I did not know what was being done for adults to acclimate to America. Personally, I learned to show even more compassion, love, and respect to refugees because it’s the right thing to do, and you truly don’t know what they have gone through. To me, they’re walking miracles because of their struggles to become an American citizen and live a better life. When I, or any other American who can sometimes take their blessings for granted, heard their experiences in that movie theater, it rendered us speechless. What can you say to that?

This event relates to a topic  one of my Spanish classes have discussed in the past. It is the topic of immigration laws and what all these laws and Trump’s wants and suggestions on this issue imply for undocumented  Hispanic immigrants. We talked about different incidences in California of Hispanics being caught while undocumented and being disrespected in the process of being deported and what the effects are for families and the stigma already surrounding immigrants. After attending the event, I don’t have further questions because my main question was answered during the panel. That question was “What now?” “What more should be done and how can any regular person get involved and help?” The answer was to make a difference by spreading awareness with word of mouth and by showing up to support and/or volunteer at the existing immigrant services organizations in Columbus. This was an event and conversation that I am so glad I was able to join.