During the month of February, the Student Association (SA) presented a video series in chapel featuring students in the Black Student Association (BSA) for Black History Month. On Feb. 9, BSA members organized a chapel program featuring their experiences as minority students. In April, the BSA plans to host a panel discussing diversity and inclusion on college campuses in relation to different racial and ethnic communities.<\/p>\n
BSA secretary, sophomore Isaac Davis, helped organize and present chapel on Feb. 9 and said he hoped to make black history a personal subject for Harding\u2019s student body, which has an undergraduate population of approximately 4 percent black students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.<\/p>\n
Davis, who is two generations removed from sharecropping, said black history is usually perceived as referring to events that happened long ago, but that Harding students are still affected by racial discrimination from years past. During chapel, the BSA students referred to themselves as \u201cWalking black history.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hear our parents tell us, \u2018We want you to be something more than us,\u2019 and so much more so for my grandfather and for my mother who grew up poor,\u201d Davis said. \u201cNow that opportunities are open, doors are open, I can be something that my mom couldn\u2019t be, that my grandfather couldn\u2019t be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Davis was raised by a single mother who earned her GED and served in the military, then later earned a master\u2019s degree. Davis, a Bible and preaching major, said he will be the first in his family to earn both a high school diploma and a college degree traditionally. He plans to work in a church as a counselor.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy grandfather \u2014 my mother \u2014 couldn\u2019t do this because of things that were holding them back from these opportunities,\u201d Davis said. \u201cSomething that inspires me to this day: it wasn\u2019t that long ago that my mother couldn\u2019t do things because of the position of my grandfather \u2026 this stuff has been brought to my life now.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the BSA black history chapel, Davis said he received mixed responses \u2014 from appreciation to anger \u2014 but overall positive comments.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery single individual experiences the world in a different way, and that\u2019s also the case with groups,\u201d Davis said. \u201cI believe black Americans experience America different than most Americans do.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the BSA students who spoke in chapel was junior Kadia Grant, who is among the first generation in her family to attend a predominantly white college. While her family expected her to attend a historically black college, Grant chose Harding.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are more aware that you are the only person of color in the classroom, which is not necessarily a sad thing, but it kind of opens your eyes a little bit,\u201d Grant said. \u201cWe\u2019re not treated badly at all, (but) you do get uncomfortable sometimes when you start talking about black history in your history classes, and you kind of feel like all the eyes are on you because they want your perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her grandmother was the first and youngest of 12 children to attend college \u2014 the daughter of a black family who served a white family.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s empowering to hear how (family members) fought for us even before we were alive,\u201d Grant said. \u201cThey fought to make sure before they even knew us that we\u2019d be better off in the future than they were, (that we would) have the opportunities that they didn\u2019t have. \u2026 You just want to make them proud of what we have today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Grant\u2019s mother and grandmother attended historically black colleges, a result of Grant\u2019s great-grandfather, who was the first black man to own a business in his city, according to Grant.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe would get treated so bad, but he just prevailed to make sure he had something that was officially his, because growing up they\u2019re always told that they are owned by the white people, or they don\u2019t have anything that belonged to them, but he made sure that this was something that was his \u2014 it was black owned,\u201d Grant said. \u201cIt was his and his family\u2019s and it was passed down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Growing up, Grant would listen to her grandmother tell stories of her great-grandfather and their family when her grandmother was young. They were stories of criticism, racism and triumph.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter how many times my great grandfather got put down and was told he needs to learn his place … and that owning a business is not a black man\u2019s place, he still worked hard to pursue his dreams \u2014 to get his business started off the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the program, Grant described standing in front of a mirror unable to understand how her lighter-skinned mother thought they looked similar.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have always been told that, just because my skin is a little bit darker, I\u2019m not beautiful, and that if you are black, the only way you can be beautiful is if you are light (skinned) with hazel eyes and beautiful curly hair, and that\u2019s not true at all,\u201d Grant said. \u201cAll black is beautiful: every skin tone, every shade. Everyone\u2019s beautiful, and it takes you a minute to accept that when all your life you\u2019ve been told that\u2019s not the case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grant said she believes the BSA has provided an avenue for black students to effectively combat racial stereotypes and share part of their story with the rest of the student body.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like the relationship with the black students and Harding is getting a lot better, and we\u2019re starting that relationship that needs to be there that wasn\u2019t there in the past,\u201d Grant said. \u201cWe know we\u2019re black, and I feel like people want to skate around that, but it\u2019s what we are and there is a very small percentage of us on campus. \u2026 We would like to build with the faculty at Harding and the students in general.\u201d<\/p>\n
During Black History Month, senior and Student Association (SA) video producer Jordan Huntley filmed a series of videos in collaboration with the BSA, where he interviewed black members to give them a platform to discuss race in the Harding community.<\/p>\n
BSA students described the common assumptions they hear regularly because of the color of their skin \u2014 a subject that Huntley continues to wrestle with in light of the Black Lives Matter movement and discussions of police brutality.<\/p>\n
Huntley recalled early memories of his mother guiding him away from black stereotypes.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe said, \u2018You can\u2019t look like a slob when you go outside, because you will get profiled.\u2019 \u2018You can\u2019t look this certain way, you can\u2019t look or talk like this; you need to be respectful,\u2019\u201d Huntley said. \u201cI hate that she had to say that, but she had to say that. And I don\u2019t want to say that to my kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
Huntley sought to give black students a voice by featuring the BSA in the series of videos, which became a catalyst for a bigger conversation. In light of the SA\u2019s theme, \u201cConnect,\u201d Huntley saw Black History Month as the perfect time to connect the BSA with the student body as a whole and to have a moment of transparency in the conversation about race.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m literally just trying to inform (students) on misconceptions that you may have about us, because you don\u2019t know. And the things you say, because you don\u2019t know, are hurtful to us,\u201d Huntley said. \u201cI want people to learn something new about something they didn\u2019t know before and be more adept to listening and hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overall, Huntley has been satisfied with the work the SA multimedia team has produced, largely due to the content of their messages.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m learning along with them, and when I make these videos, my goal is to spark a curiosity,\u201d Huntley said. \u201cI got to make videos about Black History Month and have a conversation \u2014 that\u2019s all I want.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Written by Savanna DiStefano and Hannah Hitchcox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
During the month of February, the Student Association (SA) presented a video series in chapel featuring students in the Black Student Association (BSA) for Black History Month. On Feb. 9,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14702,"featured_media":10538,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14702"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10537"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10591,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10537\/revisions\/10591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}