On February 7th, I decided to attend the “Voice of Change” discussion that was being held at Neville Hall in Room 106. There I discovered that besides me and one other person, everyone else inside was black, so I became aware of two things:

One, this will be an important discussion for a lot of the people in the room, and two, I need to put in the extra effort to engage with the meeting, as I might struggle in relating to the problems faced by everyone else in the room.

Despite the potential problems I could have when starting the meeting, I can safely say I’ve had a good time discussing all the topics that were tackled in this meeting, ranging from workplace environments, and police brutality, to even representation in popular media. I got to hear a lot of interesting points of view from everybody in the room, ranging from stories of their personal experience to answering questions from anyone in the room who had questions about their everyday life.

My favorite part was that I got to hear everyone’s opinions on certain topics that some people might be curious about, ranging from feelings on Black History Month to the use of the n-word. Not one moment passed where a conversation seemed out of place, nor did it ever feel condescending or offensive. Everyone had passionate ideas about the African-American experience, and I was proud to be part of it, as while I can’t relate as much as I want to, I can still understand some of the struggles that they go through with the ideas of being labeled just because of who you are or where you come from. Overall, an engaging experience that I won’t regret coming back to again and again, just so I can’t understand more about the many different cultures we have at Presbyterian College.