MHC students address racism with creative group projects

Professor Kirsten Helmer’s “Racism and Inequalities in Schools and Society” class has been working on Collaborative Action Projects (CAPs) that discuss community members’ experiences with racism and inequality. Cross listed between Psychology 215 and Education 205, this class is also a Community-based learning course.  The class has focused on topics that revolve around race and its influence on students’ and teachers’ experiences in school.

According to Helmer, throughout the semester the students “compare historical and contemporary constructions of racism [and] contrast the workings of white privilege with calls for white anti-racist pedagogies [that] can address inequalities in education.” Helmer stated that she assigned the CAPs to her students as “an opportunity for [them] to build and implement an action project as part of their learning experience.” As their final project, the students broke up into groups to try to address the ideas of racism and anti-racism at Mount Holyoke and around the world.

One such project is the “(Re)defining Racism” boxes that are on display in Blanchard, the library, Reese and other areas around campus.  These boxes ask community members to write about their experiences with racism and submit these stories to the class via the boxes.

The (Re)defining Racism boxes are not the only exhibition that this class has created.  Another project, designed by Cari Morrison ’17, Paige Fortier ’16 and Rose Minichiello ’16, involves creating a performing arts exhibition.  In a group e-mail to the Mount Holyoke News, the students explained that, “a goal of our project is to provide [our] peer[s with] a safe space in which to express their feelings/experiences of racism and anti–racism through the performing arts.”

Another group, comprised of Cathleen Pruden ’16, Olivia Brusatto ’16, Milani Lawrence ’15, Heather Armstrong ’16 and Megan Phelan ’16, centered its project around “taking a critical look at the ideals of beauty in our society,” realizing that their research has revealed that “ideals of beauty do not reflect the diversity of our society.”  According to Helmer, through these and a few other projects, the class aims to focus on “historical, social, psychological and legal underpinnings of the social construction of race and examine how perspectives on race have influenced the lives of students and teachers.”

Many students in the class further expounded upon the purpose of this project.  “I originally did not like the idea of a project that was short-lived because I believe in the importance of sustainability,” said Uzma Hussain ’14, who is a student in the class. “Though I realized that this assignment could be used as an opportunity to shed some light on racism, which is something this campus does not talk about.”  Through the project, Hussain hopes to affect change.  She expressed that she hoped the projects could combat the common conception that Americans live in a “post-racial society.”  Pruden also expressed a desire to make a difference, “We want people to create their own ideas of beauty and challenge what is so commonly presented in the media,” she said.

The students have been working on the projects throughout the semester and will be presenting their final research and exhibitions in an event on Dec. 5 from 6:45-8:30 p.m. in Cleveland L1 and in Kendade Atrium. All students, faculty, staff and other community members are invited to attend.

The event will include performance pieces, art installations and two documentaries using digital storytelling and exhibits. There will be opportunities for the audience to interact and contribute to the projects. The Beyond Tolerance Project is an organization on campus that aims to “educate students on issues of identity, oppression, privilege and inclusion,” according to their page on the Mount Holyoke Website. The group has signaled interest in gathering the materials generated during the project for further anti-racism work on campus.

Frankline Mardi ’16, whose group decided to use digital storytelling, discussed how working on this project has demonstrated issues surrounding prejudice. “I’m really not sure if racism is a big issue on campus. What I am absolutely sure of, however, is that prejudice is definitely a big issue on campus and that’s something I’ve come to understand from watching interviews of students, staff and faculty members of Mount Holyoke,” she said.

Mardi pointed to the extremely diverse backgrounds of people who attend MHC and cited that this may contribute to misconceptions. “There are still people at MHC who come from communities where they haven’t had a lot of opportunities to interact with people of color,” she explained. “However, what I’ve also learned through these interviews is that, this reasoning doesn’t make it okay and doesn’t make it any less hurtful for the people who do end up experiencing it on campus.”

Anthea Hubanks ’15 furthered this sentiment by stating that the discussions in the class allowed students to engage honestly in conversations about racism.  These projects provided the students with an opportunity to extend and expand upon the conversations that they had this semester. “We decided as a class that we felt a need to do something that matters, something that will maybe impact people’s lives and that will spawn growth and engagement on the topic of race and racism here at Mount Holyoke,” she said.

Hubanks hopes that the class’s work will continue to have an impact at MHC. “This group collaboration sprang up as an honest response to our classroom experiences,” Hubanks stated. “Even though the semester will end soon, we hope to bestow the materials we created and gathered from others for this event—‘(Re)Defining Racism’— to be used on campus by another group committed to carrying on this very necessary work.”