Great Barrington — As part of the its week-long Symposium on Social Justice and Inclusion, Bard College at Simon’s Rock raised the Black Lives Matter flag outside of the College Center on Tuesday, October 25.
The symposium included several events including workshops on microaggressions and implicit bias, the screening of the film “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” and a keynote address by artist Lesley Martinez.
Bard College at Simon’s Rock student Kai Addo helped college Provost John Weinstein to raise the flag outside of the College Center. “It makes me happy to do this because I feel like the college has added and included the Black community in their institution,” Addo said. “It makes me feel happy that we are accepted in the community. To me, the words ‘Black Lives Matter’ means hope, peace, and strength.”
“Our community has always been supportive of inclusion in all ways,” Weinstein said. “Per U.S. flag procedures, we fly the Black Lives Matter flag along with the United States flag for approximately six months during our Symposium Week in October. We then change it for the Rainbow (pride) flag for another six months during Pride Week at the end of March. It’s a symbolic way of marking inclusion right here at the College Center which is right at the front gate of the college.”
When asked what the words “Black Lives Matter” meant to him, Weinstein said, “We have to intentionally focus on how to foreground the lives of Black people in this country.” Weinstein continued, “I was a school principal at a predominantly Black high school and saw firsthand how students’ lives are considered less important … In any setting, we need to remember that there are structural forces that are always pushing people down. We need to actively lift people up. It’s something that everyone needs to be involved in, regardless of their background. It’s incumbent on all to be involved.”
While students seemed to be happy to see the flag raised on campus, at least one student believes that the college should do much more.
“I’m very happy that the college is helping their image by raising a flag,” film student Ashu Rai said. “But to me, it means nothing. It’s a Black Lives Matter flag, which is an important flag. But it doesn’t really mean anything when the school doesn’t really do anything to get more Black teachers or students here or do anything actually materially useful. But what could a small school in the middle of nowhere do?”
When asked about hiring a more diverse faculty in the future, Weinstein said “it’s certainly a deep and important goal, but it’s also something that we need to partner with our local community.” He explained, “We are for bringing people here to the Berkshires, and we want them to feel welcome both on campus and off campus … It’s certainly a goal, and I think it needs to be a county-wide effort and not just for one institution.”
After the Black Lives Matter flag was raised at the College Center, Martinez gave the keynote address for the symposium. The topic of her address was “Creative Healing Process.” “Trauma shows up in the spirit when we feel we’re not worthy,” Martinez said. “There’s a voice inside of our head that kind of repeats what we experienced from things that we could not control. Maybe a voice, or maybe somebody’s voice, that says words of discouragement on a daily basis. When it shows up, it does its job years [after the trauma]. Then trauma shows up in the mind. This is connected to the future and it affects the future us.”
She said, “I believe we are able to have the ability, the autonomy in our bodies, to walk ourselves through a process by which we make by which we integrate the pain that comes from trauma. Ultimately, it gets us to a place where we remember who we are.”
