By Aysha Craig, Copy Editor
// While protests fighting for justice and equality may have simmered down in the Lafayette community, two Acalanes High School clubs push to keep educating students on how to be anti-racist.
Acalanes’ Black Student Union (BSU) and Bring Change to Mind club (BC2M) hosted a Zoom meeting with the Acalanes Wellness Center team during lunch on Aug. 27 to discuss racism in the Acalanes Union High School District and the stigmatization of mental health.
The meeting aimed to educate students on the effects of racism in the Acalanes community.
“The biggest things we discussed together were insensitivity, ignorance, and racism. Others need to know both the history and the effect that their actions have, even if their remark was just intended as a sickening joke,” BSU President Deja Cooper said.
The Zoom provided students with a safe place where they could share their personal experiences with racism.
“The life experiences of fellow students are a rich source of knowledge that must be safely shared, especially for topics like racism, in which American institutions like government and school systems have historically contributed to harm,” Wellness Advisor Allan Choi said.
In addition to sharing their personal experiences, students also shared their opinions on why they think the community doesn’t address some racist incidents.
“I think the people who get away with posting racist things on social media can do so because the community might have ties with the person who posted it, so it may be hard to punish someone you know and are close with,” senior Xavier Wesley said.
Participants also considered the effects that racism has on the community.
“Racist incidents bring not only a negative connotation to our community as a whole, but more importantly, make the people targeted feel unsafe,” junior Franny Daughters said.
In a growing effort to address and educate students on racism in the Acalanes community, Zooms similar to BSU and BC2M’s dialogue on race and mental health will be held in the near future.
“One of the greatest tools we have to fight racism is education, and education doesn’t come from just our classrooms,” Choi said.