BLACK SOLIDARITY DAY VANGUARD 2021

THE BLACK STUDENT UNION PRESENTS: THE BLACK SOLIDARITY DAY VANGUARD

Letter from the Editor: A special thanks to Professor Stoever and our previous Publications Coordinators, Kendra Gourgue and Ajahee Sekkm - Miles, who made this class possible for us to sit down and tackle issues regarding Black artistry. ** Black Solidarity Day is celebrated on the first Monday before Election Day every year to remind the nation of the collective strength and political, economical power of the Black community. It’s an event hosted by our organization to shine light on our people and celebrate our culture as well as protest the institutions set in place to marginalize us.

This year’s theme is centered around “Redefining Representative Politics in Predominantly White Spaces”. In order to understand this, Vanguard students had to ask each other what did it mean to be Black and how do we exist with our Blackness in predominantly white spaces. We ran through a list of fields that are usually white-dominated and broke down what it meant to be Black in those specific fields.

Our Vanguard students sat amongst each other to question how Black people are represented as a whole and as an individual, and how it permeates our sense of self and liberation. This allowed us to confront the ugly, yet foundational truths of how the Black community is generally represented throughout all types of art forms, media, platforms, careers, and many other aspects of life.

Pain, confusion, invisibility.

These were the results.

NO FUTURE awaken, my love! i am afraid that you have fallen into a terrible slumber summers beyond number have come to pass & yet, i fear this may be our very last our people under siege the third impact is nearly beyond reprieve the last eclipse has finally thrown its shade but for us niggas, it’s just another day. in the words of d. scott miller: behold, the apocalypse has already come there are no reapers or kaiju, or aliens, or mind you the zombies that already prey upon our every culture like vultures, people have leeched upon our children for generations like drac, they lack the formulations just self-made monsters in the land of desecration & white folk will tell us to fear these revelations promise to wipe these threats with the push of a button & yet, they continue to be gluttons feasting on souls till michael ain’t got anything to say but to put it all away. we are not the lost cause, the final frontier no odyssey involved but if bezos could colonize mars i bet your ass it’d be clipped for those jawns on god, sometimes the bronx feels like a different planet with the way we be handled how is a child to react when she learns that her very home has been labeled a sacrifice zone? & yet here i am, i have survived despite all your cataclysmic claims my niggas & i have managed to thrive we are the mammals to your dinosaurs

the facebook to your myspace that nigga ra was right when he said we needed to get the fuck out of this place but there is nowhere else to go end of conversation. all we have now are the remains of the people who have pillaged this nation so the surface decays radiated with their complications but the underground shall always remain forever & especially today.

- Dahlia Bekong

ODE TO MY WATER BOTTLE 7:00 AM- Good Morning You are huge.

9:00 AM - Hydrate Yourself You take up space in every room you enter And you don’t seem to care at all, Can you teach me how to do that?

11:00 AM- Remember Your Goal How you seem to stand proud and tall in front of all the other bottles They all look so similar, all from the same place, same factory Same make, Same form 1:00 PM - Keep Chugging So they can all relate to each other You on the other hand Are different and you seem to be okay with that, And you should be.

3:00 PM Feeling Awesome You are the best at having conversations Sometimes I feel like you are the one holding me.

The way you garner attention and everyone Just seems so focused on you So attentive 5:00 PM Don't Give up And as I carry you everywhere I’ve come to notice that we share the same qualities.

It’s the way we hold the weight of the world inside of us And each sip is me taking the weight off of you Because I don't want you to be too heavy But I end up making me heavy And I have a tendency to do that 7:00 PM Almost Finished The world is made up of 75% of water My body carries 65% You 100 And we all carry it the same Carry it well Carry it proud 9:00 PM You Did It And I make sure to carry you everywhere

When they see me they see you And because we are distinct from the others We share the same Point of View

-Marielle Joseph

ONE OUT OF TWELVE PRINCESSES Who is your favorite princess? One of the few questions to which I always have an answer.

Belle, of course. It's been Belle since I was four. Because I had to come up with an answer when I was four. Because when you're a little girl, everyone who meets you seems inclined to ask: Who is your favorite princess?

It's just a conversation starter, nothing more. Harmless, really.

Or is it?

Perhaps to the adult, with more pressing issues on their mind than Disney princesses, merely trying to pass some time before returning to their world of adults, merely searching for a way to relate to the tiny human placed before them… Perhaps to the adult it is nothing more.

Harmless, really.

For adults seem often to forget that children are no less than tiny adults, and adults are no more than overgrown children.

My favorite princess was Belle, so that meant I had to dress up as Belle for Halloween. And on my birthday. And on Saturdays. Also sometimes on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

You see, a princess to a little girl is not a character in a story. Just like their overgrown counterparts, a child trying to understand who they are in this world will look to those presented in a fine light to use as role models. And under our generally accepted value system, princesses seem always to catch the finest lighting. For a princess is more than just beautiful; she sets the standard for what beauty even is. A princess can do no wrong; she embodies perfection, and everybody loves her.

I wanted to be my favorite princess, every day of the week.

When I closed my eyes and wished upon a star, I was her.

I have two sisters. I know their favorite princesses, too. I know my sister's favorite princesses as well as I know their birthdays: August twelfth and February tenth; Cinderella and Arielle. We all wanted to be princesses.

Did I notice as a child that out of the twelve disney princesses, whose soundtracks I knew by heart, only one princess is Black?

It is hard to say now. I feel like I did notice. No, really, I must not have noticed. I suppose I could rack my brain forever without discovering the truth.

But whether or not I recognized the lack of diversity in my group of role models for what it was, that exclusivity produced real effects on the level of the shared subconscious of generations of children raised on Disney princesses. The shared subconscious which creates our reality.

Because we are not just talking about children's movies. The writing, production and propagandistic promotion that went into each Disney princess becoming what she is to young fans all across required a lot of effort and thought. It was all intentional, deliberate. So why would creators intentionally design a world where out of twelve princesses only one is Black?

These princesses are a reflection and representation of our society on a much deeper level. This exclusivity against Black women expands into numerous important fields and areas of life.

This is something I learned later on, when one of my Black girlfriends told me about the struggle of growing up wishing she had blue eyes or blonde hair instead of being comfortable in her own beautiful skin. The idea that she ever felt this way made no sense to me because all I could see was how beautiful she is. I was so overwhelmed by her beauty that it did not even occur to me that she would have difficulty recognizing it in herself. Yet there she was, stunning as ever, telling me that for the longest time she was unable to be comfortable in her own perfect body.

Talking to and connecting with more Black girls caused me to realize that this phenomenon of under-appreciating their beauty and misguidedly believing that the features seen on other girls were more desirable is not rare and is not random. And it is absolutely heartbreaking.

I will never know what it is like to grow up and wonder why your favorite princesses don't share the shade of skin that you see on yourself. To wonder why all the dolls on the shelves seem to come in one type that does not match what you see in the mirror. To wonder why the mainstream fashion models all look about the same and so few of them look like you. Nor do I know what it might be like to be a mother and explain to your daughter why the princesses and supermodels and figures who represent some warped standard of beauty in our perverted society do not look like her.

However, I am hopeful that in the future less and less girls and women will ever have to know what that is like.

I see the change happening in so many subtle ways. Black women are becoming more prominent in politics, fashion, science, art, music, movies and more. We are not talking about Disney princesses, but real life superheroes.

And I see it in my friends who are Black, finally and irrevocably coming into the confidence that has always been waiting to step out from within.

Wherever life takes me I hope to bring with me the understanding of what others had to go through in order to feel comfortable in their own bodies, and to help combat exclusivity wherever I see it. I want to support this positive change in every way that I can, although what is happening now is far bigger than me. This shift in our society finally acknowledging the beauty it has atrociously suppressed and tried to hide for so long is not only inevitable, it is what has needed to happen for a long time to come.

- Willow Paykin

THE ENDING OF THE SCENE IS UNCHANGED You are the leading role. The character that stands out the most. Your clothes are different. Your hair is different. You are different. All eyes on you.

All the time. Nothing but retinas and camera lenses separating you from your viewers. A moviestar.

You received the script just moments ago, written in a language you have never seen before. You fabricate words trying to fit in with only context and they love it. They steal your voice and speak like you now. You can’t stop them.

They’re eating your words.

Hair and makeup are incredibly confused, unable to find a foundation of your color. Your hair is forced upwards and down.

Curls ironed out like your wrinkled shirts. You’ve never been able to run your fingers through your hair like this before.

You feel lost without the tangles.

None of the clothes they give you fit. The fabric stings here on this foreign planet. Your curves are hidden.

They want you to look like them but you feel like an astronaut.

Forgetting to bring oxygen— you suffocate— unable to scream.

The aliens surrounding you don’t notice you can’t breathe.

The scene choreography is crucial. It can mean death if not done perfectly. Hands on the steering wheel. Maintain eye-contact.

No sudden movements. Wait for your cue and breathe deeply.

Your parents have drilled this into your brain. Why is it the moment it matters, you can’t remember how to survive?

The director is never satisfied with you. You are not acting in the expected way. You re-do the scene over and over, repeating the same thing every time.

The cast is disappointed, the director frustrated. You cry with the cameras rolling.

Cut. It was the perfect scene. But you were never acting.

- Qai J. Hardy

COMMON A common question that’s asked to be speculated is “Can Black people ever be free?”

“Can we ever come together and escape the shackles of generational imprisonment?”

Answered by optimists and pessimists We are either getting there or not far enough As a realist and delegate to my truth, I’m sorry to say that we can never be free As no one is free Whether Black, white, or anything in between We as human beings are not free We thrive for a perfect world when we ourselves cannot be perfect Our morals are guided by another man’s word We march behind government documents and Sacred Books We need commandments to tell us not to kill And amendments to stop the ownership of another human being These are rules that should be self-evident without the need to write down Yet, these virtues of caring for your brother falls on deaf ears if not ratified by government institutions And reviewed by judging eyes who say they judge on behalf of the “Most High” And these eyes only seen the Father as many times as I Who says that they are the saviors of a free mind?

We cannot be free because we are separated from our conscience Sense that should be common Diluted due to our central education from con-men How can you be freed by the hoarders of our freedom?

How can you be free within the system that took our freedom in the first place?

People are loving the machine that’s supposed to protect the people More than they love the people This system has turned into a false idol Ran by false prophets Who allows the question of “Can Black people ever be free?” to pass down generations We can never be free under their Eagle’s eye Because if we could, We would have already been satisfied This system is bullshit because I’m a grandchild of a revolutionary yet I’m still fighting for the freedom of my future children’s lives Makes no common sense.

- Mikelangelo

CITY OF WANDERING SOULS Listen closely When he walks His footsteps echo to the beat of generations of black men who have roamed this block before him Can you hear the rhythm?

The orchestra behind the echo The weeping and waning of the violin As the bow strikes the cords at its waist In this city we dream lucid And at night he dances on the brink of a white chalk outline Run, run, run He is a sunday morning prayer poured onto a pew Run, run, run He reminds me to never forget how fast hand meets holster How fast finger meets trigger and bullet meets brain Run, run, run He is rooted to a city of wandering souls With glass eyes and glazed hearts That remain, unbeating His roots run deep in the infrastructure of this city His aged branches form shadows that interlap and overarch the city limits They cling to the corner store on State Street Where he often lingers in the passage of time To others, he is a fire escape To me, he is home To himself, he is a facade I ask him again, do you remember who you were before they named you?

- Ayah M. Osman

BLACK INVISIBILITY / THE COMMUNITY The loudness of the dark hue from my skin reaches the highest of volumes all on its own I am heard before I speak and seen despite the calamity of my being My Blackness, along with my femme idenity is the factor that preludes how I am treated Like a tattoo, my blackness is permanent & I can never disguise my skin. It is with me until my bones decay and my soul remains on this earth.

Despite my skin bringing me so much attention Whether it be the catcalls throughout the streets of my predominantly black neighborhood, Or the attention that arises when I infiltrate certain spaces in the city that used to belong to us or even walking into the lecture hall of my university These prying eyes investigating my entire being still made me feel so invisible…

As a black women, the world silenced my cries and frowned upon my opinions When I speak against my mistreatment, my experiences are undermined from people who never stepped in my shoes or ones who contributed to the burden of my oppression A slight raise of my tone caused tension in rooms that made people uncomfortable & only then was it acknowledged that the environment was saturated, but not when I was holding on to the same hidden feelings for more than that moment.

Countless times I’ve been silent just to avoid the angry black girl troupe, A troupe that I was given my senior year of high school by my white law teacher who recognized my passion as anger Because of this I wanted to stay as invisible as possible in academic settings Why was I not allowed to be angry? Or why was everyone expecting me to be angry Anger is a human emotion, but for me, it was a stereotype I wanted to avoid My blackness on these grounds became an invisible cloak to dismiss accountability from my peers Ignoring me would be better than to admit the division created to protect their comfort Ignoring me would mean they can say hurtful things around each other and not care when I was around or feel bad when I was isolated with group work.

Through all the hardships of being unheard, and seen through the wrong lens, I give thanks to the fostering of a community within black women…

THE COMMUNITY I give thanks to the community we created on our own The community of black women that I call my sisters, the ones who give me remedies for my imposter syndrome The community who understands and protects each other because we understand why sisterhood is vital

The community that has allowed me to shed the lining of my invisibility and not be afraid of shaking the room when necessary The community who continually helps me appreciate myself & the community who taught me grace from feeling comfort in the invisibility granted to me The community that cheers me on through my accomplishments The community of powerful black women who are loud, who are quiet, with different identities, and intersectionalities The ones who taught me how to find balance in myself The community that taught me boundaries and accountability & The community where we constantly pour love and show love onto one another The community, that helps me go on MY SISTERHOOD.

- Jenna A. Johnson

THE PLEDGE OF A NEW ALLEGIANCE I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States corporation And to the republic for which it stands As the root of my pain One nation That I can never forgive Under a god that seems to have me on call block Who finds us divisible, because if all lives mattered why are Black lives the only ones taken Liberty nor justice lives at the corporation So I ask my melanated folk never to repeat this spell It’s an insult to our intelligence We’ve become aiders and abetters to the corporation Shucking and jiving while our world is on fire I’d be remiss to not remind y’all we’re at the intersection of war with the corporation They burned Alexandria Gave us their names Used our youth as swamp alligator bait Created Black codes Sprayed us with hoes I don’t need to go on But excuse me for not giving a fuck I’m sorry my melanin cost more than gold And that I create with ease And that I’m more than free, I’m living Past the perceptions generated for me I recognize my rage as a tool and not as an obstacle So when a fool tells me I am perpetuating the corporations standard I stare and pity them My blackness is my own And I refuse to relinquish it Not to the PWI college students who want to use my AAVE Or the young white girls with lip fillers Or all the instructors who can’t pronounce my name Not even for the POC who see our plight as the same Ironic though isn’t it?

That the same individuals the corporation demonized since its inception Are the same ones keeping the lights on and checks coming in It bewilders me every time Everyone wants to be a nigga But no one wants to be a nigga

- Tykeem Banini

YOUNG, WILD, AND FREE Y’all know that one Wiz Khalid’s song?

It goes like So what we get drunk So what we smoke weed We just having fun We don’t care who sees So what we go out That’s how it’s supposed to be When we’re young and wild and free I love that song Only, I wish it was our true reality And that it felt less like a dream Because as a young Black man I have to be careful who sees me get wild And I have to question if I’m really free As I’m still a slave to the stereotypes I see how white folk look at me when I drink the Hennessy And it’s tough to celebrate the legalization of weed As my Black seniors were charged with felonies As their eyes turned red while burning the green See these brothers are still locked up While Hollywood is zooming in on Zips to showcase on flat screens And there’s no Black skinned in the room All white inhaling all the joys of the green Ignoring that all Black suffered while we was all chasing the cream Yet we the gangstas The hoodlums with the Black skin While for them it’s medical White mothers need a puff or two so they don’t murder their kin White scholars need to dabble so they can revive the privilege within White athletes need to inhale their pre-game rituals so they can be ready to win Yet if you don’t pass their color test, they take you off the track and make your future dim Can I blackout this picture to bring the world back to as it first began To when all the fruits of the Earth was equally available to all Souls And the exterior of your vessel didn’t determine the worth of your mental And the herbs of nature would leave you gentle Can we smoke freely Can we act wild and live young

Can we not turn nature into capital While we kill ourselves under the weights of capitalism Can we enjoy the music Celebrate Our culture without the vultures swooning in Turning gifted prophets into profits Can we be Young and Wild and Free

- Mikelangelo

2021-2022 Executive Board: President: Osariemen Aiyevbomwan Vice President: Krista Hall Treasurer: JoceLynn Labossiere Secretary: Alanna Morse Co-Secretary: Josef Thompson Historian: Chelsea Miranda Educational Coordinator: Azzaré HAUGHTON Political Correspondent: Dounia Badidi Publications Coordinator: Elizabeth G Plantin Public Relations: Yubilet Rios Student-Association Representative: Keneal Campbell Social-Cultural Coordinator: Krystal Honeyghan Kiya Floyd Senior Advisors: Kiya Floyd, Kendra Gourgue and Ajahee Sekkm-Miles

FACULTY ADVISOR Professor Jennifer Stoever

Editor: Elizabeth G. Plantin

Writers: Tykeem Banini Dahlia Bekong Jenna A. Johnson Marielle E. Joseph Qai J. Hardy Mikelangelo Ayah M. Osman Willow Paykin

Thank you to all who attended our Annual BLACK SOLIDARITY EVENT!

To become more involved with the black Student Union, Follow our Instagram: @BSU1968 Attend our General Body Meetings Thursdays at 6pm in our BSU Lounge (b006) To join the vanguard please email theunionpub@gmail.com “and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid So it is better to speak Remembering we were never meant to survive ~ Audre Lorde