Blog Post #3: Day Two

 Day Two

“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them." - Ida B. Wells


Wednesday was Day Two of my Hawken Project and after finishing the excerpts that I read 

for The Souls of Black Folk, I turned my attention to creating questions for my meeting with 

Dr. Gadsby and doing more background research of the course offerings present at Oberlin 

College for the Africana Studies. For the questions, I kept in mind the two essential 

questions that I want to answer at the end of creating the African-American Studies 

Program and asked questions about selecting course content, how to find

the balance between teaching a people's trauma (but not subjecting them to it) and joy 

(but not avoiding the trauma entirely), how to make the courses engaging to students, etc. 

Then, after finishing these questions, I reviewed the course listings for the Africana Major 

and Minor at Oberlin and the courses are pretty interesting! The course listings ranged 

from topics like AAST 217 - Unspoken Images: Complex Identities in Black Film to 

 to AAST 272 - Reading and Writing Horror 

and Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora. I looked in awe at the different topics

that were present in Oberlin's Africana Major and Minor course selection and it definitely

goes to show that there is an endless possibility of topics that can be covered in the 

program. So, seeing the listing helped me to start brainstorming ideas for course topics that 

can be covered in the courses offered in the African-American Studies Program and I 

started to jot down some initial ideas. And just as I started to make a list, news that the 

Capitol was on lockdown flooded the news and television stations. I was in disbelief and 

shock when I first heard this and I tuned into CNN to watch the coverage for the story. The 

events that followed with the increasing crowd of rioters gathering at the Capitol and then

making their way inside of the building during the House and Senate hearing was horrific 

and terrifying. Images of rioters breaking windows, scaling the walls, entering into the offices

of Congress people, flying Confederate and Neo-Nazi flags, and creating utter chaos 

flooded the television screen. At that moment, I stopped my work for a moment 

and sat in anger and confusion at the sight of this attack on American democracy and 

sheer support of blatant White supremacy. While I collected my thoughts and emotions

together, I knew that I couldn't stop my work on this project because this program is what 

WE as the Hawken community need now more than ever and I had to remember the end 

goal. In order to combat the kind of mindset that was displayed throughout television 

screens of the event on Wednesday, we need to create more spaces that allow for positive 

conversations and interactions between people of different backgrounds, which promotes 

growth for the entire student body. So, knowing what needed to be done, I got back to work!




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