By: Paige Scofield Campus Life Editor
On International Women’s Day, the Multicultural Student Union held the event: Women of Culture Celebration Dinner, in the Werner University Center.
The event was to, “… honor and acknowledge the diversity within women in different communities. The purpose of this event is to bring awareness to our campus by providing workshops, keynote speakers and a variety of interactive activities involving different issues and aspects that affect women. This event is inclusive to both men and women in the pursuit of educating our campus on the importance of women’s rights within different traditions,” according to Western’s website.
The event was coordinated by Shelby Brooks and Ivan Acosta, the Co-Secretary and Activities Director, respectively. Shelby Brooks, a sophomore Spanish middle/high education major, was glad that they were able to put on this event because of the help they received from Student Engagement and the University Diversity Committee.
“I think it’s important to raise awareness about minorities and people who have suffered through things that we don’t always recognize,” said Brooks. “It’s important to acknowledge that different people have different backgrounds than you, and try to understand where they come from in order to have a well-rounded life. So everyone can function better together and that people can truly empathize on more than just a surface level.”
The summit was filled with students waiting to eat dinner and listen to the keynote speaker Dominique Christina. Christina is an award-winning poet, author, educator and activist. She holds five national Poetry Slam titles in four years, including the 2012 and 2014 Women of the World Slam Champion and the 2011 National Poetry Slam Champion. She has also published several poetry collections throughout her career.
Christina discussed the life of her aunt who was one of nine students who desegregated a high school in Little Rock, who dealt with endless brutalization. She discussed the horrifying things her mother saw as a 10 year old child, and she discussed her own hardships of having an abusive step father, dealing with her own anger and trying to never feel voiceless or scared again.
She discussed feeling different, because her family never showed anger to how they were being treated.
“I come from people who did not permit themselves the full utility of their bodies and their voices,” Christina said. “They didn’t shake their fists in your face, they shook the cage by being excellent.”
Between the retelling of her past, Christina performed several of her spoken word poems that were about her traumas, her love, the mothers who have lost their sons at the hands of police and her daughter. Each of her raw, artistic performances received a ginormous round of applause by its end.
Contact the author at journalcampuslife@wou.edu
