MLE #4 – Black Women Rock

Black Women Rock – An event hosted every year by Penn State’s Black Student Union.

For my fourth Multicultural Learning Experience, I went to an event hosted by the Black Student Union called Black Women Rock. This event was held at the Days Inn hotel on Saturday, March 18, 2017. This event is held every year in honor of all black women on campus to uplift and empower them. This was my first time being at this event and I am happy to say that I really had an amazing time. I enjoyed this event not only because I am a black woman, but I really learned a lot and left feeling so empowered and inspired. I received so much advice and words of encouragement that I will take with me throughout life.

For the first half of the event, it was focused on intellectual growth. Each individual at a table received a goodie bag with a slip of paper in it that had the name of a black woman who accomplished a milestone or milestones in history, paving the way for the rest of us. I loved that this portion of the event covered a whole spectrum of black women who made accomplishments in every industry, including music, politics, sports and education. Some of the accomplishments were already known to me, but some I did not know, such as Loretta Lynch being the first African American to serve as U.S. attorney general. Politics is something I am definitely trying to become more informed about, so I was grateful to have received this information.

The second half of the event was made up of performances by individual students and groups who sang, danced or performed spoken word. This segment was so amazing. Some of the people who performed were my friends and I was so proud of them for being open and vulnerable enough to share their art with the audience, to glorify the beauty, strength and resilience of black women everywhere. The words poets spoke and singers sang, and the passion that evolved on stage as dancers performed their routines left my heart warm and my mind inspired.

In between each performance, awards were given out to honor some of the black women on campus who achieved great things throughout their time on campus and made an impact on not only other black females on campus, but the Penn State community as a whole. One of these women, who I have had the privilege and honor of speaking to, is Symone McCollum. She is a sophomore here at Penn State and is the founder and CEO of a company called RUDE, that specializes in making all natural beauty products for women. Symone received the Michelle Obama award for leadership, being recognized as the woman of the year. I don’t know Symone too personally, but I am so proud of her, because she has accomplished so much as a young, black female, at a predominantly white campus and still has so much more to achieve. She is an awesome example of what hard work, determination, resilience and believing in yourself can do.

Some of the other awards that were given out were the Maya Angelou award, which recognizes a motivational woman in the black community, the Oprah Winfrey award, which recognizes a female humanitarian in the black community and some other awards that recognized outstanding achievements in academics, sports and the arts.

This event was both healing, eye opening and empowering. I say healing because I finally realized that society really tries to make black women think that we are all competing for the same spot and we must all engage in aggressive competition with each other. However, after interviewing the host, Jerry Johnson, a Penn State alumn who now lives in L.A., I realized we are all individuals, meaning we all have different paths and are not competing for the same spot. There is enough room for ALL of us to shine, wherever we go. This was eye opening because I realized how much black women at Penn State do uplift and support and genuinely love each other, but do not always feel that we are in the space to do so. This event was a time and space for everyone to let their guard down, LOVE each other and SMILE at each other. Something we unfortunately don’t do enough of when walking past each other on campus. Again, being at a predominantly white campus, there is a stigma that there is little room for all of us to shine, be recognized or accomplish great things. This event proved that stigma to be wrong.

Finally, I left empowered because I just felt like I could take on the world after this event. After seeing so many performances, seeing the happiness from award recipients and hearing our special guest, Jasmine Guy from the hit 80s sitcom, A Different World speak about self-care and self-love, I was so proud and happy to call myself a beautiful, black woman.

 

 This is why WE ROCK 🙂 

 

One thought on “MLE #4 – Black Women Rock

  1. hqp5120 says:

    I was also able to attend Black Women Rock as a member of SMART and it was one of the best nights I’ve had here at Penn State. I loved the passion behind all of the performances, each more inspiring than the last. I think it is so important to have events like this that support and uplift populations that have been historically put down and discriminated against. The strides women on this campus are making are so admirable and it was an honor to be there to admire their accomplishments.

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