Mr. André Robert Lee, producer of I’m Not Racist…Am I?, shared his insights with the Choate community during Diversity Day. Photo courtesy of Ross Mortensen
On Monday, January 21, the Choate community celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day by participating in a schoolwide Diversity Day. Like previous Diversity Days, immense work was put into preparing a successful day full of thought-provoking experiences. Over the last several months, Dr. Keith Hinderlie, Director of Equity and Inclusion; Dr. Anna Cruz, Adviser to Students of Color; and a student committee have worked to improve Diversity Day based on recent feedback.
Two main activities constituted Diversity Day this year. The first was the screening of I’m Not Racist…Am I?, a movie about twelve teenagers developing their perspectives on racism. Following the screening, a discussion was held with the movie’s producer, André Robert Lee, giving students the chance to reflect on and share their immediate reactions to the film.
Similar to previous years, the other half of the day consisted of different workshops and discussions for both upperclassmen and underclassmen. Third and fourth formers participated in interactive, activity-based workshops intended to familiarize students with various terminologies and concepts, and fifth and sixth formers participated in different workshops that focused on more specific topics, such as colorism and hook-up culture.
The largest change from last year was that a movie screening and discussion was held in place of a presentation from a keynote speaker. Dr. Hinderlie said, “I thought that it was a really good time to see a movie like this for where we are as a school. Also, it’s good to change things up a little bit.” He added that he personally knew the producer and has wanted him to visit for a long time. “I’ve talked to him for the last couple of years, and we were lucky to get him,” Dr. Hinderlie said.
Workshops and discussions were also modified in hopes of providing a more engaging experience. Bekah Agwunobi ’19, member of the Diversity Day student committee, said, “We’ve changed a lot of the activities that we’ve done, and we’ve tried to factor in more student opinion. A lot of students said they preferred some of the activities we were doing this year to the activities that we did last year.” Agwunobi added, “We also wanted to have a wider variety of topics to talk about and things that would facilitate civil discourse, so we improved the discussion topics from last year.” In addition, due to increased availability of classrooms in the humanities building, fifth and sixth formers were able to have harkness discussions.
Planning for this day began in July. Dr. Hinderlie said, “When I came a few years ago, it was really hard to identify a speaker that was consistent with the school’s values and to secure that for Diversity Day because by October, November, if you’re trying to book a great speaker, you’re late.” This year, he reached out to make official arrangements with André Robert Lee before the school year began.
Since the end of fall term, the student committee, made up of cabinet members from various equity and inclusion clubs such as CDSA, Spectrum, and CALSA, has held weekly meetings with Dr. Hinderlie and Dr. Cruz, to plan workshops, organize groups, and train facilitators. Dr. Hinderlie said, “They drive it; it is a student-led process, and all we do is provide support and take care of the logistics.”
Still, there were disagreements within the committee due to the variety of student perspectives and the need to carefully consider each participating student’s personality and background for the most effective discussion. Agwunobi said, “Because the Diversity Day planning committee is a big committee, and we’re all from very different places on campus and clubs, obviously, there is going to be some respectful discourse about what workshop activities would be best. Even with the disagreements we’ve had, though, everybody just wants to make Diversity Day the best day possible.”
She said that the committee’s main challenge was to organize workshops that encourage discussion based on relevant topics. “I think that we really wanted to make Diversity Day representative of a lot of different identifiers. But students, I think, don’t necessarily want to discuss identifiers that they don’t directly identify with.”
There were a variety of opinions concerning the productivity of Diversity Day. “It was stuff we don’t talk about on a normal basis. My friends aren’t talking about that stuff,” saidStated Will Brown ’19 in regards to the topics discussed. “Being able to bring it up in an environment like that was good.”
Others students felt differently concerning the day. ; Angela Zhao ’19 said, “We’re not moving forward. We’re always talking about the same thing, bringing up the same points, yet, at the same time, there is no action.”
Although some students may have had issues with the day, most seem to agree that this year’s Diversity Day allowed people to take time out of their everyday lives to discuss , and promote awareness for, important topics in today’s world.
