Exeter Reflects Following Day Of Workshops
The Academy held its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Friday, Jan. 12, after a year of careful preparation and weekly planning by the MLK Day Committee. The day consisted of a keynote address, a performance and various 90-minute workshops, all pertaining to this year’s theme of “borders, boundaries and walls.” The workshops facilitated many meaningful discussions across campus about race and intersectionality.
Committee members lower Tatum Schutt and upper Jacob Hunter set the stage for MLK Day on Thursday evening by organizing and co-hosting “Unsilenced,” a series of 13 acts including rap, spoken word and music performed by members of the Exeter community. “We wanted to bring life and meaning to the narratives and experiences of individual students at Exeter because we often overlook the importance of our own storytelling in Harkness,” Jacob Hunter said.
“We wanted to bring life and meaning to the narratives and experiences of individual students at Exeter because we often overlook the importance of our own storytelling in Harkness,” Jacob Hunter said.
Performers and audience members alike were immensely touched by the honest and striking narratives shared; a great majority received standing ovations. One such performer was upper Andrew Liquigan, who delivered an original poem entitled "I Am What I Am" about his struggle and determination to self-identify. “I was inspired and humbled by the talent on that stage,” he said.
Lower Eman Noraga, who presented "White Privilege" by Kyla Lacey, voiced similar sentiments, saying it was “an amazing experience to be in a room full of people who wanted to hear our stories.”
MLK Day officially kicked off on Friday morning with a keynote address delivered by Lourdes Ashley Hunter, the co-founder and Executive Director of Trans Women of Color Collective (TWOCC). Hunter used words and visuals to share her experiences as a transgender woman of color and brought awareness to the systematic oppression of others who identify similarly.
“She diversified the MLK Day narrative. I’m grateful that I got to hear her perspective since the experience of a black transgender woman is not a voice often represented at Exeter,” Jacob Hunter said.
Community members subsequently engaged in a morning or afternoon workshop of their choice, each of which utilized a different medium to feature important voices on a narrower topic. One of the 12 offerings was a narrative-based workshop called “My Life, My Choice” by Audrey Morrissey, a survivor of the commercial sex industry and the Associate Director of the My Life, My Choice program. The program empowers and educates at-risk youth, other survivors and society at large.
“It was powerful and fascinating to learn about the American sex industry and hear her first-hand account of being exploited as a young woman. She made me think about some of my stances on relevant political issues. It was an honor to hear her story,” senior Maya Kim said.
In another workshop, filmmaker Daniel Byers and Octavius Seowtewa, head medicine man of the Zuni tribe and a member of the Zuni Cultural Resources Advisory Team, presented and led a discussion of their film on Zuni cultural heritage titled “Then, Now, and Forever: Zuni in the Grand Canyon.”
“This film is really the start of bringing awareness to native rights. People need to be aware of native history and the importance of protecting it,” Seowtewa stated.
Byers agreed, explaining that native justice was a particularly relevant issue in current politics due to the reduction of Bears Ears National Monument and the Dakota Access Pipeline. “I’m really glad that the native Zuni perspective is getting a voice at Exeter,” he said.
Exonian Encounters hosted “Walk the Line,” an interactive workshop that allowed participants to witness deeply personal truths about one another by sharing whether or not they identified with a certain statement or trait.
“I believe the point of it was to force people to assess their privilege and other people’s privilege in terms of attributes like race, gender and class. I hope people got a sense of just how diverse our community is and how that can aid our community or hinder progress depending on our views,” lower Janalie Cobb commented. Participants subsequently engaged in open dialogue about challenges that marginalized groups face at Exeter and brainstormed appropriate ways to approach sensitive topics.
Students were required to attend a performance and Q&A session by Stir Friday Night, a comedy and improvisation group founded in 1995 by Asian-American actors who were dissatisfied with the limited acting roles they were being assigned to and wanted to shape their own characters. Several of their skits satirically portrayed instances of racial stereotyping against Asian-Americans in the movie industry and workplace. Others included humorous depictions of scenarios and relationships involving immigrant families.
According to performer Rammel Chan, the group tries not to burden themselves with the idea of focusing solely on race, but as they are exclusively Asian-American, it tends to be a big part of what the group talks about. “We picked a few topics that we thought were funny and informative about certain aspects of the Asian-American experience. There’s something that happens when a person laughs that allows them to let go of their prejudice. Drama and theater in general are a means of catharsis, but comedy is better at changing minds,” Chan said.
MLK Committee member Elizabeth Yang explained that she invited the group because she wanted every Exonian to feel represented on a day that explores “how broad and universal MLK’s message was.” She said,“ A lot of MLK Day is centered around black and white issues which are definitely important, but it’s hard for many Exeter students to personally connect with it, especially since we have international students who don’t even connect fully with the American experience. It was important to reach out to them and show that their experiences mattered. Social justice involves and affects everyone.”
Many offered extensive praise for the performance. Exonians who identify as Asian-American or come from immigrant backgrounds were particularly appreciative. “The show made me feel relevant. My voice was represented and heard,” lower Yuchen Chang said.
Upper Elliot Diaz elaborated on the importance of expanding community discussions of race and diversity to reach and involve a broader audience. “Stir Friday Night discussed differences between the discrimination that particular minority groups experience. I think those conversations are really important,” he said. “They don’t take away from the work that we are doing to combat anti-black racism. It adds to it since we are speaking to different people’s experiences and showing how this affects them too.”
While the mandatory portion of MLK Day concluded with these events, an optional forum entitled “Poetry, Politics and Conversation” was offered in the Lamont Gallery later that evening. The session consisted mostly of poetry readings by English instructor Willie Perdomo and guests Tracie Morris and Meg Day. As a deaf and genderqueer poet, Day explained that poetry had become an outlet for her to express herself and her experiences. “I found a lot of comfort in my loneliness from reading and writing. You have to speak your truth or someone else will describe it to you,” she said. Afterwards, participants engaged in a discussion about the power of poetry to express and respond to prevalent political issues.
Despite the well-received workshops, controversy ensued over the MLK weekend after the keynote speaker made remarks that some found offensive about and towards white students during her presentation and following workshop. A group of anonymous students also stirred up dissension after distributing posters in Agora depicting James David Manning, an American pastor known for holding homophobic and controversial views unaligned with many Academy values. Although history instructor Russell Weatherspoon explained that the students behind the act had not been ill-intentioned and promptly identified themselves to the faculty, their behavior still affected those who witnessed it. “These posters show the complacency of the Exeter community, specifically those who make jokes at the expense of fostering an inclusive environment where we can have productive discussions,” upper Rose Martin commented.
Many Exonians voiced the importance of preventing these events from obscuring important takeaways from the keynote and MLK Day at large. Exonian Encounter advisor Olutoyin Augustus-Ikwuakor said about the keynote speaker, “She did damage. I don’t want to minimize anything she said. But I absolutely don’t want to take away from her message that transgender women of color deserve to be loved, respected and treated as human.” She added, “Their voices are not heard nearly enough, and it’s good for us to be uncomfortable and to learn. We should be doing something and we should be caring. That’s what I got from 99 percent of her presentation and that one percent should not overshadow the 99 percent.”
Schutt elaborated on the importance of allowing setbacks to be opportunities and learning moments. “Everyone makes mistakes, and if we write someone out of our community and kick them out of our narrative because they made a mistake, we’re never [going] to build a wholesome community,” she said.
Many were also grateful that the workshops and performances hosted this year represented a much wider range of voices than those of previous MLK Days at Exeter. Senior Winslow MacDonald shared these sentiments, saying he was “very impressed with the breadth and quality of the offerings.”