Hoping to bring together two diverse communities and spread awareness on important issues, the Black Student Union (BSU) and Arab Culture Club (ACC) hosted a joint meeting on March 14. The meeting touched on topics such as the history of the Black and Palestinian Alliance and the current Palestine and Israel conflict. It also discussed similarities between the Palestinian and South African apartheid, which enforced legalized segregation within those regions. According to senior and BUS President Sidney Cherry, the meeting was “significant considering what’s going on in the world right now.”
“[The BSU and the ACC] both support each other in our struggle for civil rights and equal treatment. It was really important for us to give the Arab Culture Club a space to talk about their struggle and to combine forces to let them have their voice,” Cherry said.
In addition to emphasizing similar conflicts between both communities, the meeting offered a safe space to form new connections. According to junior Nassir Rafeedie, a member of the ACC, the m eeting taught him that more people support the club than he assumed.
“It was nice to meet people who look different than me and the other people in [Arab Culture Club], but we shared the same ideals and [they] showed their support,” Rafeedie said.
To senior Mathilde-Berthe Liambi, a member of the BSU, the collaboration of diverse cultures is what made the meeting a “big difference” from other meetings. Seeing everybody together contributed to this idea.
“I know most of the people in the Arab Culture Club, so it was nice to see them all together and [to] have them there. It was also nice to educate people who didn’t know what’s [happening in the world right now],” Liambi said. “I just love spreading [the] awareness.”
Cherry, along with junior and co-Vice President of ACC Yara El-Hasan agreed that the meeting “really made a difference” considering that people “showed up and cared,” according to El-Hasan.
“People brought their friends, they came for the food, to meet new people and to hear what we had to say, so I think we got a lot of new members,” Cherry said. “We really want anyone who’s willing to listen and have fun to come to the meetings.”
This is the first time the Arab Cultures Club and the BSU have had a combined meeting, but won’t be the last, as Cherry hopes to organize another joint meeting in the future. She also plans to have meetings with other cultural clubs to form a “Cultural Student Union” in hopes of “bring[ing] everyone together.”
According to Cherry, the collaboration and support shown through different cultures is part of what made Thursday’s joint meeting “really significant.” Moreover, El-Hasan believes the meeting helped form a “stronger community.”
“I am so glad that we had this meeting because there are a lot of cultural clubs on campus, but rarely do they ever connect,” El-Hasan said. “It’s great to have these clubs, but I think overlapping them with each other creates a stronger community in our school.”
