Photo Submitted by D’Shai Wilkerson.
This week is the annual Black Out Week hosted by Student Government Association.
Student relations committee chair Taylor Young ssid that Black Out Week is an initiative inovlving Black History Month put on by the student relations committee. The purpose is to bring appreciation and awareness to black history.
“Students can expect to see couples events, singles events, game events, a movie night, and we are collaborating with Voices poetry group.”
Young hopes that students learn to appreciate and love their blackness, especially with the state America is in. “It is imperative that as black individuals we love on one another,” Young said.
According to Senator Asia Strong, the events that will take place are Black Card Revoked in the Senate Chambers on Tuesday, Love on the Hill: Couples Edition on Wednesday, a singles event on Thursday and on Saturday SGA is supporting the Essential Theatre as it performs “Blood at the Roots.”
Florida A&M political science instructor and Leon County Commissioner Bill Proctor says that it is an absolute beautiful thing that students have the mindset to take the legacy of black people seriously. He says, to uplift and celebrate black history is something anyone can respect.
“Those who don’t remember their past, they will repeat it,” Proctor said.
“We recognize downfalls in areas of frailty that ancestors had previously and that we are able to move to the future understanding the lines of opportunity and possibilities for us are important.”
Proctor added: “We are in the browning of america, the era where America has no ethic or racial group that has a 50 percent or greater of the population.”
He said for blacks to know that they will not have a group that’s a majority meant that we are moving to a melting pot state. White Americans view an encroachment on something they’ve enjoyed for decades. Proctor believes that it is important for us to know our past and to capture our commitments to the 13th, 14th, 15th, and the 19th admendments.
Black Out Week is scheduled to continue through Saturday.