At the end of last semester, Haverford's BSL created what they called a "Blackout Board." This was an anonymous online response form that BSL created online to allow people to freely express their thoughts about race at Haverford and posted these responses on a bulletin board in Haverford's Dining Center. They generated a wealth of responses from students of color describing bad experiences and micro-aggressions to students describing the lack of communication across racial divides.

Last year at Plenary there was a large movement to create a more inclusive space for those who whose gender was not represented in the constitution at Bryn Mawr. This was done by removing the words, women and freshwomen, and replacing them with student and first years. Also we added to the Mistress positions the titles of Mister and Mistex. The resolution passed, and Bryn Mawr made the changes, and people seemed to move on from it. But the last semester the debate seemed to move to focus on the fact that there are many women who are not allowed to even apply to come to Bryn Mawr. Specifically Transwomen.  As it stands “Bryn Mawr's admissions policy as a women's college is to admit female students only.

Last semester, I was abroad, so I felt a bit disconnected from the Bi-co.  I would occasionally get the bi-co news over facebook and through my friends, but I was generally unaware of the daily happenings of the bi-co.  A couple weeks into the semester, I received some news that I found distressing.  I heard from a friend that some students decided to put up a Confederate Flag and a Mason-Dixon line.  Since I was abroad, I don't know what the full story and I'm not really sure what people's reactions were, although I can guess that many people were angered.

"In 2010, State Attorney General Tom Corbett was elected as governor, his political network heavily populated by advocates for private-sector education reform. Backed by a conservative state legislature, Corbett cut about $860 million from public education in his first budget rather than tax the state’s booming natural-gas industry. He also expanded Pennsylvania’s “voucher lite” programs, popular among conservatives, which provide corporations with major tax credits in exchange for donations for private-school tuition.

I tend to think of BMC as pretty progressive, liberal, and generally a place sensitive to issues of diversity, so I was surprised that the Confederate flag / Mason-Dixon Line “incident” occurred at Bryn Mawr in particular. However, my focus is less on the actual incident(s?), but the follow up by alumni of the college and the impact on students both past and present.

            Though I was not on campus last semester, I heard a lot about the incident with a confederate flag from both friends and the national news. Given that I was not on campus for the ensuing conversations and also due to the fact that I did not see the actual display, my perspective is limited, however the incident did raise questions and concerns about the bi-co.

            There are many people who genuinely don’t believe/know that the confederate flag provokes racist connotations for many Americans. It is for this reason that I do not view the display of a confederate flag an inherently harmful, disrespectful, or racist, I view it as an opportunity to talk about the long-standing racism that pervades American society.

When I first came to Bryn Mawr last year, I was still under the naive impression that I was entering an informed, enlightened, forward-thinking environment of the Bi-Co where things like racial equality were common sense and actively practiced. However, my idea of the Bi-Co as a liberal haven (and not just a white liberal haven) went out the door within my first month at this school. I witnessed and heard about many occurrences of microaggressions and slightly more overt racist commentary and actions, but the piece that shocked me the most was a story I was told by my roommate.

During my freshman year, I had the best roommate one could ask for. For the purposes of this assignment, I'm going to just call her Kim. She is a true Californian girl who's never had to brave the cold for longer than a week. Her parents came to San Fransisco from South Korea in their teens. Kim is a child prodigy. She is a stellar cellist and all-around academia-ist as well. She never scores lower than an 85%. She's also very in touch with her heritage. She goes to South Korea at least once a year to see her extended family. The suburb of SF where she lives has a very high population of Koreans. She's a very devout Roman Catholic.