Is it me? Or white supremacy?
It felt like if I could think of it, then it had to be wrong. It was no longer a judgment of my skill, but my own condemnation of myself within the space.
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Sister, sister
Cal in Color
Microaggressions — as my sister and I know — are frequent occurrences: At some point in the life of each student who’s a BIPOC, you endure this unfortunate fate.
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A Black girl’s magic
Cal in Color
Even if magic wasn’t real, I found the need for wild imagination — especially amid the harsh realities of West Oakland — was profound.
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Views via violin
Cal in Color
While taking AP and honors classes, my sister and I would come home and trade stories about how the teachers would awkwardly stare in our directions after reading the N-word.
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Trails of smoke
Cal in Color
The privilege of patriotism is a luxury that Black Americans cannot afford. America prides itself on freedom, and yet treats its BIPOC as second class.
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Dreaming while Black
In freshman year, I had an ethnic studies teacher who posed an interesting question to the class: “When did you realize you were Black?”
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Our basic humanity
Cal in Color
I’ve often had STEM friends not understand why they have to pay our exorbitant tuition even for classes not clearly related to their major.
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Phantasms of inclusion
Cal in Color
Just because UC Berkeley isn’t majority white doesn’t mean that it truly includes its Black undergraduates — and labelling our campus as POC-majority further erases Black students.
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You catch more flies with honey
Cal in Color
I wanted to write “Cal in Color” to create real dialogue on what it actually means to be a Black woman at Berkeley, and doing so requires the invocation of uncomfortable radical topics.
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Real allies don’t just perform
Cal in Color
Being an ally means showing up when it counts. It means uplifting Black voices rather than trying to drown them out for the sake of appearing “woke.”
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