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(10/04/18 9:53am)
Border of Lights (BOL), an organization founded by the college’s Writer-in-Residence Emerita Julia Alvarez, will be holding a spiritual gathering on campus on Oct. 5 to mark the 81st anniversary of the Parsley Massacre.
In 1937 Dominican troops slaughtered over 13,000 Haitians under the orders of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. The event became known as the “Parsley Massacre,” because one’s pronunciation of the spanish word for parsley – perejil – indicated whether they were native to the Dominican Republic or secondary Spanish speakers from Haiti. Though the massacre would fuel Haitian-Dominican strife for several more decades, it went largely undocumented and is not even a commonly known event in the Haitian community.
In attempt to raise awareness about this tragedy and retroactively heal, Alvarez founded BOL in 2012. BOL annually commemorates victims of the Parsley Massacre and leads community projects to mend the residual ethnic tensions between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
“The reason we call it Border of Lights is because we are not looking to erase the differences, but show that there are spaces for illumination, connection, curiosity, and care.” Alvarez said.
She warned that as much as borders act as the foundation for national identity and culture, one must also look beyond them to uncover the true power of community.
“When does a border become a fortress?” she asked. “There is a connection and synergy that can only happen when we step outside of our safe spaces. How else can we survive on a planet with diminishing resources if we do not find mutuality and understanding?”
Each year in October, BOL organizes a vigil where Haitians and Dominicans can meet at their border. While there, participants light candles as a symbol of remembrance and solidarity and place them on the barb wire fence. Since its inception six years ago, the organization has grown significantly in scale. Alvarez attributed the success of BOL to its younger participants.
“The second year we marched to the border there were big barracks erected,” she said. “(The government) didn’t want us to go but the young Border of Lights people said ‘well, a group of us will go symbolically and get as close as we can, take a selfie, and then make it an online vigil…’ What ended up happening was that instead of hundreds showing up [in person], there were thousands for the online vigil.”
The campus vigil will begin at 7 p.m. outside of Old Chapel and participants will walk up the hill toward Mead Chapel. Following the procession there will be an open mic at the Gamut Room’s Amphitheater, where Alvarez along with Haitian and Dominican students will pay tribute to the massacre victims. The event is open to the community and all are invited to speak, perform or contribute to the event’s altar built to promote peace, community and healing.
This year’s vigil will be held in collaboration with Chellis House and the Anderson Freeman Resource Center.
*If you would like to participate in the online vigil, you may post photos of yourself with a candle on Oct. 6 between 7-9 p.m. using this link:
https://www.facebook.com/events/702906540072319/
Amanda Rodriguez contributed reporting.
(02/28/18 11:58pm)
In the wake of Charles Murray’s visit last year, Middlebury students and faculty banded together to salvage race relations on campus. Concerted efforts were made by administrators and student-led cultural organizations to educate community members on inclusivity and white privilege. Unbeknownst to the well-meaning white people who attended these teach-ins and town halls, their crash courses in white supremacy were at the expense of the students and faculty of color who led the discussions. In trying to decolonize the campus of its white hegemonic norms, students of color de-prioritized their mental health. Cultural orgs ceased to be spaces of respite for people of color (POC) and transformed into highly-politicized forums with the sole purpose of combating racism. By the time I arrived at Middlebury in the fall of 2017, the solidarity among black students in particular was virtually nonexistent. The black students of Middlebury — while active participants in campus-wide events regarding race — had neglected to maintain their singular designated place of refuge: the Black Student Union (BSU).
Many attributed the defunct BSU to poor leadership. Others stopped attending meetings because they found asylum in groups such as Umoja and Alianza, which are ethnic, rather than race, specific. Hidden beneath the many known reasons that led to the demise of the BSU was a larger culprit that had yet to be acknowledged: white passivity.
White passivity is the perpetual complicity of white people who do not help to rectify their ancestors’ moral bankruptcy, but instead look to black people to dismantle institutional racism. White passivity is what leads black students to challenge racist sentiments in class when their white professors fail to. White passivity is what caused several black women to demand an apology for a student who had been racially profiled when the predominantly white administration failed to do so. Ultimately, it was white passivity that caused black students to neglect their community of the Black Student Union so that they could aid in the rebuilding of the larger Middlebury community.
The corrosive nature white passivity has on black communities can be seen throughout history. The mammy archetype which rose to prominence in the late nineteenth century characterizes black women as the nannies and homemakers of white families who were unwilling to care for themselves. “Mammy” was not afforded the luxury of taking care of her own children. She was not only willing, but eager to prioritize her white superior’s needs over her and her family’s. Somehow, amid all of the racial hostility, the black students of Middlebury became contemporary renditions of “mammy.” This new and evolved mammy archetype does not assist by breastfeeding white infants, but by coddling white adults whose fragility deters them from listening. “Mammy 2.0,” as I like to call her, is every student of color who has skipped meals, missed sleep or failed to turn in assignments because they were preoccupied explaining to their white peer why they “shouldn’t say the N-word even if its a song lyric.”
In January, a committee of other black students and I planned events with the primary objective of resurrecting the Black Student Union. We hosted a black professors panel, rented out the Marquis theater for a private screening of the Marvel film “Black Panther” and cooked a community dinner that fed about 50 students. At all of the aforementioned events, there was an unmistakable sense of camaraderie. Laughter filled the rooms, new friendships were forged and the black solidarity many of us believed to be extinct appeared to be alive and well. Nowhere to be found in the events’ crowds was “mammy,” eager to pacify, serve and sacrifice.