Class Note 2020
Issue
May-June 2021
One year after our graduation, Sabyne Pierre shares their reflections, titled “Re-Imagining Freedoms on an Individual Level”:
I envy
those who have nostalgia with a dash
of reminisce dripping
off of their tongues right now I imagine how
powerful it must feel to drink
mouthfuls of blood and taste
Honey.
“Smug and high off of the energy of graduating while staying true to my beliefs, I turned off my laptop as the June 2020 ceremonies came to a close. As 2020 Class Day orator, I felt the validation of my many years of hard work at the privilege of this opportunity. I especially couldn’t have imagined being given a platform where I could say what we all were thinking—‘we’ being Black, brown, Indigenous, and other Dartmouth students of color whose needs were sometimes left unanswered, unresolved, and lacking the community interest we deserved.
“So on Class Day I spoke to that. I still hold that envy close to my heart. While the core of my Class Day message still holds true, I want to add to it as I want to push myself further, to think about what still needs to be done on an individual level by you, reader, and what’s left for me to do on my own journey as well.
“I began to rethink the ways I approached activism during my first job after college at the Women & Girls Foundation. I work with youth who are passionate about systemic and political change in their communities through a program called GirlGov. Our GirlGovers and the GirlGov staff constantly push me to rethink activism. This journey started as my supervisor Beth lent me her copy of Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist. I read the first few chapters with relative ease. Race is a social construct and power construct? Love it. We should level cultural differences? About time! Some Blacks can be racist? Wait, wait, wait cut the cameras.
“Kendi writes, ‘Every single person actually has the power to protest racist and antiracist policies, to advance them, or, in some small way, to stall them.’ I sat with this chapter for a while—weeks. At first, I rejected his argument. Some days I still partially do. You see, it is taking me a while to address my own biases. The idea that Blacks, as a group, could not be racist meant that I, as an individual, could not be racist. A disclaimer: this Class Notes column does not end in me no longer having biases—it’s a lifelong process, and it requires me to face ugly truths about myself and the false ideas I’ve internalized about the world. Kendi’s book, coupled with the conversations we have at GirlGov, have made me reflect on the message of my Class Day poem.
“While we need collective solidarity and ally-ship to create political and systemic changes, it is time for us to hold the individual accountable to action.
“Political and systemic change goes hand in hand with societal change. I’m now thinking about what I, as an individual, need to reflect on so that I can bring my version of freedom to reality. The inspiring and impactful Dr. Shamell Bell once asked a group of Dartmouth students, ‘What does the day after freedom look like?’ They then asked us to work backwards from there. I know what my day after freedom looks like—and I am working toward it and other hard truths through reflection.
“I hope my words inspire you to consider this same question. In collectively working toward affecting positive change individually, we’ll be stronger together.”
—Katie Goldstein, 263 W Santa Inez, Hillsborough, CA 94010; katie.e.goldstein.20@dartmouth.edu
I envy
those who have nostalgia with a dash
of reminisce dripping
off of their tongues right now I imagine how
powerful it must feel to drink
mouthfuls of blood and taste
Honey.
“Smug and high off of the energy of graduating while staying true to my beliefs, I turned off my laptop as the June 2020 ceremonies came to a close. As 2020 Class Day orator, I felt the validation of my many years of hard work at the privilege of this opportunity. I especially couldn’t have imagined being given a platform where I could say what we all were thinking—‘we’ being Black, brown, Indigenous, and other Dartmouth students of color whose needs were sometimes left unanswered, unresolved, and lacking the community interest we deserved.
“So on Class Day I spoke to that. I still hold that envy close to my heart. While the core of my Class Day message still holds true, I want to add to it as I want to push myself further, to think about what still needs to be done on an individual level by you, reader, and what’s left for me to do on my own journey as well.
“I began to rethink the ways I approached activism during my first job after college at the Women & Girls Foundation. I work with youth who are passionate about systemic and political change in their communities through a program called GirlGov. Our GirlGovers and the GirlGov staff constantly push me to rethink activism. This journey started as my supervisor Beth lent me her copy of Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist. I read the first few chapters with relative ease. Race is a social construct and power construct? Love it. We should level cultural differences? About time! Some Blacks can be racist? Wait, wait, wait cut the cameras.
“Kendi writes, ‘Every single person actually has the power to protest racist and antiracist policies, to advance them, or, in some small way, to stall them.’ I sat with this chapter for a while—weeks. At first, I rejected his argument. Some days I still partially do. You see, it is taking me a while to address my own biases. The idea that Blacks, as a group, could not be racist meant that I, as an individual, could not be racist. A disclaimer: this Class Notes column does not end in me no longer having biases—it’s a lifelong process, and it requires me to face ugly truths about myself and the false ideas I’ve internalized about the world. Kendi’s book, coupled with the conversations we have at GirlGov, have made me reflect on the message of my Class Day poem.
“While we need collective solidarity and ally-ship to create political and systemic changes, it is time for us to hold the individual accountable to action.
“Political and systemic change goes hand in hand with societal change. I’m now thinking about what I, as an individual, need to reflect on so that I can bring my version of freedom to reality. The inspiring and impactful Dr. Shamell Bell once asked a group of Dartmouth students, ‘What does the day after freedom look like?’ They then asked us to work backwards from there. I know what my day after freedom looks like—and I am working toward it and other hard truths through reflection.
“I hope my words inspire you to consider this same question. In collectively working toward affecting positive change individually, we’ll be stronger together.”
—Katie Goldstein, 263 W Santa Inez, Hillsborough, CA 94010; katie.e.goldstein.20@dartmouth.edu