By Emily Nixon
On March 11, The Brooklyn College (BC) Black and Latino Male Initiative (BLMI), BCAP (Brooklyn College AANAPISI Project), Immigrant Student Success Office (ISSO), LGBTQ+ Resource Center, and the Women’s Center held their second gathering for the BC student community in James Hall 2101.
“We wanna make sure that we focus today on how to do coping mechanisms,” said ISSO Director Jesús Pérez. “How to de-stress. How do we come together as a community to really take care of each other and ourselves?”
Event organizers emphasized the importance of remembering every step, no matter how small, to build resistance to helplessness and create community was an important part of resisting, as much as protesting or rioting.
“During this time, I think there’s so much frustration, and the first thing is we wanna act, we wanna do, we wanna jump in front of trucks and stop things and start riots and protests,” said Chris Rodriguez, director of BLMI. “But the reality is that, before we can even get to that point, is that we need to take the small steps of getting ourselves together and collecting ourselves […] I wanna say that getting together is a form of resistance, and I think sometimes, we don’t value that as much.”
Director of the LGBTQ+ Resource Center, Kelly Spivey, recounted their experience with the recent news about the incident regarding Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested for his involvement with pro-Palestinian protests last spring.
“One of the things that I got fired up about last night is, I heard the news, and then I saw the protests online,” said Spivey. “And how thousands of people came out.”
Spivey also shared a printed QR code with a link to an online calendar for people to gain access to protest and community organizing information. However, Spivey warned protesting was not safe for everyone to partake in.
“There’s an online calendar for meetings, planning, organizing, and also protests and rallies,” said Spivey. “And I got excited, but then [event Organizers] were talking about this in the center this morning, and, you know, it is not as safe for some people to do something like this as it is for others.”
Keeping true to the last event’s timeline, the meeting began with a guided exercise to relax and focus the thoughts of participants and organizers alike. This time, Marina Weiss from the BC counseling center, led a mindfulness exercise after the organizers had introduced one another and passed out pizza and sodas.
“I don’t want to negate any other feelings. I like to think about emotional regulation like the weather,” said Weiss. “There might be days when we wake up, and we’re feeling really down, and we need to do things to make ourselves feel better […] there might be days we don’t need to do anything because we feel okay.”
Weiss talked about the power of having coping mechanisms as tools to be used at a later date.
“Using tools like this [mindfulness exercise] can be useful to be that umbrella,
Participants were then led in an activity where they made paper flowers out of tissue paper and pipe cleaners. After participants were taught to create a flower, they were given the materials to create two more while the discussion part of the event was opened up.
Students began to voice their distrust and frustration with the government and BC admin alike.
“We’re seeing our rights stripped away in front our eyes, and, what annoys me most is that I feel like, you know, us, the students and the community ourselves, we are putting in the effort to have these conversations and support each other,” said Sofia Sanchez, a junior in sociology and a candidate for USG vice president of 2025. “But, it’s not like Brooklyn College itself is trying to support us in that way. We have to do it for ourselves.”
The feeling of powerlessness also overwhelmed students, some of who lost hope for change.
“It feels so overwhelming,” said Sanchez. “It feels sometimes like, ‘What am I supposed to do about it?’ There’s such a big looming power that it feels like there’s nothing I can do.”
Some students were overwhelmed with the amount of negativity surrounding the constant checking of news sites, like Alante Richards, a peer mentor, peer advocate, and wellness fellow at ISSO, due to the news being a common topic of discussion in classrooms.
“I have a class where we spend ten minutes, as soon as the class starts, just talking about what’s happening in the world,” said Richards, “and there’s so much negativity.”
Despite being drained by the constant negative news, Richards also found that he had been celebrating the small wins more since the first community reflection meeting.
“Since we had our last community meeting, I have been able to experience all the good that has been coming,” said Richards. “I pay more attention to the small wins now because there’s so much negative. When I have a small win, I spend time basking in it, celebrating that because it helps me get through the rest of the day or the rest of the week.”
Students interested in future events from these clubs can check their Instagrams: @lgbtqcenter_bc, @womenscenterbc, @issobc, @bcap.brooklyn, and @bcblmi.