Taking a Stand Against Racism | Tavia Patterson
Apr
15
It’s a little hard not to like Tavia Patterson. (Pronounced “Tay-vee-ah”. I called her “Tah-vee-ah” when her roommate first introduced us back in our freshman days) She’s fun, bubbly and her personality simply reaches out to you. Not to mention it’s almost impossible to miss her when she loudly calls out to you from across the concourse. Having spent three years with her, I have come to admire her for one of her strongest character traits; Tavia is bold and very outspoken. It was no surprise, then, when I found out that she had managed to convince a few (40- odd) students to wear t-shirts with “Black Student,” “White Student,” Latino/Latina,” and “Asian Student” boldly displayed on the front.
For a whole week, we wore the shirts all day except to sports and stuff, just trying to show people that it is more than just the label or how people might view you. Like when we go out in public people don’t always see me as white, but they might see somebody as “Oh let’s go stand behind the Asian in line,” versus the person in a red shirt or something like that.
The project also included a video:
Tavia is a little modest about having the guts to spark up such a controversial topic on campus. She says of the whole experience:
It was just a really fun way to get beyond the labels that we subconsciously place on each other and realize that we are all people, we all have things in common.