Boxes and Walls showed plights of marginalization
April 9, 2014
By Lee Mengistu
A museum in the Student Center aimed to educate students on the plights of marginalized people throughout time.
CATalyst’s fifth annual Boxes and Walls, themed, “Oppression Through Our Story,” was showcased this past week.
“The goal is to set the culture on campus, that diversity is not just a word that we use … it goes deeper than that,” said Robert Cardom, CATalyst adviser. “We want to expose enough students to different perspectives to really start those conversations.”
An exhibit that stood out among the rest was by Sexperts Peer Educators, who illustrated the oppression of being uneducated on contraceptives.
“I think with every generation we think that we’re the first ones to deal with these problems and that can be very isolating,” said India Stewart, a Sexpert representative. “So with this we hope to spark dialogue. Yeah, it’s a little bit shocking, it’s a little bit out there, but we want to shock people and show them how far we’ve come, and how bad it was.”
UK’s partners for Boxes and Walls included the Office of Student Involvement, the Office of Institutional Diversity and Residence Life, according to a press release.
“We work with ResLife to get a lot of RAs in here which also really helps set the culture in dorms too; that racist remarks, sexist remarks or anything non-inclusive are not okay,” Cardom said. “We need everyone on campus to feel like a UK student instead of a visitor, which is sometimes people’s experience.”
The museum also featured exhibits by the International Student Council, the African Student Association, the Center for Community Outreach, the Latino Student Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
