Introducing the CGS Anti-Racist Collective
By Divine Niyungeko ’21
Logo by Divine Niyungeko ‘21
As the 2019-20 school year came to a close in early June, the world around us erupted in every way possible. One of the leading forces of this eruption was the resurgence of Black Lives Matter protests due to the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. (May they rest in power.) Determined and concerned Catlin Gabel School (CGS) students joined forces to combat racism and created a new student group called the Anti-Racist Collective, or ARC.
Senior Patina Todd is one of the founding members of ARC.
“There is a lot more pressure now, on both students and administrators, to get their act together when it comes to being anti-racist as a result of the recent protests and rise in mainstream popularity of the BLM movement,” said Todd.
In efforts to show solidarity with the Black community on June 4, CGS posted a black square on their Instagram account @catlingabel captioned: “We stand together with the Black members of the CG community and the nation. It’s going to take all of us to dismantle systemic racism. #blackouttuesday.”
The backlash was immediate. Multiple Black alumni and current students commented on their CGS experiences and how the school failed to support them.
Determined not to let this behavior continue, Upper School Student Inclusivity Coordinator and senior Catie Macauley took matters into her own hands.
“I was inspired to start ARC after I saw the gap in the CGS community and the need for a group of students of all backgrounds dedicated to anti-racism work,” she said. “For far too long, the burden has been on students of color, and specifically Black students, to call out microaggressions and challenge our engrained white supremacist culture.”
So she contacted some students over the summer to facilitate an anti-racist book club. They analyzed two books, “Piecing Me Together” by Renée Watson and “Why I No Longer to White People About Race” by Reni Eddo-Lodge.
This later became the anti-racist collective as students transitioned into the school year. The group has expanded to the larger student body and has 30 additional student participants, but the main facilitators, ARC’s leadership team, are senior Catie Macaualey, senior Patina Todd, senior Anushka Gupta, junior Nayan Murthy, senior Emma Lindner, senior Neha Myneni, and, yours truly, senior Divine Niyungeko.
If you would like to get involved with ARC’s work, please feel free to reach out to Macauley or anyone on the leadership team. Right now, ARC is working with Upper School students, but they would like to expand to collaborate with the Middle School in the near future.