In the words of Megan Thee Stallion, “I get money, I’m a star, star, star, star”.
It is this spirit of glowing empowerment that sparkled throughout the first Harris of the semester, “Ghetto-Gold: Southern Edition”. Hosted by Black Student Union (BSU), the theme was inspired by the sparkling joy of southern Black culture. However, due to administrative setbacks, the process of putting together the Harris was more frustrating than expected.
Xavier James `25 came up with the idea for the Harris. James said, “I had an epiphany during the summer, I really would love a space where I could celebrate this very specific part of my culture, and I was thinking, you know, no shade, but the music at Grinnell isn’t the most satisfying. It gets kind of repetitive, and for a very large majority of students here, it doesn’t represent many aspects of their culture, so I was like, I want to get this thing started.”
James said, “It represents a certain facet of a celebratory culture that I grew up in. You know, it’s created both by my racial identity and my regional identity. Being an African-American in the specific context of the regional southeast with this very oppressive history, and it’s still very oppressive area now. I think choosing to embody a lot of the characteristics that people in the dominant culture would paint in a negative connotation and using those things to empower yourself, and resist the cultural hegemony that surrounds you is powerful and beautiful. In my opinion, it signifies a lot of strength and resistance. And for this context, it’s mostly embodied by music, the art of music, which I think is one of the most powerful and ubiquitous forms of resistance.”
To bring his vision to life, James reached out to his friends on-campus who are involved in event setup, including Hayden Suarez-Davis `25, who put James in contact with Michael Sims, dean of student involvement. James then contacted Destany Best `25, the event coordinator for the BSU.
Best said that by her second week on campus, she had booked the event spaces and began budgeting. Despite her proactivity, however, she said that administrative issues made the process of Harris setup immensely difficult.
According to Best and James, they had initially planned to have a DJ at the event, but a lack of communication on administrative guidelines and a delay in budget approval led to the cutting of this feature. Best followed all hosting guidelines and submitted the Harris budget three weeks in advance of the event. However, after she submitted the budget, a board meeting on September 22nd led to a new policy that stated students must submit budgets five weeks in advance of events.
Best said, “We were told Monday, after we submitted our annual budget on time and we submitted the budget for this Harris three weeks ago, that the Harris budget was now a maximum of 500 dollars, which I was unaware of until Monday, before this party on Friday. The timeline was definitely scary. And due to a lapse in communication, I was unaware of whether our stuff was ordered for this party on Friday until Tuesday.”
When asked about the conflict of the event with the off-campus tradition of 10/10, Best said, “We tried to get an all-campus email sent on Wednesday, and it took more than two days to get it sent today [Friday, Oct. 4] at 4PM, which I think was a long time given the holiday coming up this weekend. ”
James said of the setup process: “ What’s difficult about Harrises is that I’ve seen a lot of sentiments about the administrative process. It’s a weird pathway. How difficult it is to secure this place and how much of a hassle it is makes people way less willing to even try to approach it. People rarely consider the Harris as a viable venue for a lot of things, just because of how hard it is to get people here. Also, that’s lowkey been embedded in the culture, unfortunately.”
James said, “A lot of the student initiative that’s created independent of administrative entities is rarely advertised to the same extent. Legitimate student organizations like the BSU are not advertised as Weekend.”
Despite administrative difficulties and the subsequent low attendance, the energy of Ghetto-Gold was successfully orchestrated. The event was complete with graffiti walls to tag, classic snacks, and gold chains for attendees. Best said of the event, “I did my best to make sure the vision came to life, I feel like the vibe is definitely here. I think we did great.”
James agreed and said, “I think my vision came to life.”
Kham Latson `25, an attendee, said of the Harris, “Diversity is the best thing that the universe has to experience. The fact that we can celebrate other people’s cultures and differences together without scrutiny is a God blessing.”
