October was LGBTQ history month at Malvern and across the country. In a special show of solidarity, Malvern Prep’s Black Student Union members attended meetings and learned many new things. 

GSA co-moderator, Mr. Stephen Borish, expressed that this special act was all the BSU’s idea, and the BSU decided to support GSA, without being asked.

“Mr. Coles and the BSU, they decided to come on their own,” Borish explained. “It was out of friendship, but their intent was to be supportive and get involved. So it wasn’t from our perspective, it wasn’t planned that way.”

This act showed a strong sense of unity, or Unitas, between all cultures and ethnicities among the students.

“I was really impressed with the fact that so many guys from the BSU came out and supported their fellow brothers in the GSA,” Borish said. “That, to me, was really cool. It obviously embodies the Unitas aspect of things when they all walked in. I was shocked that they showed up and they were there for each other.”

The Leader of Malvern’s Black Student Union, Mr. Dante Coles, thought it was a great idea to attend these meetings. He doesn’t want any groups to be separated, but rather he feels everyone should be supported by one another because “we are stronger together.”

“We just want to make sure we do our part and support everyone because we’re all, you know, somehow, some way being marginalized,” Coles said. “I don’t want to have separate groups, I want to see if we can all come as one and work together with more numbers. Our whole purpose in supporting the LGBTQ was so they could understand that they are supported. You do have people here who do support you and want to understand and learn more about LGBTQ, and that’s something for me as well,  I’m just learning that myself.”

These Lunch and Learns allowed BSU members to learn many things about the LGBTQ that are often falsely described or not talked about at all.

“There were two sessions of the lunch and learns,” Borish said. “The first session was about the history of  the AIDS epidemic in the United States, and the second one was about sexual and gender identity.”

Achillies Tucker-Turner, a member of the BSU, was particularly surprised to hear about the false diseases involved with the LGBTQ.

“We talked about the history of LGBTQ and how they were oppressed for a while and how they still are being oppressed,” Tucker-Turner said. “we talked about some of the false diseases that they say are associated with the LGBTQ.”

Another BSU member, Syncere Harley, learned specifically about the AIDS epidemic and how it was falsely associated with the LGBTQ.

“AIDS was falsely called, a ‘gay sex disease’ but really it’s a disease everyone can get,” Harley said.

Some students believe that these acts of unity are great for not only our school community but also for communities around the world. Ennis Udo 24’ reflected on all these different facts and ideas and was glad that Malvern was able to incorporate everyone’s point of view.

“This is definitely what our world needs, two different groups of people that you wouldn’t exactly associate with each other that can come together and talk to each other and learn from each other,” Udo said. “This goes for outside these clubs too. This could be something to show what we should do as a school. We should be able to talk about different experiences and people’s different backgrounds. That’s a cool thing about our school, it’s pretty diverse. So to be able to get different points of view from people in our school, It’s pretty cool.”

Mr. Coles also thinks that people are quick to judge one another instead of looking deeper into who they are. Once we learn about one another, we can see that these “differences” are not something that should lead towards discrimination, but rather acceptance. 

“I think around the world the issues we’re having now if someone looks different than you, act different than you, then we all of a sudden hate that person, or have some type of negativity towards them, which to me is weird,” Coles stated. “If we all just look at each other as human beings, yes, you can see the difference in us, but why does that matter so much that we have to hate each other or make fun of each other.”

Around the world, the unity between cultures and sexual orientations is beneficial because it exposes people to different perspectives or struggles, rather than just our own.

“Unity is very beneficial for our communities, at Malvern what we’re trying to do is make Malvern’s campus look like what’s outside in the world, with multiple cultures, with multiple people’s differences,” Coles said. “I think we have to continue to bring that here, no matter how many, how much pushbacks we get, because there’s always going to be pushback. We just have to continue to push forward as well because we will make a change.”

As the BSU learns about as many cultures as possible, they hope that everyone will take the same initiative and support each other.

“Whatever they (GSA) have, we want to support that,” Coles stated. “Not even just them, but other culture clubs as well. When they have something or some type of event, we want to make sure we support that, and expect the same thing when we have our events.”