Throughout the week of Oct. 18-24, student organizations at Occidental collaborated to host events in recognition of Congo Week. The week culminated in a fundraising event: a market on the quad Oct. 21.
Professor of Black studies Tiffany Wheatland-Disu said via email that the department worked with student organizations to facilitate the week’s events. Wheatland-Disu said via email Congo Week was established by Friends of the Congo (FOTC) in 2008, an organization which aims to raise consciousness about the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
“Congo Week is an annual, weeklong global solidarity event that honors the millions of lives lost in the Congo conflict while also celebrating the culture, resilience and enormous potential of its people,” Wheatland-Disu said via email. “[Congo week] offers an opportunity to spotlight the critical role the DRC plays in our modern world and to address the challenges facing the nation through a lens of shared global responsibility.”
According to Pan African Student Association (PASA) president Oyin Obisesan (senior), the club planned events for Congo Week last year, but on a smaller scale.
“I realized we need to have a more notable impact on Congo week, because not enough people know about the atrocities going on in Congo,” Obisesan said. “Black issues often get dismissed in media or are not as mainstream as other issues.”
Obisesan said that items like blood diamonds for engagement rings, as well as technology such as iPhones and MacBooks, which the Western world benefits from, all come from the Congo.
“Western powers have a huge role in the dehumanization of Africa,” Obisesan said. “Congo has been in a stage five hunger crisis for the entire construction of the country.”
Jojo McCabe (junior) said they met the founder of FOTC, Maurice Carney, when they took Wheatland-Disu’s course called “Fueling the Green Energy Revolution: The New Scramble for Africa.” According to McCabe, they interned with FOTC and brought their work to Occidental for Congo Week.
McCabe said vendors at the Oct. 21 quad market donated proceeds to various organizations. According to McCabe on the day of the market, they arrived to see the event’s tables were set up near the Tiger Cooler, rather than on the quad, as originally planned. McCabe said they had used the college event space planning website, 25live, to reserve the quad for the market.
“I met with the Campus Events Advisory Committee (CEAC) the day before,” McCabe said. “Their job is to make sure events don’t coincide with each other and everything is above board.”
According to McCabe, they made a rain plan to set up the tables inside the cooler. Since it was supposed to rain later in the afternoon, McCabe said a film production came to campus earlier than planned, which interfered with the market.
McCabe said the film production told organizers the tables were in their shot about 30 minutes before the event was supposed to begin. According to McCabe, they compromised by moving the tables to a very small section of the quad, in front of the Marketplace, rather than the entire quad.
“They had us turning the music off every so often because they were filming,” McCabe said. “We made a lot of money, but […] it’s also not even about the money […] It felt like we could do something to raise money for people who are actually being affected by this in their daily lives.”
According to Obisesan, when students explained the purpose of the market was to fundraise for organizations in the Congo, a member of the film crew responded by saying they had shot a film there before.
“That was really distasteful and really disrespectful,” Obisesan said. “I believe when Western people, especially white people, go to African countries, it’s this colonization lens they bring […] What does that have [to do with] us fundraising money for an atrocity going on in the world right now?”
McCabe said they brought up college policies when they met with Dean of Students Vivian Santiago and Chief Financial Officer Amos Himmelstein to discuss the film production’s interference with the event.
“We voiced our concerns and tried to make it a broader conversation […] we highlighted some sections of the handbook about the time, place and manner restrictions of the speech and dissent and demonstration policies,” McCabe said. “The [film] production violates [these policies] and they’re held to a different standard than students are.”
According to Obisesan, the PASA advocacy liaison Haris Yahaya (junior) attended this meeting, and said she felt the college owes students an apology. Obisesan said she thinks the film crew owes an apology as well.
“I want to keep bringing more awareness and advocacy work, and hopefully from here, we just keep working to really re-engage the campus as well,” Obisesan said.
Oxy Mutual Aid Club (OMAC) member Paige Thomas* (senior) said the disruption of Congo Week was not an isolated issue. She said she was inspired by students’ ability to advocate for themselves.
“I think the students who were there did a really good job of of making their voice heard and articulating why it’s so frustrating,” Thomas said. “I think the college is mostly committed to having ongoing conversations rather than actually doing anything.”
*Paige Thomas previously worked for the Occidental
Contact Lila Weiner at weinerl@oxy.edu
