UnLearn Week 2017, which took place Oct. 16–20, featured a record number of events including a showing of “The Big Sick,” a social justice info fair and lectures about calling out prejudice.

Khayree Williams, head of the Multicultural Student Development Office (MSDO), said this was the thirteenth or fourteenth year of UnLearn Week. Williams has been the assistant dean for the MSDO for three years.

Williams was excited that UnLearn Week brings together many different resources on campus. This was also the first year that Calvin Seminary has participated in the events.

For Williams, the first time a conversation about race came up was his freshman year of college at Grand Valley State University.

“It just doesn’t come up when you’re from a community where people look like you.” He adds that “we want to welcome the first-year students into the conversation.”

“UnLearn [Week] is really important. Especially in a mostly well-to-do, white campus,” said Laura DeMarco, a junior. She attended the Social Issues Information Fair presented by the Christians for Justice Leadership Institute, a new student organization this year.

“[The information fair] helped deepen my concern for each issue,” she said.

Sara Moore, a Caucasian sophomore student attended the “Calling In, Calling Out” discussion with Tonisha Begay and Briana Urena-Ravelo. The speakers discussed how important it is for people of color and Caucasian people alike to call out when they see someone being marginalized.

“It is my responsibility because it’s a whole hell of a lot safer for me to step in rather than a person of color because they could get into so much more trouble simply because of prejudices,” Moore said.

Moore is going to continue to call people out and “make sure that other white people on Calvin’s campus are holding themselves accountable.”

Korey Johnson, a missionary kid who grew up overseas, had a different view. She knows that she has privilege and ought to speak up when she can, but it was difficult when she was growing up. If she called someone out or said something that wasn’t okay, she was taught how to keep her mouth shut at certain times.

Johnson attended the talk “Moving from Knowledge to Action and Healthy Coping in Justice Advocacy” by Shayne McNichols, a counselor at the Center for Counseling and Wellness. Johnson said she usually doesn’t pay attention to things outside her world. However, after attending the talk, she “realized that it all interconnects so it does have something to do with me and I should do something about it.” She said it opened her eyes to what the different problems in the United States are compared to what she grew up with overseas.

She, along with Brooke Parker, grew up in an international school overseas, and both said they would like to see a panel with students who grew up in multiple cultures. Parker said:

“I’m white. I’m American. But I didn’t grow up in America so I don’t have all the white American biases. I have different ones that I got from being a white American in a small white Christian community in China.” Having the panel would help her to figure out how to navigate multiple biases.

Overall, UnLearn 365 was a successful week for faculty, staff, students, and community members in UnLearning biases that they might have had before. It is the hope of all involved that these conversations continue to grow and happen throughout the year with professors and fellow students alike.