#Standing4BlackGirls Missing and Murdered March & Rally: April 19th
By William Marshall
This course has been one of the most interesting classes I have taken since entering college.
When I first entered the course, I expected conversations and course materials steeped in
revisionist history, objective answers, and academia, purely because similar classes I’ve
taken before have offered these things to me. Thankfully, I was met with so much more
than that. Throughout this semester, this course has provided me with a newfound understanding
of myself and the world around me. My irreligiosity has grown even more salient this past
semester than ever before, largely due to me finding new depths of my beliefs (and lack thereof)
regarding religion, faith, and social institutions. I have discovered that my denial of institutional
religious belief falls within a long and storied history of Black radical thought, culturally relevant
activism, and advocacy for those suffering under the bootheel of interlocking systems of
domination. Beyond all of that, though, I have found that there is a large and ever-growing
community of Black secular scholars who are dedicated to unraveling the miseducations
provided to so many like myself. I have never felt more honest, more challenged, more
encouraged to voice myself in a classroom before (which is part of why I talk so much during
discussions). I truly hope more people feel a sense of belonging as intense and relentless as what
I’ve felt in our classroom this semester.
William is a junior at Pitzer College from Birmingham, AL. He is a media studies major whose
focus areas include film and digital photography, film, visual arts, and how digital media impacts
daily life
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