“One hand up, we have the power”
In solidarity with local and global efforts to affirm the value of black lives, several UC Berkeley students painted the Big C red, green and black early Monday morning to represent the Pan-African flag.
Six members of the Black Student Union, or BSU, set out to paint the Big C — a large emblem of the letter C nested in a hill near campus — before 5 a.m., according to Gabrielle Shuman, co-chair of political affairs for the BSU. The gesture was intended to express solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, a term used widely in recent nationwide protests against police killings of unarmed black men.
“It’s just a proud moment for us to be able to see, ‘Wow, we claimed that space,’ ” Shuman said. “Obviously, painting some colors isn’t going to drastically change anything — it’s not going to solve all our problems or necessarily accomplish all of our goals. For us, this is really a symbolic thing.”
The idea to express solidarity by painting the Big C arose from a conversation with friends and organizers, according to Shuman. She noted that the Big C is a major emblem of school spirit and that many student-athletes — whom Shuman does not believe are treated well by the campus — are black.
In addition, a BSU press release cited a campus climate survey, which it said showed that 50 percent of black students at UC Berkeley feel “prejudged by faculty based on their identity/background” and that 50 percent of black students feel they do not have the same opportunities for success as their classmates.