Student Spotlight: Chrissy Oyelowo

The American University of Paris is home to students from all over the world, representing 108 nationalities and speaking 65 languages. With such a diverse crowd, education is not only academic but cultural, social and psychological. Many students are taking steps to involve themselves in bettering the experience of others by encouraging expression of self and finding a sense of power in the university setting. As a student pushing for student empowerment, Christina Oyelowo is in the spotlight for Peacock magazine’s Spring 2018 issue.

Christina Oyelowo is a 20-year-old from Minneapolis, Minnesota. As part of an incredibly diverse student body, many assume that issues of discrimination have been left in the past, but Oyelowo stands up for those who still find themselves experiencing harassment due to their race, gender or sexual orientation in this modern world. In the summer of 2017, a student reached out to her about “miscommunications; essentially people were talking about race and ethnicity and kept misidentifying her and she was having a really hard time with it.” Initially, the student (who prefers to remain anonymous) reached out to the founder of Woke Week from the year prior, who referred her to Oyelowo. She “was a bit shocked that [she] was a resource for someone,” but jumped into the role quickly. Thus the Diversity Club was born.

Oyelowo’s personal experiences of identity confusion gave her inspiration for the club. She is half-Nigerian, half-American, which leaves her with a triple identity: “I identify as black, I identify as white, and I identify as African.” Although she is part of each of those groups, she never has felt quite “enough” for each one, and her identity struggle has followed her for most of her life.

Her experiences of discrimination started in Minneapolis. Growing up there was a positive experience up until the election of Donald Trump, when “people started becoming more

passive-aggressive, and small instances of aggression and mistreatment occurred.” Since moving to Paris in 2016, she has had conflicting experiences. At AUP, people “know their origins and are more accepting and open to discussing ethnicities.” At the same time, Oyelowo is often subject to racial profiling by French citizens when in nicer arrondissements, or even in her own courtyard. People either ask her if she’s lost or if she belongs there, “they often assume that I’m up to no good when I’m just spending time with friends.” Many students have experienced discrimination, but Oyelowo took on the role of leader in order to provide a safe environment for students. She does not often “seek out leadership positions, but [she] tends to take on that role.” Oyelowo discussed her own experiences of being a student leader in Paris, compared to being a student in America, as a positive challenge. A lot of this derives from choosing to study abroad: “In Paris, I am in a different country, with a different language, and I am on my own. You have to be more of an adult right away when choosing to move to a foreign country.” She admits that universities in America often have more structured school programs that are designed to make students feel at ease and able to express themselves. Although it may be easier to fall into preconceived safe spaces, being in Paris “means that you have to grow up. You are forced to be mature.” This transition from youth to adulthood brought Oyelowo a better sense of strength, and a drive to do so for other students.

Oyelowo started AUP’s Diversity Club in the fall of 2017 to “connect students together to give them a space and voice to discuss difficulties that they have experienced, especially issues that they may not be able to talk about in a classroom setting,” including

misogyny, racial bias or harassment from teachers or students. Despite the diversity of the AUP community, many students find themselves marginalized as a minority on campus. The Diversity Club aims to “empower students by making them feel more comfortable,” and also “makes sure that bad things aren’t happening on campus that fly under the radar just because other privileged students don’t experience them.” Oyelowo attempts to nip conflicts of race, gender and sexual orientation in the bud: “If there is something that is bothering a student or making students uncomfortable on campus, we try to be a buffer between them and the problem and support them in any way we can.”

In addition to its role in managing these issues, Oyelowo is also interested in using the club to celebrate different cultural backgrounds and identities and challenge students’ potential biases or stereotypes.

Although it is a newer club, the Diversity Club has accomplished quite a lot. “We had a couple events focused on Black History Month, we did a Privilege Walk, and we had a student debate. There also were some Diversity Club events for Women’s Week.” As the Diversity Club is fairly new, Oyelowo also encourages student involvement in establishing exactly what they expect from such a club.

The Privilege Walk took place in early February on the AUP campus. Oyelowo described the walk as a social experiment “where students can see how they may be benefitting from or being marginalized from certain social systems.” Oyelowo ran the walk, bringing together students from all walks of life to confront their own realities. Privilege walks shed light on privileges that may not be seen as such. “If you were able to have more than 50 books in your household

growing up, that’s a privilege. If both of your parents got to go to college, that’s a privilege,” stated Oyelowo. The walk included a debrief afterwards, as students found themselves either in the front or back of the room and weighed their own privileges in relation to classmates. Oyelowo described the experience as an important one, “especially because a lot of students at AUP have privileges that they might not be aware of. It’s an eye-opener for a lot of people.”

For other students at AUP, diversity remains an important topic of discussion. Diana Hickox, a sophomore from the Boston area in Massachusetts, described her experience moving from “a town that wasn’t very diverse” to AUP, meeting people from places that “my friends from back home probably wouldn’t even know existed,” as an eye-opener. She mentioned that although AUP is a diverse community, she still sees situations of “microaggression” on campus, but she doesn’t believe that they are intentional. She advocated for diversity clubs on all university campuses, because these sorts of clubs “make people aware that their words can hurt others, even if they don’t realize what they’re saying is offensive.” In this day and age, Hickox thinks that “it’s important for people to understand the people they interact with or work with in order to create positive relationships,” and that Diversity clubs can help “break down cultural walls.”

Michelle Kuo, AUP professor of the International and Comparative Politics and History Departments, described student feedback, as many “told [her] they had been thirsting for a space where they can have real conversations about race, mental health, nationality.” Although the club is a recent addition to AUP, Kuo was “moved by the students who created the Diversity Club”, and advocates for students to take matters

into their own hands when confronted by important issues such as discrimination. Clubs such as these are “how social change begins: with hard, thoughtful and searching conversations.”

To other students who want to find a sense of power, Oyelowo recommends “meeting like-minded individuals,” whether doing so by joining student government, making a club or getting in touch with faculty members. In her opinion, it is more difficult to make significant progress at AUP due to its half-European, half-American structure. Since “we are a commuter campus and do not have a dorm setting, there is a lack of community in the traditional American university sense.” The key, in her words, is to “find professors that support you” and to develop a sense of responsibility and identity in order to make a difference.

Oyelowo’s decision to create the Diversity Club has taken AUP forward a step in encouraging student identity and appreciation of culture. In the modern age, Oyelowo describes conversations about race, gender and sexual orientation essential— “You’re not going to evolve as a society if those who are being marginalized can’t seek opportunities to advance or grow.” Even for those who don’t suffer from discrimination of any sort, they are inevitably affected by misogyny, racism and homophobia because “it’s going to be affecting someone you know, someone you care about. It’s everybody’s issue.”

Although small private universities may not be able to solve deeply-rooted societal issues, Oyelowo remains positive about making first steps. “It’s kind of a middle ground—the next questions are what do we do from here? How do we resolve these issues? But starting a conversation already opens new doors.”

BY KATERINA MCGRATH

PHOTOGRAPHED BY SOPHIA FOERSTER