By Christian Yosef
Elm Staff Writer
The Skybox is often overlooked, but it is a great place for a party—as the Black Student Union demonstrated with their annual Kickback Party. On Friday, Feb. 16, students from all backgrounds were invited to dance and socialize.
Senior Paris Mercier, president of BSU, said the Kickback Party was important for the club and for her.
“The BSU Kickback was my first big event for the semester as the president,” she said. “I loved it. To see it all come together and to see everyone have an amazing time, it made it all worth it. I couldn’t do it without my members and more importantly, my exec board. Everyone worked hard to pull this off and it meant a lot to see such an amazing turnout.”
Sophomore Jocelyn Elmore had a lot of responsibility making sure the Kickback went according to plan.
“The first steps for planning the party are booking the building, tech and the food. Once all of that is booked, I make the flyer which was inspired by a house party to go along with ‘Kickback,’” she said.
One of the more intricate but exciting things to plan was the music for the party.
“Then it’s all about the music,” Elmore said. She said that the BSU always asks the members to send music they would like to hear and that she likes to “add it all to a playlist and play the songs that are the hypest when the most people are there.”
The BSU aimed to have a great time that helped promote diversity.
“I joined BSU because I thought I could bring a contribution to make the campus more diverse and to also help create an environment where students of color could feel they belonged,” said sophomore Ervens Jean-Pierre, fundraising chair of BSU. “I wanted to shed light and expose the covert and micro-racism that exist on campus that some people aren’t aware of.”
“Everyone seemed to have fun,” Elmore said. “There were lots of people, and some people who usually don’t come to all of our events came. The BSU is important to Washington College because it is an organization that promotes diversity on campus and is a way to inform other students of other cultures that are present on our campus.”
The members of the BSU took pride in how successful the event was, and what it provided for the campus.
Mercier said that, days after the Kickback, she has been recieiving compliments about how much students enjoyed the party.
The members of the BSU said that the Kickback will return for another party next semester.
“I saw that we were able to create an event where our members and the whole campus community could come to and enjoy,” Jean-Pierre said.