By Arman Kassam
It has been an active year for diversity at Cary Academy. Early in the year, COEXIST hosted an open mic session and CA students attended the Triangle Diversity Alliance conference. MLK day featured Dr. Eddie Moore, who confronted us with the idea that we must stop dreaming and start doing. Four students got the chance to travel to Tampa to take part in a Student Diversity Leadership Conference. An Ubuntu privilege walk was held to spark discussion about advantage in and outside of our community. OneWeek, as always, gave the student body the opportunity to dive into current events and even tackle their own identities. This year’s OneWeek featured two workshops: Privilege in Numbers and Ability and Access, along with an informative lunch discussion on the recent House Bill 2. OneWeek’s main event also changed; instead of hosting a speaker, COEXIST decided that the best course of action would be student performances. On the performance day of OneWeek, a vibrant collection of speeches, music, and original poems transfixed everyone in the auditorium – it was an astonishing reminder how talented, emotional, and willing so many students in our community are. I personally loved Lily Levin’s poem 11:13, an emotional testament to inner struggle and the ability to love one’s self. However, every individual who went up on stage exposed something phenomenal about themselves, perhaps embracing the vulnerability that last year’s speaker for OneWeek preached. All in all, it’s been a fantastic year for diversity at CA, especially considering that I’ve only covered a fraction of diversity and inclusion related activity our school takes part in.