On the tails of the Healthy Relationships and Consent Assemblies, report of a possible new assembly is coming about. Senior Amalia Roy said that roughly a month ago, she started compiling stories of experienced or witnessed racism for a possible school-wide assembly.

“I see how we have a consent assembly and I see how impactful it is… I see how it resonates with people and I’d like to do a similar presentation about the issues of race and ethnicity on campus and just around Piedmont,” Roy said.

The event has not been finalized yet. However, she is working with English teacher Mercedes Foster, assistant principal Irma Muñoz and acting teacher Kim Taylor to try to make it happen sometime this spring.

“We were talking about how great it would be to get a collection of people from our community who have experienced this sort of racism and have them explain in a way where no one would get defensive,” Foster said. “[Racism] isn’t always obvious, it’s very subtle and we just want [the students] to see it.”

Roy is still looking for people of all ethnicities to share their experiences. She said her target number is 20 stories that are on a spectrum from microaggressions to more overt racism.

“It doesn’t need to be life changing, it just needs to add up so much that people are like, ‘This is here, it’s not just a few instances, it’s everywhere and everyone’s seeing it,’” Roy said. “I’m not trying to solve racism, I’m more trying to call it out.”

Senior Taylor Scofield said she was happy to share her story with Roy because it might raise awareness.

“We all know about huge racism issues in our country because we read about it in the news, we hear about it on the radio, we see it on TV… but there are a lot of times when personal stories of people of color in our community are overlooked and not really heard,” Scofield said.

If you want to help Roy with this project or have a story to share, email 17amaliaro@piedmont.k12.ca.us.