On Feb. 29, GSU hosted its first “Black Card Revoked” event. To those who may not understand what having a ‘Black card revoked’ means, it essentially implies that someone is not Black because they do not do or understand the things that most Black people would traditionally do or have an understanding of. It signifies that a Black person is not truly Black, therefore, their Black card is to be removed or… revoked.

This event was based around a game where the leader, Jailen Woodard, would read a question that was deemed as something that most Black people would know or have the answer to. The team who got the answer closest to what she wrote down would win a point for it.

For example, One of the questions was: “What did Momma tell you that you needed to have in order to get some McDonald’s?” The answers were things such as:

A. A Clue

B. A job

C. Good grades

D. McDonald’s Money

Of course the answer was D., having McDonald’s money. This question was based around a light joke which emerged in the Black community a couple years back. I don’t know if any Black adults who are reading this can relate, but it’s just something about whenever we passed by a fast food restaurant while riding with our parents as kids, would somehow tempt us to ask if we could have some food from that restaurant that we passed. In a joking way, our parents would usually respond by asking us if we had the money from the restaurant.

After the event, I got the chance to interview Woodard and some of the participants of the group. Woodard, who is the president of the Black Student Union, said, “I wanted to bring a new experience to Governors State on top of bringing a game that again that was specific to Black culture.”

When participants were asked: “Do you think GSU should continue to have this event and what would be one thing that you would change, if anything, for the next time?”

The answers to this question were all yes to continuing to this event, and that if one thing could be changed it would be things such as having a larger room and just simply having more people. Overall, it seemed as everyone who participated in this event had a great time.