The newly founded St. Benedict the Moor Black Student Union at McQuaid Jesuit High School has gotten students more aware of current issues involving race. 

The BSU was founded in the last year and it could not have come at a better time. With the lower classmen at McQuaid being relatively young, combined with the current issues revolving around African Americans and minorities in America, there needed to be a place where students could learn about contemporary issues while also feeling safe enough to confide to some of their upperclassmen. 

Meet Kendal Burno (’22), one of the founders of the BSU.

Kendal founded the BSU with his friends in his first year at McQuaid. I sat down with him and had a discussion about the importance of having a BSU right now at McQuaid Jesuit. 

“The younger students need to be aware of current issues going on around the world pertaining to African Americans. The importance of a BSU right now is to let them know about these types of issues and how to fight against them,” Kendal stated.

The BSU is also known to be a “safe-haven” of sorts for all McQuaid students because of the openness that students are invited to embrace when speaking in front of their peers.

Mrs. Alba Lupia, the BSU’s moderator, elaborates on this feeling of safety and openness: “People find comfort in numbers, that’s human nature…You feel like you are being represented and you feel like if you say something that you are not going to be ridiculed…the safe haven means ‘I don’t have to defend myself here.’”

This sense of safety, perhaps, is the most impressive thing about the BSU. Students now have a place to gather and learn about pressing issues around America without the fear of being ridiculed and mocked. 

Mrs. Lupia also warns of people who claim they’re not racist, yet are somewhat against what the BSU stands for: “When people start an argument with ‘I’m not racist, but…’ then you know that there is going to be something that you now have to constantly defend.”

The BSU has had a tremendous effect on the McQuaid community. Its mission is to inform young students about the issues revolving around African Americans, and in the years to come, it will continue to do that.