To kick off the start of Black History Month, on January 30th Atherton’s Black Student Union (BSU) invited former member of the House of Representatives Attica Scott. Attica Scott was the representative for the 41st district from 2017 to 2023. The BSU’s vice president Bianca Phoenix took the initiative to contact Scott.
The BSU sat around with Scott and had a question and answer session with her, asking about her experience being the only black woman in the House of Representatives.
“Being up there was isolating, it’s one thing to come home and people have your back. But it’s another thing to be in that environment, and literally I’m the only black woman in the legislature,” said Scott.
The students found it very informative to hear how it is to be POC (person of color) in a white dominated field. She touched on how differently she was treated than her white counterparts. A story she brought up was her experience with police brutality during the marches of 2020 for Breonna Taylor, and how her coworkers reacted to the situation.
In 2020 Attica Scott and her daughter Ashanti were at a local protest, and they were charged with unlawful assembly, failure to disperse, and rioting. Once she arrived back at work, there were legislatures–her own coworkers–saying that she should’ve been arrested. Stories like this were just one of the many insightful anecdotes given to our BSU.
We sat down with Bianca Phoenix to ask her how she got in contact with Scott and how the experience was.
“I had met Attica Scott before at another event, and she followed me on Instagram. I found her visit very inspiring and very helpful, since I was considering going into government,” says Phoenix.
Atherton’s BSU plans to have more guest speakers at future meetings this school year, and is looking forward to seeing Atherton’s students there and ready to learn something new, or speak their minds on topics they’re passionate about.