Boston College students protest whiteness with ‘White Man’s Wonderland’ parody

A student activist group at Boston College known as “Eradicate BC Racism” interrupted a Dec. 4 Board of Trustees meeting to deliver a list of demands and sing a collection of parody Christmas carols, including a spoof of the popular carol “Winter Wonderland.”

The song, called “Walking through a White Man’s Wonderland,” urged the Board of Trustees to develop a “real plan” and listen to the demands of students of color.

“Dear Trustees, are you listenin’?/ A real plan, you are missin’/ Until you agree/ and change do we see/ we’re walking through a white man’s wonderland,” the song states.

The students also wrote a spoof of “Deck the Halls” called “Deck the Halls with Rows of White Men” and another called “Eradicate, Eradicate, Eradicate,” to the tune of “Let it Snow.”

“Oh the BCPD is frightful/ some admins are spiteful/ but wherever we encounter hate/ eradicate, eradicate, eradicate,” the student activists sang during a Board of Trustees luncheon.

One student, Kwesi Aaron, delivered a speech addressed to the Board of Trustees demanding that they invest some of the school’s finances in diversity initiatives and hire more faculty members of color.

“You owe us money and so we are here to ask for that money. We are here to ask to invest the money that we gave you for the promise of Jesuit ideals being acted upon,” Aaron said in front of a crowd of student protesters.

Aaron and the group of protesters gathered in a hallway on the first floor of an on-campus building in hopes of drawing the attention of the Board of Trustees at their luncheon, which was being held on the floor directly above the protest.

Midway through his speech, Aaron was interrupted by an anonymous board member who said the noise was disturbing the luncheon.

“Oh, so you can hear us?” Aaron replied.

At the end of his speech, Aaron proceeded to hand the anonymous board member a pile of gift bags stuffed with lists of demands.

“If you’re not going to allow us to go in, we’d like to deliver these Christmas gifts. They’re part of our wish list; our demands,” Aaron said.

The demonstration was part of a “12 Days of BCRacism” campaign organized in response to an alleged lack of diversity initiatives on campus. The group posted updates for each day of the campaign and previewed some of its mock Christmas carols on its Twitter account.

“It’s beginning to look a lot like justice/ ev’rywhere you go;/ take a look at Mizzou and Yale,/ where actions did prevail,” students wrote in another parody carol.

On another day of the campaign, students were encouraged to call the office of the president and ask for “a less institutionally racist Boston College for Christmas.”

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @AGockowski