By Dianne Anderson

It didn’t take long for counselor Heather Johnson to recognize that Black students at Irvine Valley College were not readily coming into her office when she and fellow counselor Taliah Chatterfield got busy building programs to help them find the door.

Through their latest outreach, along with the Equity Office leadership, they are now on a mission to make sure students understand that support is available both on and off campus, this month and year-round.

“We have an HBCU tour, we are taking them to the AMEN conference for males. We’re doing a lot to spread awareness about what Irvine Valley College offers especially for Black students,” said Johnson, Student Equity and Achievement Program Counselor.

This month, she is excited about their focus on celebrating Black women with positive life-affirming events. Even as society craves the paper-thin, emaciated model look, she said Black women tend to be harder on themselves.

They must take some time to appreciate who and where they are in the present moment.

Last week, the campus opened Black History Month with its Black Student Success Scholars program for a Black Literature and Culture Book Launch and display of Black authors. “The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self Love” by Sonya Renee Taylor was the featured giveaway.

“Especially as Black women, she talks about how to move from talking negative about your body to body liberation, and how to take care of it in multidimensional ways,” said Johnson, who is also studying the topic for her doctorate with research on how anti-fatness concepts became linked to anti-Blackness.

On Tuesday, February 14, the “Unapologetic Self-Love and Self-Care Workshop” is hosted by counselor Taliah Chatterfield, who will talk about steps of self-care, positive self-talk through affirmations, self-reflection, and learning to let go.

“We want to teach our students how to self-love and self-care in the midst of distrust, and all that’s going on in the world that doesn’t necessarily love Black people,” Johnson said.

On February 22, the lineup of events culminates with Dr. Jonathan Higgins and Jordan Daniels exploring “Black, Fat, Femme: Loving Yourself Unapologetically in a World Where Loving Oneself Feels Impossible.

“That event will look at concepts of where those two dynamics intersect, and how to dismantle it,” she said. “Their podcast got the emerging podcast of the year [award] from apple podcast. We’re going to have a talk session in our big theater that we have on campus.”

Health and wellness were also a priority over the weekend.

Community organizer Darlene Futrel was among dozens of other advocates, nonprofits, and health providers tabling information and resources to reach thousands at the 43rd Annual Black History Parade & Unity Festival in Anaheim.

Social justice is her passion, but she said health is a big part of that movement. Through her outreach and membership with the nonprofit Black Women of Political Action [BWOPA], she also hoped to raise more awareness at the event and in the coming months about not getting lax on the vax.

Although the infection rate is down recently, the amount of COVID-19 impact show that the risk is still high in the Black community.

“Of the approximately 1,100,000 cumulative official COVID-19 deaths in the U.S., these are the numbers of lives lost by group: Asian (34,347), Black (152,449), Indigenous (11,779), Latino (168,480), Pacific Islander (2,256) and white Americans (721,987). Additionally, (7,269) deaths are recorded as other race,” according to the latest 2023 analysis by APM Research Lab, the Color of Coronavirus.

“Through BWOPA, I’ve been pushing the vaccine outreach since December and reminding the Black community that the pandemic is not over,” said Futrel, also president of the Orange County chapter of the National Action Network.

Her organization, along with several other nonprofits and eight churches, participated in developing the Health Equity for African Americans League Collective (HEAAL) survey, an effort led up by Second Baptist Church in Santa Ana. She said the goal is to get to the bottom of the real data and understand the extent of health needs within the Black community.

To date, there has not been a comparable health survey specifically targeting Black people in the county, and it’s critical that the community respond, and get involved.

“The purpose of the survey is obviously the data, but to get the social determinants of health for the Black community,” she said. “If you’re not in the data, you’re not at the table, the only way to get in the data is to take the survey.”

To register for Irvine Valley College Black History Month, and dates and times, see

https://www.ivc.edu/equity/bhm

For more information on OC National Action Network, see https://www.nan-oc.com/