Baldwin’s Global Minds group recently attended the Culture Jam conference, which focused on diversity and equality both in school and throughout the world.

The Culture Jam is run by the students of the Ellis School, in Shadyside. The school is an all-girls, college prep school, focused on empowering young women with independence and education.

The conference included seminars on issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, mental health within a school setting, negative media perceptions of Furries, and 25 other topics discussing diversity.

The ongoing theme of this year’s Culture Jam was “How to be an Ally,” so every discussion group explained the topic being presented, and then offered examples of how to help solve the problem at hand.

The seminar “How to be an Ally Around the N-Word” discussed the boundaries and different opinions about different races and their use of the word. The main conclusion was that African-Americans are the only race with the right to reclaim the word.

Another discussion group, “Mental Health in Student America,” focused more on the romanticization and ignorance surrounding mental illness within education systems. The main topic was the numbness and dehumanization surrounding mental health. The understood outcome was that mental health should be discussed with more concern in various environments to ensure future generations that are mentally stable.

Attending the Culture Jam helped give the Global Minds participants a broader view of diversity and how to educate others on how to help society to further develop into more accepting communities.