Burlington School District, VT Champlain Elementary, 13 Oct 2020

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From YouTube: "Kelis the Afronaut" Mural Celebration at Champlain Elementary

Description

Champlain Elementary students and staff join for the dedication and celebration of "Kelis the Afronaut," a big, beautiful mural that serves as an expression of hope and welcoming on the north-facing wall of Champlain Elementary. More than a mural, the art project serves as one more way Burlington School District (BSD) is working to create anti-racist and inclusive spaces.

The mural was created by Juniper Creative, LLC, and includes student art through Kelis' butterfly wings. It is what Champlain Principal Joe Resteghini calls an “outward expression of the work being done inside the walls of the building.”

BSD is a pre-k-12 public school system of about 4,000 students in Burlington, VT. Our mission is to graduate students who: value different cultures, engage with the community, communicate effectively, think creatively, skillfully solve problems, and achieve at their highest academic, intellectual, and personal potential. Join the Journey! www.bsdvt.org

Learn more about our partners (and friends!) at Juniper Creative, LLC: https://willkasso.com/juniper-creative/

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Hello and welcome to our celebration of our khaleesi afronaut mirror we work with juniper creative arts to give kalis her wings, so she can spread joy throughout the world.

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Today, today, you will be here from our fourth and fifth graders. We are we, as we share art and music writing about this mural means to us.

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Thank you for joining us today. We hope you enjoy our.

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Look at her face.

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The mural means someone who keeps on fighting for black brown and indigenous people, no matter what happens along the way.

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It means to just be yourself and be free and don't give up.

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I think it's going to spread joy.

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It means being a part of the community and the person who fights for racial justice all around the world and in any.

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Time, it means freedom.

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It means to me someone who travels through space and time fighting for justice and for black indigenous people, for peace all around the world and for black lives matter, and that's what it means to me.

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She is a good message for everyone to see she is powerful and inspiring to me.

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What it means to me is standing up for justice and letting black people know we have their backs.

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Tell us tell us means that I get to be a part of a project that fights racism, telus represents joy, strength, happiness and freedom for black and brown people. It helps us envision the future as a peaceful world.

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To me, it means a future woman fighting for race and justice and the birds and butterflies and flowers to me means pollinators and bees and stuff like that.

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Police means that black lives matter. She has wings that were given her to her by us, so she can.

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Fight for justice, she is beautiful and she makes me feel joy.

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It's cool that the police, I feel not realized at the school well.

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We never had something like this ever before, and now that playing ugly wall is now a beautiful brown girl on the wall.

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It means a lot.

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For people to want this inclusive mural on our school wall.

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Kalis is important to me because she is humble and not afraid.

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The mural needs to be beautiful on the inside and the outside.

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Oh, my goodness, okay, the afrika makes me feel like a new person. The afronut helps people in need. She is.

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She helps black and brown people she's a wonderful piece of art, she's like a superhero she's as strong as the lion as powerful as a storm as fast as a cheetah as nice as a human as she has wings. So she can see people from above her graceful wings fly like a bird. She also can use her wings to help animals get to their destination like get them home. The afrika helps has has a special kind of armor that protects her from negativity and hurtful words.

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Her wings are made from everybody's painting, so all of the paintings are beautiful. Her armor is indestructible, and that is why I love the astronaut mural. Oh, my god, the wind is hurting.

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The way the community rallied behind us to get this wall up was something that I personally thought I would never see in my lifetime. You know painting murals for over 20 years. This probably was the most moving moment. I've ever had in my life. You know, and I think I speak for all of us, where you know it was definitely like fighting back to tears. It was like this was something that we really didn't expect.

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Well, I just learned that a lot more people will be welcomed to our school in this community. Now that that mural is there, people.

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Are dying and people are dying just because they're, skin and people need to fight more with them and believe in them just.

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Because someone says something you have to stand up, you can't just let one person, let you down, there's so many people fighting for justice. You just have to fight with them. No matter what? How do you make?

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Others people feel, how do you respect people and sometimes, when I walk past it I feel, like I'm loved, because some schools- they don't do this, and it's sad because we want to show everybody that we do support every everyone and we do respect people and that doing this really shows me that this school really respects everyone and respects all the students here now. Fifth graders khaleesi has inspired us to have a voice and stand for. What's right. She helped us, learn more about racism and helped us build our school community.

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She helped us to help the community too. She helped us to embrace ourselves and remind us that we're all important when I was a kid I didn't realize how much my skin was worth. I thought well in first grade, I thought my skin was um my skin. Color was ugly. I thought I didn't fit in, but champlain elementary school did help me find myself and tell my story today. I'm so thankful that I have found myself.

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I think kalisi helps us envision that, since we are kids, we can make a a big, a big change. Khaleesi is a great role model to help me know that I am a strong, independent girl that, in that we can stand for matters we need to fight for what is right and we need to see how cruel this world is, and we need to change that um and khaleesi is a black independent, strong person, who's fighting for rights and justice, I'm near assad, and I and me as a black, strong muslim girl.

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I stand for lgbtq community because anybody can love anyone they want. Thank you kalisi, for helping me understand that I can fight for equality in the world as a young girl. We all have something that we stand for.

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I stand against pollution.

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I stand for peace. I stand for black lives matter.

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I stand for vaccines.

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For respect, I stand for the voice of the people.

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I stand for respect.

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I stand against silence.

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I stand again well, I stand for muslim lives. Now I stand for lgbtq community. I.

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Stand against racism. I.

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Stand for black lives matter. I stand for peace. I stand.

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For hope I stand for community. I stand against criticism.

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I stand for peace. I stand for freedom, I stand for blm.

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I stand for black lives matter.

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I stand for black lives matter.

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I stand for love. What do you stand for? We want to hear from all of all of you and want to know what you're going to stand for, because your voice matters too. Each of you will get to make your own poster just like us and we will have our own posters in the halls to make everyone hear our voices.

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Thank you for thank you for joining our celebration of police she's.

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A reminder to our community of all that we stand for.

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Thank you to soapbox arts co-sellers and the individual donors who supported this mural, a special thank you to alexa, will and jennifer from juniper creative arts.

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We are so positive and welcoming, and you made this project so fun for us. You turned our simple artwork into something beautiful. uh Please accept these gifts of.

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Flowers from our garden, a wall hanging off kalisa's wings. Thank you, cars and our writing.

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Now we invite you to say some few words to our audience.

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Okay, y'all I'm like fighting back the tears, so I'm so moved by everything that you've given us today. um This was a gift that we never anticipated, never imagined, and you all did that, like you all, did that here with us today and thank you so much for um helping us bring khalis to life.

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Sorry, I'm like really in my feelings right now, like how amazing and thoughtful and all of the impact behind you know kalis and what she's bringing to this community- and I want to thank you for allowing us to be here to share this space with you wow.

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I don't even know what to say anymore, because we just oh my heart, oh boy, thank you so much because it's your generation is going to help us fight the fight that we need to fight for equality in the world and fight against racism, fight against the oppression and all the systems that have been holding us back.

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Y'all y'all ready for this. This is big work and it's a long haul worth the work. So I'm with you, if you're with us, so thank.

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In the future, I'm gonna run like 20 or something I'm gonna like remember that we painted a mural, and I was one of the people who painted it and helped make and help fight for justice, help fight for what's right in the world, and so I'm just excited to like remember that when I get older.

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I grew up as one of the only black students in my whole town and to be able to see something of me that represents other black and brown bodies that are not represented around vermin.

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It just means a lot because there's so much lack of representation and it's fine, like you heard there was little black girls who were saying that I finally feel- and I see myself and that's exactly how I was feeling being able to paint this.

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It definitely gives us hope that you know change is inevitable in the positive sense where you know black and brown stories can be told from a place of joy and happiness by people who who live those experiences who live it every day like us. So I'm grateful for champlain elementary and the community of bulletin for allowing us to come here and and express ourselves through our creativity. This is what we do and we're we're just ecstatic that you know. Burlington elementary has given kalisa home.

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