Alleviating Adversity Over the Malibu Airwaves
Every day at Pepperdine University, 3,500 predominantly white students attend classes that cost $70,000/year. As they walk to class through bougie Malibu to their lectures halls and classrooms decorated with bible verses and platitudes, many students are silently suffering. Suffering from stress, suffering from isolation, suffering alone. Rather than coping by sharing their struggle with peers, students are more likely to disassociate from the parts of their journey they are grappling with, allowing it to grow stronger in the darkness.
In this land of financial plenty with biblical values, one african-american student is shining a light on the most challenging dilemmas students face with her one-woman radio show, PeppTalks. Learn how she uses the things that make her different from her peers--growing up with divorced parents, spending her childhood in a battered women's shelter , and navigating the addiction recovery of her father--to bring her closer than ever with them, alleviating the staggering sense of isolation that plagues many students.
Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.
Alexis Cardoza
Pepperdine University