The Who Can Relate? event was one of the best events I’ve seen in my time on campus. If not for the technical difficulties, it would have been near perfect. The event started off strong with a pre recorded message about mental health by former POTUS Bill Clinton. After the powerful message by former president Clinton, the men’s glee club took the stage. They sang an incredible rendition of “Glory” by Common and John Legend featuring some incredible vocalists on the lead parts. I recognized one of the vocalists as one of the students who did an outstanding job singing in Porgy and Bess. After the last member of the glee club exited the stage, we welcomed actor Glenn Close, founder of the BringChange2Mind charity. Glenn shared a heartwarming story about her sister who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She is the inspiration behind Glenn starting her charity. Everything seemed to be going smoothly as Glenn planned to show a video, but then the screen unfortunately fell victim to technical difficulties. In an attempt to buy some time for her video, Glenn sang a song, but it would end up taking them the better part of the mental health half of the event for them to fix the screen. Even though, the video was never shown, the event was so moving it might not have even needed it. Kevin Hines was next up to speak. He knew that most people in the auditorium did not know who he was going into the event and used that knowledge to his advantage with his presentation. Before introducing himself he gave an impassioned speech about the importance of life and then shared his story with us. He is one of less than 40 people to have survived jumping off of the Golden Gate Bridge out of over 2000. It is one of the “most exclusive clubs” one can be in, as he put it. Even more amazing, is that fact that he regained full mobility in his body and suffered no major injuries from the suicide attempt. Upon sharing this knowledge, the entire auditorium fell absolutely silent. After having us repeat “I want to be alive” three times, each with greater intensity, Mr. Hines left the stage to raucous applause. Hakeem Rahim, the founder of I Am Acceptance, gave a series of spoken word pieces that were fantastic. He was followed by Brandon Marshall and his wife Michi to end the purely mental health portion of the event. Brandon personally has borderline personality disorder and talked about the importance of asking for help. I have personally already seen his “A Football Life” documentary where he discusses his struggles with BPD, so it was amazing to see him in real life. After all of the empowering speeches about mental health, it was time for Logic to close the night. There was a short delay where they eventually ended up fixing the screen. Logic’s DJ came out and warmed up the crowd with 30 snippets of songs that were surprisingly well connected. Finally, it was time for the real deal, Logic himself. He came out with a Maize and Blue shirt on, ready to take over the show. He informed the crowd that this would be his first time performing songs from his new album, Bobby Tarantino II, so, naturally, we went wild. After a great set of mostly new songs mixed with some funny audience interaction and Logic’s spiel about not using our phones, we had reached the song that really embodied the night, “1-800-273-8255”. The title of Logic’s hit is the number for the suicide hotline, and he had been saving it to close his formal set for this event so that he could remind us of what we were all really there for, a gathering in support of mental health. After an amazing performance of that song, Logic decided to play his other hit, “Everybody”, as an encore. The performance he gave was fantastic and the night overall was really moving. This event was one of the best I’ve seen on campus, and I highly recommend going to anything similar in the future.
