March Against Hate combats campus negativity
March Against Hate – www.AlleghenyCampus.com – Produced by Dan Bauer by AlleghenyCampus
By ALEXANDRA JAFFE
[email protected]
Dan Bauer contributed reporting.
It’s 35 degrees outside and Blair Hartman, ’14, is cold. She’s tired too—she was up at 3 a.m. writing the speech she’s about to give to a gathering of at least 330 students, maybe more, gathered in front of Bentley Hall.
She climbs the stairs and turns to face the crowd.
“I don’t know much about hate, I’ll be honest,” she begins, speaking to the crowd without a megaphone. “But I do know a lot about love.”
Love is a fitting topic for Hartman to start with, considering the students and faculty surrounding Bentley are gathered for the March Against Hate. The march was organized by Q’nA and nine other diversity organizations as a response to the hate crimes that occurred on campus over the past month.
“We wanted to address [the hate crimes] both quickly, before Spring Break, so everyone knew it was a priority for us, and also in a way that would allow people to channel any feelings that they wanted to hash out in a more loud way,” said Annie Krol, ’12, vice president of Q’nA
Krol explained that, while Q’nA plan to hold discussions on the negative events sometime in the future, the march offered minority or marginalized groups on campus the opportunity to make their voices heard.
“When you’re doing a march, it doesn’t matter if someone’s trying to silence you or intimidate you because you can yell it,” she said.
The march began at 8 p.m. at the Gator Quad and snaked throughout campus, ending with a rally and various speakers at Bentley Hall. ASG President Shane Downing, ’11, spoke, imploring students to continue the march against hate “until every corner of this campus is a safe haven for our friends and peers.” Clay Grego, ’13, president of the Friendly Association of Multicultural Identifying LGBTQ Youth, invited students to “slow down,” “acknowledge the space” and “love the space” around them.
“I invite you to speak out when you see a community member not acting in solidarity,” he said, asking students to “have this accountability with Alleghenians you do and don’t know.”
Professor of Political Science Sharon Wesoky came out with her husband, Associate Director of Career Services Jim Fitch, to show solidarity. She also said she hoped there would be accountability for the hate crimes that have occurred on campus.
“To be honest, I would like to see the perpetrator of these incidents identified,” she said. “Not to have them publicly shamed […] but for people to know there’s repercussions for things like this.”
Although the culprits of the hate crimes have not yet been found, Joe DiChristina, dean of students, confirmed that the investigation is still ongoing. Christina, who was also in attendance at the march, said he is working with a committee to revise the college’s policy against Discriminatory and Sexual Harassment to be more responsive to the college community’s interest in remaining informed.
“In this policy, we’ve talked about the importance of reporting, the importance of investigation, the importance of giving information and knowledge to the community so that people […] are aware,” he said.
DiChristina added that the administration hopes to bring in a speaker before the end of the year to foster discussion surrounding the sense of community on campus.
The march ended just as it began—loudly. Before the hundreds of students disbanded, Grego led them in a chant he had crafted especially for this occasion.
“Everywhere we go…people wanna know…who we are….so we tell them…”
The marchers could be heard all the way from North Main street as they swelled to a roaring finale:
“We are Allegheny…a strong community….and if you are a hater…you shouldn’t be a Gator!”
If we protested every time a person was called a negative name, there would never be peace. It was a situation that was not even supposed to be leaked to our wonderful campus. So, lets put on our big boy pants and let it go.
But would it have been better to not protest at all and let acts of hate continue, discussed but never confronted? The march may have been sparked by specific events, but it provided an opportunity for the campus community to speak out against any and all acts of hate that have occured in the past: both acts that have recieved press and ones that fewer people know about. The sense of community I felt Wednesday night was the strongest I’ve felt in my time at Allegheny. It was an outpouring of compassion to show that regardless of race, religion, creed, gender, or sexual preference, respect is above all what everyone in the campus community owes to one another.