Matthew Rozsa discusses a creative form of campus protest.
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Let’s talk, for a moment, about the Wall of Hate.
It may not look like much, but it was enough to grab my attention as I walked home from the Fairchild-Martindale Library at Lehigh University. Various students were standing in front of it with markers, scribbling words that I could not as of yet discern, and several more were present to hand out pamphlets and talk to curious passersby. I asked one such student, Aleksandra Popova, and she agreed to email me more details about the movement (which she co-founded with Brishty Khossein, Arnie Diamond, and Sydney Bagley). Her response deserves to be republished in full:
We hope that our event fosters conversations among Lehigh students on the topics of diversity and inclusion, highlighting the impact that individual words and actions have on our campus culture. Going forward we hope our event helps acclimate Lehigh students to having difficult conversations on sensitive topics.
Global Citizenship is a four-year interdisciplinary certificate program that emphasizes the various dimensions of a student’s educational development. The program incorporates academic courses, travel experiences and extracurricular activities to encourage global-mindedness in multiple areas of a student’s life. As a senior in the Global Citizenship Program you are required to conduct a Capstone project that reflects on their personal concept of global citizenship as it relates to a specific topic in their individual disciplines.
As a Global Citizenship Capstone group we want our project to be an outlet for students to vocalize their concerns about the campus climate. We believe that open dialogue and facilitated conversation about controversial topics will be an effective method of addressing and reflecting on community concerns, and we want to instill confidence within students that change can come from within the community. We would like to see community members feel comfortable opening up about their experiences at Lehigh in a public forum, and mobilize students to take action in instilling changes that they’d like to see in the community rather than remaining passive. Ultimately, a few days of open dialogue cannot create sustainable change – the conversations must continue into the future.
It’s become popular these days to ridicule the concept of “microaggressions,” but the Wall of Hate amply demonstrates why this term is still relevant. Even though individuals who say things like “Tell all of your people they should vote” and “You’re pretty for a black girl” and “That’s so gay” (all of which I found on the wall) may not view their words as particularly hateful, they carry enough weight that those who hear them can feel belittled and marginalized long after they were first uttered. While I’d agree that it’s dangerous for the PC left to shame unintentional transgressors (and everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt regarding their intent, at least until it can be demonstrably proved otherwise), the Wall of Hate isn’t about humiliating those who harbor prejudice. The goal here (at least from my vantage point) is to draw attention to comments that, though perhaps made innocuously, really aren’t so harmless. That’s why students throughout the campus could be found congregating around the Wall of Hate, writing about their own experiences with prejudice so that others could learn from them.
As I walked away from the Wall of Hate, I found myself oddly inspired by what I had seen. At a time when prejudices continue to divide the nation and could even produce our next president (looking at you, Donald Trump), it’s encouraging to see so many young people taking a stand against these hatreds. Even better, they have found a way to speak out that is creative and provocative, encouraging others to participate and share their stories. This is what campus protest should look like – and I, for one, would love to see more of it.
Picture courtesy of Aleksandra Popova
I can further demonstrate how such agenda is exacted by demonstrating it through the subject of domestic violence coupled with the exile of father’s from the family here in America. I can demonstrate how those claiming to support equality and fairness have promulgated their agenda by utilizing the same type of approach to both punish, and oppress male victims and fathers; how even though we know the truth, we are so inundated with fallacy that we continue to believe that there could not possibly be such an agenda. We’ve all experienced, heard the myths. We’ve all formulated opinion based upon… Read more »
All students except “the privileged white male” of course…because, by virtue of his maleness and whiteness, he will never face hardship, hate, or discrimination, but has a seat waiting for him in congress when he graduates. That’s the funny thing about, hate. It is insidious. It comes in so many flavors that the hater is unaware of it, even as they are exacting and encouraging such. It further manifests itself on a social level when such is represented as emancipation, as a movement. It causes us our mental and visual acuity to be filtered through a parallax view. A man… Read more »
Well stated DJ but I’m not sure if the writer will understand what you’re saying or eluding to … but we’ll see
Or is that “alluding” to
All students except “the privileged white male” of course…because, by virtue of his maleness and whiteness, he will never face hardship, hate, or discrimination, but has a seat waiting for him in congress when he graduates. Or if he doesn’t get into congress has direct line access to those in congress where he can order up legislation that favors him as easily as you or I could order a pizza. Thats the common flaw in a lot of these efforts. Efforts, programs, etc… all aimed at getting people at large to understand the experiences of people that are not like… Read more »
If you don’t mind me tagging on to what you said … If what was said is true, maybe someone can explain why “men” have and continue to be put behind the 8-ball? If what was said was true, why, after countless years of attempts, was VAWA not revised to be all inclusive? Why does the “rape culture” come to mind? Why is the male mortality rate what it is in comparison to women. Why has prostate cancer research funding been cut? All that I’ve mentioned have nothing to do with ethnicity but everything to do with the misconception of… Read more »
Actually, Dan, the flaw is what you’ve stated because if we actually examine the empirical data, the events of the last 40 to 50 years, we would find that just the opposite exists in light of rhetoric to the contrary. I can grant you a case in point. After forty yeas of inclusion (in the form of deconstructing all and any male associations, clubs, organizations), the tide turned on women. A man by the name of John Forester attempted to join the women only club “Curves”, and was denied. He filed suit. The women involved, the club owner appealed to… Read more »
Hear hear….