Hate on campus
Last Thursday night/Friday morning, someone (or multiple someones) wrote 35-45 anti-gay/queer phrases in chalk on the sidewalks and buildings around campus here at MTU. Many of these were death threats, including:
"I will kill every fag I see,"
"Fags must die,"
"Gays must die,"
"Kill all queers,"
and my personal favorite
Next week is kill a fag week - bring your own gun!"
The university has posted pictures of some of these on-line, but not all of them. One of the advisers of KP has them all up on his website.
I can't even begin to describe how horrible these were to see. Maintenance had pretty much all of the cleaned up by noon, but I stumbled across one on my way to class in the morning. I had already seen the pictures, but nothing could prepare me for seeing it right there in my face, blocking the entrance to the library.
The administration made a statement around noon, and then another one later in the evening. Reactions around the community are varied. Some people are happy with the response, others find it very disappointing and lacking. I'm glad about the speed, and I realize the reason the wording was perhaps not as strong as I would have liked was because for legal reasons there's a limit to how upset the university's president can be in print. I also realize that one reason a more formal letter took awhile is because their first priority was to quietly increase security around campus and especially around the remaining pride week events to make sure no one tried to act out the death threats.
Needless to say, there is all kinds of drama going on around here, and it's all I can do to keep myself from getting lost in a sea of other people's emotions. The series of meeting back-to-back last night, including one with KP and the administration, was especially emotional. People are hurt, angry, upset, and trying very hard to make sure that if at all possible whomever did this gets caught and prosecuted fully. There has been lots of talk about raising money to offer a reward for information, which public safety said was a good idea.
On the good side, support has been oozing out of the woodwork. Before all of this happened, KP was running a Gay? fine by me.. campaign. We purchased 500 shirts which said "Gay? fine by me." in our school colors and distributed them for free to people on campus. We ran out of shirts, and still have people asking for them. After the chalkings, even more people came out in support. Some of them were not even necessarily in support of the GLBT movement but simply in support of the universal right to not have death threats and be the victim of hate crimes.
Here is MTU's official page of a picture taken for the Gay? fine by me campaign, and has a statement from the university's president as well as a joint statement from the presidents of the undergraduate student government and the graduate student council.
"I will kill every fag I see,"
"Fags must die,"
"Gays must die,"
"Kill all queers,"
and my personal favorite
Next week is kill a fag week - bring your own gun!"
The university has posted pictures of some of these on-line, but not all of them. One of the advisers of KP has them all up on his website.
I can't even begin to describe how horrible these were to see. Maintenance had pretty much all of the cleaned up by noon, but I stumbled across one on my way to class in the morning. I had already seen the pictures, but nothing could prepare me for seeing it right there in my face, blocking the entrance to the library.
The administration made a statement around noon, and then another one later in the evening. Reactions around the community are varied. Some people are happy with the response, others find it very disappointing and lacking. I'm glad about the speed, and I realize the reason the wording was perhaps not as strong as I would have liked was because for legal reasons there's a limit to how upset the university's president can be in print. I also realize that one reason a more formal letter took awhile is because their first priority was to quietly increase security around campus and especially around the remaining pride week events to make sure no one tried to act out the death threats.
Needless to say, there is all kinds of drama going on around here, and it's all I can do to keep myself from getting lost in a sea of other people's emotions. The series of meeting back-to-back last night, including one with KP and the administration, was especially emotional. People are hurt, angry, upset, and trying very hard to make sure that if at all possible whomever did this gets caught and prosecuted fully. There has been lots of talk about raising money to offer a reward for information, which public safety said was a good idea.
On the good side, support has been oozing out of the woodwork. Before all of this happened, KP was running a Gay? fine by me.. campaign. We purchased 500 shirts which said "Gay? fine by me." in our school colors and distributed them for free to people on campus. We ran out of shirts, and still have people asking for them. After the chalkings, even more people came out in support. Some of them were not even necessarily in support of the GLBT movement but simply in support of the universal right to not have death threats and be the victim of hate crimes.
Here is MTU's official page of a picture taken for the Gay? fine by me campaign, and has a statement from the university's president as well as a joint statement from the presidents of the undergraduate student government and the graduate student council.