I exist. I know that seems self-evident, but bear with me for a moment.

In relations between Wesleyan and the Middletown community, insults about “townies,” racial epithets, and classist comments are often thrown at Middletown residents, and frequently, toward students of color/low-income students (between such groups there is a lot of overlap). In fundraisers like Fast-a-Thon, the organizers focus on helping to alleviate food insecurity in Middletown and on making the privileged among us aware that food insecurity exists in many places in the world, and to give us a taste, through fasting, of what it feels like to go hungry.

Besides Wesleyan-Middletown relations, both members of the Wesleyan community involved in these clashes and in Fast-a-Thon directly or indirectly involve other, marginalized voices whom few seem to think about except to dismiss them or drown them out. I’m talking about other students. I’m talking about first-generation college students, about low-income students, and about students of color, or some combination of the three. Wesleyan’s culture is a part of a broader culture in which all or most of us live. In this culture, white, wealthy people have the most privilege and therefore are more likely, for example, to fail to see or call out racism in its most subtle (or even overt) forms, or to be blind to the whys and hows of working, poor, or working-poor class existence and instead insist that poor people are lazy and entitled.

So let me start again. I exist. We exist. Students of all races around you come from low-income and first-generation college student backgrounds. I have experienced food insecurity as late as two summers ago—the last time I lived with my mother. And I am, for the most part, only affected by classist attitudes; low-income students of color have to deal with a lot more oppression than I do, every day.

Prior to the Diversity University forum, in an email on Thursday, Nov. 8, President Roth wrote that the racism and hatred that were expressed after the four Public Safety alerts over Homecoming/Family Weekend were “hurtful to students of color and to all who value diversity and inclusion,” but that “[he has] not spoken out on this until now because [he thinks] such comments are beneath contempt.” This attitude, characteristic of Roth’s administration, is more harmful than helpful, and instead perpetuates oppressive systems already active in our society.

Dorisol Inoa ’13 pointed this out at the panel when she said, “We need more support from the administration…It is constantly a duty for me to educate people. We need to put more responsibility on the administration to address these issues.” In short, those of us whose voices are already marginalized should not be the only ones educating this community about racism, classism, etc. To expect us to do it is to further burden people who are already over-burdened by the kyriarchal system of privilege in this and other countries. We are here to learn, not to teach the same lesson over and over again, every day.

What we need is for President Roth and his administration, our professors, student leaders, and other University officials to speak up when the kind of statements written on the Wesleyan Anonymous Confession Board (WesACB) are brought up on our campus. Ignoring racism and classism does not make either problem go away. Ignoring these kinds of comments and attitudes when they come up, in fact, only tells the people saying these things that they are in the right, and that other people agree with them. It reinforces racism and classism.

Every time someone says, in essence, that financial aid students are not as good as those whose parents paid full tuition; every time someone says that “colored students” should not enter Usdan; every time someone says that people on food stamps or welfare should not have an iPhone or new clothing; every time someone makes casual, ironic “jokes” about wealth or the color of someone’s skin, it hurts a great many people. And every time people who are nominally our allies refuse to speak up because such things are “beneath contempt,” I and others hear that we are not welcome here. This is not meaningful diversity; it’s diversity for the sake of appearances.

Meaningful diversity only occurs when there are efforts to educate the community, especially those of us privileged in some ways, and when the community as a whole makes a sincere effort to be inclusive. But how do we as a community do this? I would like to suggest a radical solution: start by listening and by believing. And then seek to educate yourself by reading one of the many books or blogs that discuss diversity. You can also ask, but not expect, someone in a marginalized group to share hir story. Many people have and will speak about their experiences; we as a community need to consider them seriously instead of dismissing these experiences because our own experiences do not match up.

Look, I know it’s hard to not be defensive when being told that something you said or did, or allowed to be said and done, hurt somebody. “That wasn’t my intent” is a common response.

But intent is not magic. If I do not intend to drive my bicycle over someone’s foot, that does not mean it didn’t hurt hir when I did it accidentally. I still owe that person an apology, and possibly more than just an apology. The same is true of racist and classist (and other -ists, which I do not have space to address here) sentiments, statements, and actions. If someone tells you that something you just said, some joke you just told, is racist, and especially if the person telling you this is a person of color, for the love of God don’t tell hir that ze is imagining things, is making things up to get angry about, or is oversensitive. We, as a community, need to and can do better than that.

It is only by learning, growing, and constantly challenging our own beliefs that real changes will occur and our community will seek to be more meaningfully inclusive and diverse, rather than further institutionalizing existing oppression. In doing so, we must finally acknowledge that we, your peers and professors and other community members of color and of low-income backgrounds, exist. We may finally prove that these voices are valued, too.