Note to all Wes students: not all Middletown residents are black gangsters who assault Wesleyan students for weekend fun. Trust me, Middletown residents have better things to do.
This is a letter to the girl who shouted at the six black males, “Do you have a problem with white kids?” and to the larger Wesleyan community. As a 20-year Middletown resident and a Wesleyan student, I feel as if I am in a good position to comment on relations between the two places.
I applaud Aisha and Kate, who published an article earlier this week contradicting the story e-mailed to us by P-Safe, although I am upset P-Safe did not send an additional e-mail. By not doing so, P-Safe perpetuated the feeling around campus that the Middletown people who roam campus are dangerous and that going out is dangerous.
First of all, that is flagrantly false. More Wesleyan students go to the hospital every week from alcohol poisoning than from vicious beatings by Middletown residents. Furthermore, the fact that the allegedly assaulted student shouted a racially charged question to the men indicates that she is clueless about the situation at hand, and also that she was probably inebriated. A woman walking around at 3 a.m. must be somewhat emboldened by drugs or alcohol to have the chutzpah to try and initiate an argument with six people larger than her.
And, this, my friends, is the fundamental problem. I’ll be the first to say that Middletown residents are by and large friendly, caring people, and I’m not just talking about those of us who don’t live near Hi Rise or Main St. I am willing to bet that the main reason many of the “assaults” on campus happen is because a drunk student starts trouble with Middletown residents on campus because the student thinks he/she will be assaulted by them by virtue of them being from Middletown.
The student falsely believes it to be a racial issue because most of the Middletown residents who tend to visit campus on weekends are black. But this is not the issue. The issue is either the inebriation of the student, or the class difference by placing many wealthy students (in Hi and Lo Rise) with access to drugs in the immediate vicinity of a poorer neighborhood where some residents may be addicted to drugs. So it is from these issue—tudent inebriation, preconceptions, and class proximit—rom which the problem brews.
In the end: relax, Wesleyan. At the end of the night, you have a much higher chance of taking yourself to the hospital via that bottle of vodka in your hand than you have being beaten by my fellow Middletown residents.
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