Hey Wes, there was an assault here, about two weeks ago. Remember? There’s probably been stuff since then, but I haven’t heard about it. In this one, the word “faggot” was involved. A guy got hurt; he ended up in the hospital (He’s okay now, I’ve heard).
The guy reported it; Public Safety got involved. We just got an e-mail from Maryann Wiggin saying the non-Wesleyan students believed to be involved in the assault have been banned from campus. Do YOU really think banning specific people from our hallowed (though un-ivied) halls will keep Wesleyan students safe?
Banning individuals is a short-term solution, I guess, but punitive actions will neither keep away people who really want to be here nor reduce Middletown-Wes tensions. Note: Public Safety, in response to the laptop thefts, gave RAs pictures of generic-looking black males with “Watch out for these men!” Not a solution. Let’s not make that a tradition.
I can just imagine the 30 foot high, concrete and barbed wire fence we’ll build to keep Middletown residents out the next time something happens…oh wait, never mind, that was the Berlin Wall, or maybe the Wall the IDF is putting up in Israel right now. Can we please not take those as role models?
Even imaginary walls between us and Middletown will only serve to exacerbate already-high tensions between Wesleyan students and Middletown residents. We’re “white faggots, queer freaks who are rich and selfish and expect too much.” They’re “low-class people of color, uneducated and somehow unworthy of attending Wesleyan or Wesleyan social events,” [all stereotypes from comments I’ve heard from Wesleyan students and Middletown residents] so Public Safety should just card people more often (their plan, according to a recent meeting); that will definitely solve things.
All of that is crap, and I hope we all know that.
I don’t know what the solution is to reducing Middletown/Wes tensions. An Anti-Oppression Organizing Center that would sponsor dialogues and joint projects between Middletown residents and Wes students, all while conscious of the impact of personal and institutionalized racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and ableism? It couldn’t hurt.
I also know that Wes is no Diversity University Pot O’ Gold at the end of some commercialized rainbow, and that hate crimes come from us, inside, as much as they come from outside. Why do Bilegatas occur once during orientation week, and why doesn’t the administration pay students to run them? Where are the institutionalized, university-sponsored anti-racism efforts? Students educating students is great, but the university needs to help, too.
I want the university to give me some ideas on what to do to protect myself, not just an e-mail that an assault happened. After getting the e-mail about the assault, I know that I was scared to walk around campus at night. Change that: I AM scared. However, I refuse to blockade myself within the escort’s van.
I want to walk across this campus and not be screamed at from a car; I want to walk across this campus and know that people have my back. I want to believe that incidents like that assault are isolated incidents and not part of some larger trend, but I know how many times I’ve been yelled at while walking, and that’s even with my white privilege, (sometimes) male privilege, and other privileges that help to keep me safe walking down the street.
I want to help create some sort of institutional history of this shit, want us not to forget the wespeaks from earlier this semester where people were urged to email ejaeger@wes to report this stuff. Are people doing that? Please do. I also want people to be able to report assaults and harassments easily and anonymously online, if they’re unwilling to go to Public Safety.
I know the yells and the insults and the bottles that get thrown out of cars. I know that homophobia, racism, classism, sexism, ableism, transphobia and more exist on this campus, and I don’t want this assault, as one of the few reported incidents, to disappear into Public Safety’s old logbooks.
And finally, I want us as a campus to be proactive, to decide what safety would feel like and how we want to create it, BEFORE the next assault happens.
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