At last year’s Unity March, Rabbi Dov Hillel Klein urged the hundreds of people in attendance to “continue this energy” generated among students after religious and racial ephitets hit North Campus during Winter Quarter.
We all know what happened — the enthusiasm flattened. Most students this year had no desire to speak out against hate crimes. This complacency suggested that instituting a freshman requirement to attend diversity programming was sufficient for combating hate crimes, and students showed their apathy by almost completely forgetting last year’s hate crimes.
Well, congratulations to NU’s minority community. It only took a student getting held up at knifepoint for us to take collaborative action.
Today minorities at NU are encouraged to speak out — by not speaking out. That means racial, cultural and religious minorities, as well as members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. All are encouraged to dress in black and to not talk to anyone, unless to explain the protest.
On Wednesday all students are encouraged to wear black, then change into NU gear for a rally at The Rock.
Wearing all black and not speaking in class is a typical day for many. It’s going to take a lot more than a few people doing this to get attention. All students, including minority students who don’t show up to the typical events, need to pitch in. At Thursday’s emergency Alianza meeting, there were more than 50 students, mostly Latinos, decrying the hate crime against Communication freshman Xander Saide.
There are 400 Latinos on this campus, according to the Princeton Review. Altogether, there are about 1,900 students on campus who are members of a racial minority — and when you count religious, ethnic and sexual minorities, that number surges to one out of every four students at NU, according to the Review. Imagine the impact such a protest could have if all of them were covered in black tomorrow.
Call them box-checkers or whatever you will, but minority students have a right to express their culture either through an ethnic student group, on their own or not at all. But those who are on the fringes of minority student life at NU need to know that this affects them just as much.
Many students hesitate to get involved in something unless it impacts them directly. Well, if you have an ethnic name, or if you look like you’re a member of a minority group, you are just as much of a target for a hate crime as Saide. And you need to get involved.
At Thursday’s meeting, many students correctly pointed out that the campus events you see are the work of a few people who choose to get involved, thus spending too many hours compensating for those who do not. It’s not surprising to see that some minority communities are viewed as apathetic.
But hopefully all students, not just minorities, will realize fighting hate crimes cannot end with a rally at The Rock. Minorities at NU need to show that while our experiences and opinions are diverse, our hatred of these crimes unites us.
We’ll start yelling tomorrow.
