Students and parents expressed frustration and disappointment when they awoke Saturday during Northwestern’s Family Weekend to pro-Trump and pro-MAGA messages painted on The Rock overnight.
“For the second time this week, it was kind of like waking up to a nightmare,” Weinberg freshman Jacob Benitez said.
Benitez said he saw a small tent erected by The Rock Friday evening, but awoke to The Rock glossened in red paint and pro-MAGA messages when he left his dorm Saturday morning. MAGA is short for the President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.”
Expecting that other students might paint over the pro-MAGA messages, Benitez said when no one did, he started camping out and set up a sign near The Rock around 9:45 a.m.
A sign he put up requested that others show up at The Rock 9:45 a.m. on Sunday to help paint over the pro-Trump messages.
Students who paint The Rock typically camp out for 24 hours before putting their message on the structure. Benitez said when he woke up on Saturday, there was no one from the group of people he had seen the night before.
The Rock being painted with pro-Trump messaging was “bound to happen, ” Benitez said.
“There’s always a loud minority — here that happens to be the minority,” Benitez said.
A group of individuals later painted over some of the messages on The Rock with blue spray paint around 10:45 a.m, according to Benitez.
Northwestern College Republicans President and Weinberg senior Jeanine Yuen did not say who painted The Rock last night. But, she said it being painted over so soon is “a gross depiction of the lack of patriotism among those that do not like Trump.” Yuen said it was “especially disheartening” that people painted over the “USA” on The Rock.
Though they don’t represent a specific student group, Benitez said he texted some of his friends to help out with shifts and supplies needed to paint The Rock.
Passing students, parents and tour groups took pictures of The Rock, and some stopped by to speak with Benitez.
“I’ve had a ton of people come up and ask me if I need anything,” Benitez said.
Benitez’s friend, Weinberg freshman Huey Jang, arrived at The Rock around 11:30 a.m. to guard the Rock while Benitez briefly went back to his dorm.
“Of course people have freedom of speech, but this is clearly rage bait,” Jang said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, especially in this kind of school, it’s very liberal. It’s very tilted towards one political side. It’s gonna be targeted.”
BRASA at NU, the campus Brazilian students association, had previously guarded and painted The Rock with the Brazilian flag and its main colors, green and yellow, on Thursday.
Kathleen Keller, the parent of a freshman, was on campus Friday and saw The Rock when it was painted with the Brazilian flag.
She said she saw the new messaging on The Rock this morning and was interested in seeing what it was.
By the time she saw the Rock, it had some blue spray paint over the original red pro-Trump messages.
“Many of us are dealing with a lot of emotions coming out of the election this week and questioning who we are as a country and where we’re going as a country,” Keller said. “It makes me sad for my children and the students that we don’t have a greater national consensus around things like kindness and respect for democracy.”
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