After a campus mural at Southern California’s Pitzer College was vandalized with a seemingly partial pro-Donald Trump message, Vice President for Student Affairs Brian Carlisle condemned its “hate” and said “harassment and intimidation will never be accepted at Pitzer.”
He added that the school “is conducting an investigation to hold someone accountable.”
For vandalism, one would think. But that’s simply not sufficient for many on campus.
“The way Administration has failed to classify these incidents as a hate crime has put students of color safety at risk and has proved to students of color that their safety and well-being is not a priority of this institution,” said Pitzer student Sarah Roschdi.
Yep, graffiti supporting one of the main candidates for president of the United States should not be dubbed mere vandalism — it has to be a hate crime.
Perhaps worse is the reaction to (Hispanic) Pitzer student Haylee Sindt, who thought calling the pro-Trump spray-painting a “hate crime” is a step too far.
“[I]t was not done to maliciously harass or intimidate ‘people of color,’ and in no way shape or form should it ‘negatively and personally impact people,’” Sindt wrote in an email.
“Please tell me how the words ‘Trump’ and ‘Make America’ is threatening or triggering. What would the campus’s reaction be if ‘Vote for Bernie’ or ‘Hillary is Awesome’ was written on the mural?”
Big mistaaaaake, Ms. Sindt!
The Claremont Independent reports:
Several students expressed outrage in response to Sindt’s email. “Your email dismisses the experiences of every person of color on this campus,” Lillian Horin (PZ ‘17) said to Sindt, who is Hispanic. Horin also criticized Sindt’s use of quotation marks around the word unsafe. “Do not trivialize how people of color feel on this campus and in the world around us. We do not feel ‘unsafe,’ we feel unsafe,” wrote Horin. “Just because you don’t feel it doesn’t mean the rest of us are merely whining. If we feel unsafe, believe us. We have no reason to lie.” Horin added that the words ‘Trump” and “Make America” are, in fact, racist because “one need only look at his [Trump’s] supporters to see that it is.”
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“I am not here to explain stereotypes, micro aggression, white privilege, or systematic oppression to you,” stated Jessica Saint Fleur (PZ ‘18). “It is no secret that Trump’s campaign is centered around these aspects of oppression. His entire campaign is built on bigotry and hate.”
One student even accused Sindt of being the one who defaced the mural. “Your tone in your email sounds like you might be/know the person who vandalized the mural,” states Basha Brulee-Wills (PZ’ 17). Brulee-Wills then encourages Sindt to think about why she is at Pitzer, “because it possibly cannot be that you’re striving to uphold Pitzer’s core values.”
What tolerance! Openness! Consideration of alternate viewpoints! Sense of fair play!
“Individuality’s fine — as long as we do it together!”
Sindt nailed it when she told the Independent “When they have nothing better to argue, they immediately accuse someone of being racist.”
“People need to learn that not everyone in life will agree with them.”
In an all-too typical bit of academic irony, Pitzer’s Dean of Students Moya Carter noted in an email that the campaigns of “some of the candidates running for President of the United States” are characterized by “foolish, embarrassing, hate filled, Islamophobic, fact devoid behavior.”
Mere sentences later, she added that Pitzer College “strives for critical thought, diversity of beliefs and freedom of expression.”
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