(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go

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"GSA Float Burned on Eve of Homecoming Parade"

"Explicit lyrics put Post-It performance in the spotlight"

"Senate combats Campus Speech after reports of racist language"

These are headlines that over the course of the last three years have graced the front page of The Torch, Wittenberg's student-run newspaper. Exhaustive research, countless interviews, and campus reaction both good and bad have went into these pieces. What I thought then as both the writer and/or editor in all of those aforementioned cases and as I look back in reflection is that these little newspaper stories portray a fairly accurate picture of where this campus stands in terms of relations to minorities as well as tolerance for those who are different than them.

In every one of those cases though, the uproar or direct action that I assumed would follow their release to public was met with mottled resentment from the Wittenberg community for trying to institute real social change in their behavior and actions, and an apathy from an administration that conveyed either a "we don't care about this problem" attitude or an out-of-touch one that clearly shows "We don't really know what you're talking about."

So after the deplorable and continually upsetting news of the now-infamous piece of paper that graced the front message board of a student's dorm room on Martin Luther King Day, I assumed we'd get the same banally pathetic attempts to make sure we know the administration cares about the problems of minorities and suspect classes. And what a shock, we did. The president wrote an earnest if not particularly beige letter explaining his dismay at the fact that campus still isn't any better...

But what came next was even more surprising and ultimately tons more depressing. The campus collectively organized a protest/prayer service thing during Thursday's chapel hour that allowed the campus to grieve for the loss of their once pristine image. Everybody was invited, urged, and even commanded in some cases to come together, link arms, and basically sing "We Shall Overcome."

I ultimately looked at the event and said, to put it bluntly, What a crock of shit! It's as if the campus is McDonald's and they woke up, looked outside, and exclaimed "Oh my God!!! There's all these other places selling burgers. What are we going to do!!!" It was in such an effort to market itself as the way to fix these problems; a way for campus to finally change its bigoted ways.

Yes, I think it was, from what I heard, incredibly moving that those who were most affected, angry, and frustrated by the the goings-ons did what they could and were actually given a forum to express their distaste, but why is this the first time? Why didn't we come together and show how much we didn't tolerate all of those other past indiscretions that have addled this campus for years. I find it so ironic that every person that sent me an email urging me to go to the prayer service is a person or a group of people that at every opportunity during those past events/debacles turned a blind eye refusing to denounce the problem directly.

They are the same people that applauded the actions of student senate members who sat idly by and watched as a student got up on stage and rapped a song about black women with excruciating detail. These are the people that helped write that pathetic and despicable email containing the most comical catch-phrase since "Where's the beef": "We Are Above"

This "HOLY CRAP WE FIGURED IT OUT SUMMIT" is not a final solution as it's already being treated in some circles of my friends and fellow students; it's a first step. In a week or two the whole event is no better than a silly poster campaign or a campus-wide email unless change is actually happening or pushed forward. The first step to dealing with a problem is acknowledging the existence of said problem. Thank my deity of choice, we at leastdid that. Otherwise the whole thing's another coat of pretty white primer to hide the dirty things written on bathroom stalls; you can still see the wounds they're just not as apparent to the naked eye. Let's hope this works, or else who wants to even fathom how bad this could really get.