To my dearest Brockport,
I have had an amazing time here in the month of September-- my first month in college; it has been filled with laughs and new memories that I will cherish forever, but we have some issues. It has hardly been a month onto campus, and we have had some serious racist slashes and public safety issues arise.
Being a new student here, when I saw cop cars in front of Gordon residence Hall two Wednesdays ago, I figured a student was caught smoking weed in their dorm. Later that evening the student body received an email about how "racially charged graffiti was found in one of the residence halls". Nothing in the email informed the student body of what it was, or the seriousness of it. Many students, including myself, looked at the email in confusion; what did it say? Where was this graffiti? Rumors were going around that it was scrawled on the side of the residence halls, which was untrue. Finally, a facebook post not affiliated with the College at Brockport at all posted what this "graffiti" really was, and I was disgusted. The college play down the seriousness of the situation, considering this "racially charged graffiti" was actually a DEATH THREAT and should have been considered a hate crime. Along with this, the culprit still has yet to be found. Until the person responsible for these acts is found, how can minorities truly be safe on this campus; and even when he/she is caught, the fact that racism is still this prevalent and strong, can they ever truly feel safe again? Even though the police investigation is ongoing, the students have hardly been updated on its progress, and we have been left here to try to ponder on our own the results.
This past Tuesday, I attended a community discussion in the Seymore College Union, which discussed the issues at hand with the hate crime and how we can make this community a safer place. While the turnout was amazing, there still was not that many people that attended if we are comparing it to the amount of people who are involved someway in the college community. The discussion was amazing, and some great points were shared, including one that really resonated with me. In the middle of the presentation, a young girl stood up behind me and spoke-- she talked about how the only people that showed up to the discussion are the ones that truly cared about the situation and while the conversation was nice, it was being discussed among the people that care, not the people that partake in the prejudice and microaggression around the campus. People later went on to say how these community conversations should be required for everyone enrolled in the College at Brockport to really spread awareness about how to make this campus a safer place, and to help people understand the importance of #BlackLivesMatter.
While Brockport has brought me many amazing memories, this event in the past month and the lack of proactive strides to inform the community on the sheer importance of acceptance, a bad taste has been left in my mouth. Don't get me wrong, I will continue to love Brockport and everything it offers me, but I also will stride for the college to make a bigger wave of change throughout the student body.
From,
A Loving Student.
