I was having an awful morning. My computer crashed, I lost the essay I spent all night working on, and I was just generally in a bad mood. I was sitting in my bed, trying to write a new essay when I heard chanting outside. It was around one and I had a feeling I knew what was going on. I grabbed one of my friends and asked her to come walk with me to check it out. What I knew was going on was a protest of students outside the dining hall.
A lot of Ursinus students have been upset since the election of Donald Trump. When it first happened, many were sad because of who would be the next President. As the week went on, however, the discrimination among students was what upset them more. I have friends who have personally been yelled at on the streets, told to go back to their own country, or get off our campus. A lot of my friends don't feel safe walking to class or walking alone at night. A lot of people I'm not friends with feel the same way.
The days dragged on for them. They kept having to hear people make comments, kept having to hear people say "he won, it's over." They kept having to assure themselves that nothing major would change, not so quickly at least. Until their fellow students started making them feel like they weren't welcome on campus, weren't safe on campus.
And so the protest was planned. I got an email from the Feminists In Action club telling me to participate if I wished. I was told by a girl in my ethics class that a lot of clubs would be participating. If I wasn't having such a bad day, I probably would have gone from the start. But I can still explain what happened, the students met, walked into the faculty meeting, and walking out in front of our dining hall with faculty supporters at their side.
When I first went out to the protest I just heard peaceful chanting. What looked to be sixty students and faculty stood on the steps, holding signs and trying to make their voices heard. The protest was exactly what they wanted it to be, until other students caught on. Students who supported Trump came outside with Trump signs and shirts, they screamed "build the wall" and "make America great again."
The original protesters went on, taking turns speaking into a megaphone about the discrimination they faced on campus: the discrimination they faced from those protesting against them. Yet the Trump supporters interrupted and discriminated continuously, proving the points the original protesters were making.
My friends who came to the protest with me walked hand in hand to stand with our friends protesting. I even walked up with a friend who spoke into the megaphone about being laughed at for her opinions in one of her classes. I watched my friends cry and tell stories that were harder for them to say than it was for us to hear. And still, these people against them didn't leave. The protest ended with the group singing "This Little Light of Mine" and many tears and hugs. Once the group started dispersing smaller groups of arguments broke out between the students.
I heard many people fighting about what it meant to be racist, what it meant to have privilege, and what it meant to feel discrimination on campus. To me directly a guy said "rape happens every day, what is there to do?" And it sank in on us that these people didn't really understand what the protesters were trying to say.
What these Trump supporters didn't realize was that the protest wasn't designed to be anti-Trump. Sure, that was in their minds when those who started it thought of it. But the real protest was the discrimination on campus. The lack of safety for the minorities. The struggle of those who felt discriminated against to get their voice to be heard. And still, they could barely say any of this without being interrupted.
Students protested at Ursinus because it was necessary. Because them or their friends have been threatened by students who think it's a joke. They've been told they don't belong; that they are different and that is wrong. And those who were angered by the protest needed to realize that there were student voices which needed to be heard. They weren't harming anyone, disrupting anything, or acting in a way that could have offended people. What the students of Ursinus were doing was being students, teaching and learning and educating others.
