Coming together as a community through love

In reading and learning of the disgusting event that took place on Sept. 28, I was troubled and overwhelmed with anger and disgust. Anger towards the students who silently condone this kind of behavior, the student who committed the act and the university in its supposed silencing of it.

Yet, as I looked around at many of my peers, I was met with the same feelings, those of anger and disgust. The community was echoing the same feelings I had. It was great to see everyone standing up to this problem, but at the same time, I became worried.

I was worried about how our community would respond and whether or not it would create more problems or more solutions.

It was after seeing this that I took the time to read and listen to previous speakers and personal heroes of mine, among the likes of James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy and Carl Jung.

These men showed me through their own actions and words that hatred and anger was not the answer but the establishment of a strong dialogue and communication – love for our fellow man.

It was Martin Luther King Jr. who said “…Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” These fundamental changes in our own minds cannot happen without the personal connection from our fellow human beings.

The problems seem to multiply not from the main issue itself but from the attempts to solve the problem. We all believe that our system and/or solution would work if we were the ones implementing it. Yet unlike other problems, racism and bigotry have continued to plague the United States from Irish and German Catholics in the 1820s to the continued persecution of African-Americans. Along with racism’s long history comes its newfound silence and evasiveness. It’s a problem that hides within many and at times without us knowing it.

This problem has impacted the community, meaning we must listen to everyone in the community and find a common ground for all of us to  stand on. From that work, we can move towards a solution.

Invalidating others voices or views only will lead to more anger and more problems, and in the end generate a larger rift in the community than what has already been created.

Now is the time for us to come together in friendship and care for our fellow community members as well as looking into our own circle of friends and community and speaking out against the seeds to this horrible idea of racism.

It is up to us to put the problem of race at the center of America, allowing us to have the problem and not the problem having us like it’s had for so long.

This is why I urge my fellow students to take part in open discussions, like the one on Dec. 3, coming not in anger or disgust but in love and willingness to create a better community. We cannot just leave the discussion in Doyle Banquet Hall North. We must take it home with us and continue the discussion wherever we go.

This is a problem that cannot be solved overnight and one that needs constant discussion and dialogue. Our future depends on our willingness to work together, and to call each other out in refusal to do so.

I, just as anyone else, am not above this issue since this issue is one that impacts the community and because of that impacts all of us.