The swastika represented "the racism I always knew existed among the student body and administration," said Seye Akinbulumo, ALC vice president and A&S '07.
"It was just a matter of time," added Seif Ammus, CSOM '08. "Just a continuation of what I see every day."
This angry despondency characterized the meeting. "I felt like somebody put their hand on something I keep sacred," Akinbulumo added, referring to an imperative he quoted from Malcolm X: "Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone, but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery."
The 25-person crowd, comprised mostly of members from the AHANA community continually echoed Akinbulumo's emotions, but he and Noelle Green, ALC president and LSOE '07, tried to concentrate on diplomacy and dialogue as a means to rectify the situation.
This diplomacy first took form in a letter the two wrote to University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., and several vice presidents and deans after they found the swastika in their Campanella office on July 16.
"Many of the hate crimes and acts of intolerance occurring on this campus are swept under the rug," the letter said, referring to another swastika drawn on the same day in a Campanella conference room used by the GLBT Leadership Council (GLC), LAMBDA, and Allies.
The vandals also squeezed superglue on the ALC and GLC computers.
"The Heights put the news of the swastika below the fold [Sept. 7, 2006], but last year they printed the story about the three AHANA RAs caught smoking pot above the fold, which shows their agenda," said John Marti, UGBC director of multicultural affairs and A&S '08.
Other hate crimes have plagued the campus in the past. Last February a student alleged to be homosexual returned to his room on Newton to find epithets scrawled on his door and his mattress flipped over. Akinbulumo saw the N-word scrawled across a whiteboard in CLXF when he was a freshman, and Ammus said he's been called a "sand n-" before at BC.
"I feel like BC as a whole has tried to downplay hate crimes," said Lindsay Darras, A&S '08.
Katrina Quisumbing King, ALC member and A&S '07, pointed to these anecdotes as examples of "BC's interest in not talking about hate crimes."
"The detectives were very reluctant to call [the swastika] a hate crime," said Akinbulumo of the BCPD, which arrived soon after the incident on July 16, but has been unable to determine the perpetrator(s). "I think [the swastika was] a clear demonstration of pointed hate and bigotry," he said.
Akinbulumo met with Robert Sherwood, Dean of Student Development, a week after the incident, who informed him that an announcement would be made and that, incidentally, the Nelson Chair - an honorary seat reserved specifically for AHANA faculty - had been filled after an eight-year vacancy. The ALC had in the past been active in pressuring the administration to fill the Nelson Chair.
"I was surprised by Dean Sherwood and his comprehensive response," said Akinbulumo. This response included the installation of two soundless cameras in front of the UGBC office two days after the incident.
Filling an honorary chair and installing a couple of cameras, though, could not hide the fact that Leahy had not heard about the event a few days after when Christian Cho, A&S '07, approached him about it - even after Akinbulumo said the letter had been sent to Leahy via campus mail.
"We don't know how exactly to stop racism on campus, but we do expect institutional support in our endeavors," read the letter.
The fact that Leahy had not read the letter days after proves the lack of administrative attention racism receives at BC, according to the chorus of voices at the meeting.
More surprising is the Office of Student Affairs' "Intolerance Protocol." Richard Jefferson, director of institutional diversity in the office of human resources, conducts the protocol in regards to hate crimes, according to Akinbulumo's recollection of a meeting with Sherwood.
What Akinbulumo and his colleagues find strange, they say, is the fact that this protocol remains confidential; they believe it has never even been used.
With little faith in the current power structure, the ALC hopes to strangle racism here at BC by beefing up the diversity core, encouraging the hiring of more AHANA professors, holding more town meetings, recruiting Jesuits to come and speak about racism at BC, and amassing a monolithic force that the student body won't see as a "sideshow" or as a "subversive, underground culture," according to Ammus.
"We should be able to fill Fulton 511 with people who care," said Ammus. "What is more important than this right now? Where is everyone right now?"
"White people can walk around all the time and not even think about racism," said Jeanette Marrone, A&S '07, "but we need to provoke people to get them to consider that their value system might not be what they think it is."
"BC capitalizes on Pedro Arrupe service trips, capitalizes on Oscar A. Romero's legacy, capitalizes on Jesuits who have put their life on the line for social justice, but where's that justice today?" asked Akinbulumo, inciting visible encouragement among the crowd. "Where's the action today?"
Be the first to comment on this article!