Putting Intolerance on the Refrigerator

I adore LMU, but I admit I wasn't impressed—or surprised—to watch the racism incident unfold this past month. I say that I'm not surprised because there are issues on our campus that, like it or not, are eating us and our identity as a university away bit by bit.

First and foremost, this issue isn't isolated or even unique. As an Resident Advisor last year, I came across over twenty instances of intolerance to every minority community on campus. Each time I documented them I shook my head with my co-RAs and wondered how in our day and age this could keep happening.

This past February, when I was Editor-in-Chief of Passion Magazine, I organized an event on the Israeli-Palestinian situation to discuss not politics, but perspectives, on the issue. In planning the event, I came across people from both sides who told me I shouldn't hold the event—it would be “too difficult”, or students “wouldn't be interested”. We ended up having more than 70 students St. Patrick's Day (all sober and interested) show up that night for a successful discussion that ran an hour over.

It was then my RA and Passion experience intersected and revealed an unfortunate insight to a deep and looming problem on our campus—we don't like talking about uncomfortable issues. Despite over twenty documented situations of intolerance in my dorm, there was maybe three of four statements put out by the University last year addressing them (and those were documented by me; there are 98 other RAs on campus). Despite myself, the Passion staff, and those 70 students who showed up last February, there were still people who tried to prevent us from having that dialogue. In regards to the recent intolerance incident, as one faculty member said on the Loyolan website, “LMU can do better” about informing the community than just one or two letters a year.

These situations are all part of two ominous realities that exist at LMU. First, we are at a university. To sweep any issue, no matter how uncomfortable, under a rug is to contradict our very existence as an academic institution. The second issue is that of our community. Not only are we a university, we are a Jesuit university. More than any other organization in the world's history, the Jesuits have emphasized education, open-mindedness, and community. How do we ignite others to justice and peace if we are too afraid to talk about issues that concern the very well-being of our community and development as human beings?

In the movie “Milk”, about the San Franciscan politician Harvey Milk who is murdered for his successful gay community activism, he in one scene receives a vulgar and demeaning death threat in the mail. When his friend attempts to throw it away, Milk takes it and puts it on the refrigerator. As his friend looks at him in fear, Milk says calmly, “You don't get it. If you put it away, hide it in a drawer, it'll just get bigger and scarier. Now it's there. We'll see it every day. It can't get us.”

The students who marched in black on Tuesday get it. The 70 students who showed up last St. Patrick's day get it. The ones who don't get it are those who think that we students don't want to have the “tough” conversations. They are forgetting we're the reason why this University exists in the first place. Even more, they are doubting our potential as agents of change—a potential that I hope to dear God they believe in, considering I and 5,000 other students are paying $200,000 for this University to help develop it.