On Monday April 15, the Elizabethtown College campus community received an email about a racial slur being found written on a board on the second floor of the Baugher Student Center.
While the campus waited to see what updates they would receive about who wrote the slur or what was being done, another email came in the next day. Another slur had been written in the same location. Still, there were little answers for the community frustrated by these actions.
“These senseless and hurtful acts are not tolerated at Etown. We continue to stand by our Black and African American community and our student groups, Noir and NAACP, and are strongly committed to ensuring a safe and open campus environment at Etown. Campus Safety and College administration are taking these incidents very seriously and are investigating,” The Bias Incident Task Force wrote in a statement in the second email sent out to the college.
Additionally, the second email encouraged and promoted a talk by Jihan Tyler-Owens, a lecturer of psychology and faculty fellow, who centered her talk around the experiences of BIPOC students and staff and how to better improve that experience from the perspective of the BIPOC community.
Within her talk, which covered a multitude of subjects, she discussed how BIPOC students often feel isolated in their efforts and how even when professors try to open up the conversation to topics around Diversity, Equity, and Beloing (DEB), how those efforts are sometimes shut down by students.
She also discussed that sometimes white people have fatigue in talking about topics related to the struggles BIPOC individuals face, but that BIPOC students have to deal with that same struggle on a day-to-day basis with or without the conversation.
“We don’t need a savior, but it would be helpful if you walked alongside us,” Tyler-Owens said, speaking on the roles of so-called allies who oftentimes just want to make themselves look better rather than do the work that has to be done.
Tyler-Owens then opened up the talk to discussion around the bias incident and how it has made everyone feel. Throughout the conversation with the campus community, one common thread emerged, the idea that something has to be done to the person who wrote these words on campus. People fear that with little action, aggressions like these will continue to happen. Other crimes on campus, like plagiarism, often receive immediate and clear consequences, but larger ones like these with no present and public action done leave people unsatisfied and frustrated with the campus. Nichole Gonzalez, Vice President for Student Life & Dean of Students, who was present at the talk, confirmed that the investigation around the incidents was still ongoing.
For BIPOC students, and Black students especially who were the target of this slur being written, this adds to the daily discrimination they face at the college.
“I think it’s really frustrating that more hasn’t been done to actually investigate the situation and figure out who did it. Being Black on this campus is already hard enough because of how few of us there are and having people walking around without repercussions after writing racial slurs on school property makes it feel so much more unsafe,” Zakiyah Grayson, a fourth-year student said.
Outside of the emotional impacts, throughout the talk there was also mention of the student body retention rate and staffing impacts it has. Without a strong community that makes space and speaks up for its Black members, especially in times where it is clear that there are members of the community with anti-Black sentiments, then Black students and staff are more likely to leave the college.
While the community can say it will change following incidents like these, actions are what truly matter. Not only recognizing but challenging the anti-Black sentiment on campus is essential for change. Etown should be a place where those with those mindsets do not feel welcome to express their opinion in any form and instead stay silent or do not stay on campus.
For students impacted by the recent targeted behavior, you are not alone and there are a myriad of resources to reach out to including the NAACP, Noir, Darcey Mills, Nichole Gonzalez, Kesha Morant Williams, Amy Shorner-Johnson and Mimi Duncan, who is a staff counselor with BIPOC focus.
