you call that a prank?

Last Friday, a group of students noticed a white truck parked in our university parking lot with a swastika painted in the middle of a confederate flag. Of course, they were outraged and contacted our Campus Safety. The driver of the car was detained and questioned. The story is that he & his friends had been pranking each other over the past two weeks and that was the end result. Then, this student was too lazy to wash his car that week, and had been driving his car on campus all week until it was reported on Friday.

It took our students FIVE DAYS to report two of the most insensitive and hateful symbols in our society. I don't doubt that when students saw they car, they didn't agree with it. However, not until Friday did someone care enough to take the effort to report it. That deeply saddens me. How have we become so concerned with our own time that we cannot stop to stand against something that so hateful and wrong?

Then the next Wednesday, I picked up our student newspaper The Clause to find this article. With a title like "Prank taken too far?" the paper, probably unintentionally, seemed to dismiss the act as a prank. The rest of the article when on to describe what a nice guy this student was and that he didn't mean to do. Just because he's a "nice" guy and didn't mean to offend anyone, doesn't make it okay. Below is my letter to the editor:

Thank you for acknowledging the racist actions that took place last week on our campus in “Prank Taken Too Far?”(11/12). I know “hot topics” are risky for student journalists to tackle. And in order for our student body to start addressing racism on our campus, we need to begin to openly discuss the brokenness in our community. Our administrators’ honest and specific letter was a start. And your article had the potential to be another great step. However, the failure to present both sides was a step back.

Since the Clause is a communitarian paper, I think it was appropriate to give Andrew Salazar a chance to share his side. However, the article failed to present the “other” voice. Your staff writer did not interview those (who I hope are the entire student body) who were offended by Salazar’s truck. There should be no doubt in the eyes of the students, that this act, regardless of original intent, is seen as unacceptable. Never are the confederate flag or the swastika symbols that should be excused in the name of a prank. Whether or not it was your intention, the absence of such thoughts speaks loudly. Your oversight has deeply hurt the student body and I hope you will take that hurt to heart.

As a former Clause editor, I understand the nature of a student press and all the complexities that go into producing a paper. There are a dozen explanations for why they reported the story like they did. However, in light of the sensitive state of our campus, their oversights have only added to the hurt and frustration so prevalent on our campus.

But the bigger picture is not simply the insensitivities of the student newspaper. It's the system our school, and most of our society, operates under. It's a system that allows these actions to be labeled a "prank" because they never meant to be hurtful. This system failes to recongize that racism in the 21st century does not look like segratation, lynchings & other blatant acts as it did in the 60s. Racism today looks like stereoptypes, social segregation & asking a member of a minory race to speak for her/his entire race.

Until we begin to acknowledge that racism still exists today, in ways that maybe don't stand out to those in the majority culture--those who, whether they want to not, benefit from the system--then we have little hope at become a just society.

And for those of us who claim to be Christians, I think APU president Jon Wallace has some wise words. "We can talk about faith and empathy, but sometimes we must just do justice... we live in accountability to each other and to God—that we act with justice, mercy, humility, and love of another kind with each other and with our neighbors."