White Pride at Reed is Nothing New: An Open Letter to Students of Reed College

Submitted to It’s Going Down

I wish I were surprised that a student scrawled a swastika and wrote a bunch of fucked up shit on the wall of a library bathroom this past weekend, but I’m not. When I went to Reed, three-quarters of the student body was white. Students used the n-word in Hum conference after Pancho Savery’s Black Athena lecture. In the wake of Obama’s election in 2008, The Quest ran Op-Eds from students arguing that Obama wasn’t black while others hung posters that exclaimed the end of race.

The horrific graffiti posted in the library bathrooms is not alien at Reed or in the United States. Reed was created with the money of a white settler in a state created as a white homeland, and as an elite college it primarily reinforces the social position of wealthy, white people. This country was founded on slavery and genocide, and white nationalism runs in its blood.

In the wake of this open display of homophobia and white supremacy, the administration and the status quo will try to tell you that “love trumps hate.” They’ll call for dialogue and ask the community to come together. Straight, white people will wring their hands and fret until they feel like they’ve done something. The rest of us will be afraid to walk home alone at night.

If the election of Trump has shown us anything, it is that liberal democracy will coddle and accommodate open fascism. Liberals raise funds to repair broken windows and firebombed offices while neo-Nazis beat and murder people of color across the country. Terrified of open conflict over real divisions in society, they encourage us to wait and see what Trump will do.

The events of this weekend make it clear that we do not need to wait until January 20th to see the results of a Trump presidency. He and his supporters mean to deport, drive to suicide, and outright murder black, brown, queer, and trans people. There is no room for conversation with someone who would celebrate Trump’s election by drawing a swastika. Trump supporters have already made it clear that they’re eager to do violence to us, and they will only yield when confronted with greater violence. We live in a conflict with two sides: those who would see the white man in power, and those who would destroy him.

Which are you on?

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