Although I do understand the busy schedules that fill the lives of the students, faculty, and employees of the UA campus, I feel that it is important that this be written. Of my nearly three years spent on this campus, nothing has grabbed my attention more strangely than the e-mail that I received a couple days ago concerning a racial slur that escalated into contacting the police.
It was not the exclamation of the racial slur that bothered me. Unfortunately, growing up in the South has fixed such utterances into commonplace for a young adult like myself.
What did bother me was the time of year in which our campus has found it so seemingly impossible to coexist. February, being Black History Month, has always been recognized in my mind as a month not only to celebrate African-American progression throughout U.S. history, but also a month to celebrate the opportunity for social equality and the power of human compassion.
As it has been reported, the school has taken action against the student who spouted the slur, which brings me to my essential reason for the composition of this letter. It is not the University’s job to regulate or govern our actions in situations such as these. It is our own.
It is our duty to educate others on the power of having a united and respectful campus. If we choose to let individual consideration fall by the wayside to policy and regulation, we will fall as well. Most of us will only spend 48 short months at the University. Like Appalachian campers, I suggest we all leave it better than we found it.
For our own benefit, we must recognize that it is not the hue of our skin for which we should attribute responsibility for our very identity. Our individuality should be measured by our ideas, our education, our aspirations and those tiny little proposed notions that have the ability to grow exponentially in hopes of igniting change in the universe. To make quick judgments on each other’s character by using thoughtless insults moves our campus in the opposite direction. It hurts our community. The University should not have to take us by the hand and use chalkboards to bring us to this realization.
We are a new generation of 21st century adults. Regardless of your ancestry, all anyone truly wants is a life worth leading, and the way I see it, it is impossible to fail if you never stop trying. My hope is that whoever reads this is not dissuaded by my words but, instead, inspired – inspired to indulge in the multiplicity that our diverse campus has to offer rather than discount it for that same reason.
Trey Privott is a junior majoring in journalism and English.
