Tough love for TU

By: Sey Elemo, Columnist

Towson, I must now give you some tough love, in the way that friends do sometimes. I am about to read you for all of your coins.

Do you want me to tell you why you are largely ineffective in making this campus an anti-racist one? (I’m going to tell you anyway so just say yes). Yes, you say? Well here it is: You allow racist things to occur on your campus and then you either ignore it, cover it up, or find some way to placate us “rabble-rousers,” and repeat. You don’t take ownership of your mistakes. You really just want us to be quiet. In other words, you’re all about the image. You’d rather have us silenced than actually work towards fixing the problem.

As we speak, there is a male student that roams campus harassing black students, faculty and staff. He has told black students that he “has dreams of hurting people like you.” This man, OVER THE LAST YEAR, has and continues to harass the employees of the CLA Café and has even put hands on an employee. He’s called them “n-ggers.” He has thrown change at the workers. He has threatened them, saying that he “has something for them” and then proceeded to dig around in his bag. To put is simply he has TERRORIZED these employees. In response, you’ve not only allowed him to be here at Towson, you refuse to acknowledge his harassment as a problem to be taken seriously.

Towson…WHY AREN’T YOU PROTECTING THESE WORKERS AND THESE STUDENTS THAT ARE BEING HARSSED? Instead of addressing this crime with swift action and repercussions for this man, you have shucked AND jived around the situation with your logistics and your technicalities.

“Well…technically they’re not Towson employees, they’re contracted by Chartwells…” But do they not, physically, work on this campus? Do they not, physically, serve the Towson campus community?

“This isn’t really a crime…it’s more of an incident…” Allow me to turn your attention to Merriam-Webster’s definition of battery: “an offensive touching or use of force on a person without the person’s consent.” So….I don’t quite understand what you mean by this isn’t a crime.

What you mean to say is that the protection of this White man’s identity and rights as a student, WHICH HE IS USING TO HARRASS OTHER MEMBERS OF THE TOWSON COMMUNITY, is more important than the physical and emotional safety of these employees and other students.

Towson, are you waiting until this man seriously injures or kills someone before you take real action?

And on top of all of that, why are you keeping this quiet? We receive emergency crime alerts for everything under the sun. Even when someone is “receiving unwanted text messages” but why isn’t a racist man terrorizing students and employees a crime alert?

There is a man present on campus saying that he wants to harm black people and you don’t think that’s something we should know?

Towson, is this you protecting your image? The answer is yes.

So, what do we have to do to? Do we have to pull up to the Baltimore Sun, to ABC 2 and other media outlets to put pressure on you to do something? I mean we shouldn’t have to but we’ll do it if that’s what it takes.

You can’t claim to be diverse and inclusive if you leave your students, staff, and faculty of colour unprotected and uncared for.

TOWSON. DO SOMETHING.

Yours in Blackness,

A Ratchet Revolutionary

 

 

 

 

 

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