A Complacent Campus Errupts in Protest

Last was anything but quiet at Univ. of North Carolina-Greensboro.  Usually a complacent campus, an alarming number of students actively united under a common cause: to resist the fascist hate-speech espoused by the College Republicans during their annual “Morals Week.” 

The Morals Week tradition started four years ago when the UNCG College Republicans saw it necessary to counter the events of the LGBTQ group’s Pride Week (held at the same time) and has now spread to 20 state-funded colleges in North Carolina.  This year it was co-sponsored by the Young America’s foundation.  The events included:

          Monday-Pro-Life Day
Tuesday-Terrorism Awareness Day
          Wednesday-Straight Pride Day
Thursday-Support Our Troops Day
          Friday-PETA (People for the Eating of Tasty Animals) Barbeque

 The fliers for the events were even more infuriating.  For anti-choice day, they had invited Bay Buchanan to speak, and advertised it with fliers that read, “Feminazis beware, you will be exposed!”  Under the guise of “stopping the eradication of the Jews,” Terrorism Awareness Day included a film showing about all Muslims being Islamic Fascists waging a dangerous Jihad with our way of life.  So on and so on…

 I expected the campus to respond with its usual passerby mentality, wondering why you need a day dedicated to heterosexual pride and how on earth the decision to eat meat is a moral issue. It’s the same every year, people see that the CRs are really just trying to get a rise out of people and pretend they”re some oppressed minority that isn’t backed by one of the most powerful governments in the world.  I figured I”d “welcome” Buchanan to my campus, argue with the Republicans at their table on each given day, and perhaps wear an orange jumpsuit on Terrorism Awareness Day.  What I didn’t expect was the massive organization and action on the part of my fellow students…

 Dissenters came out in large numbers.  We welcomed Bay Buchanan Monday night in a crowd of nearly 100 people, with only about 10 Buchanan supporters, all members of the College Republicans.  After a much-disrupted speech, students decorated with things like “Expose This” and “This is What a Feminist Looks Like” written on themselves got a chance to take a few stabs at her.  Needless to say, we managed to expose every single contradiction embedded in Buchanan’s anti-feminist, anti-choice, anti-woman agenda.  By the end of the Q&A, the head of the Republicans cut it off when all their speaker could do was continue shouting hysterically, “It’s a life!  It’s a LIFE!!!”

 The remainder of the week saw more victories for the group that became known as the Morals Week Resisters.  Straight Pride Day didn’t happen because of “scheduling conflicts” within the ranks of the CRs that would have left only one representative at the table; they thought it “dangerous” in the face of the many protestors.  Support Our Troops day brought two military recruiters on campus to speak with passing students about the great opportunities the military could provide.  We handed out counter-recruitment, GI resistance, and military alternative pamphlets and exposed the fact that none of the CRs were enlisting nor planning on getting behind the war they claim to support.  Then there was the icing on the cake…

 It wasn’t just the fact that the notion of having a carnivorous barbeque under the name of PETA offended so many, nor that Food Not Bombs was giving out vegan food across the lawn, but it certainly didn’t hurt the turnout of Friday’s event.  People came mostly for the final showdown, as Greensboro’s radical drum corps Cakalak Thunder had “challenged” the CR’s drum corps (hah!) to a drum off. Cakalak showed up in all their glory, backed by a mob of people who were there to literally drum the CRs and their hateful rhetoric off campus.  After a brief conflict with campus and Greensboro police, Cakalak was given permission to play.  During breaks, students and others from the community spoke on the bullhorn about the campus” “Free Speech Zone” policy, the censorship of non-affiliated groups on campus, and the need for a massive student movement against injustice beyond Morals Week.  One World Can’t Wait organizer (a non-student) was arrested for trespassing after he told the student body, “This is your place, you should do something!”  Once pushed into a cop car, the student group surrounded it chanting, “Let him go!” before being forcefully removed so that the man could be taken downtown and held with a $500 bail. 

 The week ended with feeling of accomplishment, a feeling of unity.  Passersby were supportive; the most common argument I had with passing students basically questioned whether or not we really needed to be there in the first place.  It’s just the College Republicans, people told us, and they”re just trying to get you mad.  Why bother?  This had crossed my mind beforehand, but even more overwhelming was a sense of urgency to unite the campus against injustice being acted out in our name.  The CRs may be just blowing hot air, but to allow even that without visible dissent would just make the campus even more complacent, apathetic, and would keep us demobilized and silenced on larger, more dangerous issues.  

 Lauren Guy McAlpin

 

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