The LGBTRC of UC Davis, vandalized. Out of all the recent hate crimes that have been going on in universities all over the country, this one hits the closest to home. Besides the obvious reason being that I attend UC Davis, the LGBTRC is a safe space I chill out at frequently, and three of my close friends happen to work there.
It's been inciting the expected range of emotions all over campus, from dejection to outright fury. Students have posted on their facebooks with comments such as, "This seriously makes me want to cry," and "Let's fuck shit up." And those are just two of the 41 comments under one of my friend's facebook statuses alone.
As for me, I can't really figure out how I feel. I used to function in a world where it was normal to hear people call each other "faggots" and "queers," but I find myself so far removed from that world now that I have a hard time even dignifying such actions with a response.
I think that's where I'm drawing blanks. It's one thing to be faced with someone as ignorant and naive as socially-slain Aggie columnist Tiffany Lew--at least she was open to learning from her mistakes, as she had "never intended to hurt anyone." But when you're dealing with such blatant acts of malice and hate, will rallies and Safezone training do anything to mitigate the idiocy of the homophobic and racist students who walk amongst us in campus? If not, what can we do? And how much attention should we even give to the perpetrators behind these vapid and hateful acts?
A part of me wonders how effective it would be if from now on we were to simply paint over the graffiti and go about our days. Not giving a response would be a statement on its own, and somehow that is the option that excites me the most. After all, it's not so fun to pick on someone who doesn't give you shit of a response--lessons learned from grade school.
However, I do understand we would be missing an opportunity to express ourselves and educate others who maybe are not as affected by the crime but are nonetheless shocked that such virulent acts occur within the confines of our campus.
Well, the rank smell of fresh paint is still lingering on the doors of the LGBTRC. In response, an anti-hate rally was held at the MU earlier today, a town hall meeting is currently taking place in the ARC, and plans for g*l*i*t*t*e*r*i*n*g up the queer/ally community on campus to make an unabashed statement of "gayness" have already been set in motion.
Right now, I'm just in my room, lying on the comfort of my heated mattress and snacking on some salt and pepper pistachios. The heated responses to this hate crime have been sucking the energy out of the LGBTRC staff, who luckily are trained to handle snafus of this sort, but even as I am writing about this terrible incident on my blogspot, I find myself more or less absorbed by a horrific nightmare I just had hours earlier in which I thought I was going to die in the middle of a cataclysmic tsunami. Honestly, it was a lot. I seriously thought my time was up. That's why I decided when I woke up that I wouldn't feel guilty about spending the next couple hours nursing myself back to a better mood by watching American Idol on megavideo and decking out a Parmesan cheese bagel for dinner.
It's not that I'm indifferent, but it's not like I'm overwhelmed either. I'm beginning to think, though, that maybe I have programmed myself over the years not to get emotionally invested in situations where I feel attacked by a member of our society that doesn't even operate in the same tier of reality as I do. I can't even register that kind of hate anymore. Personally, it's been a long time since I cried over a racist remark. I guess I'm reluctant to go back to that.
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