Macalester has long struggled to confront manifestations of hate on campus. Repeated incidents of anti-Semitic, anti-black and anti-Arab hate speech in public and private spaces around the school have left the campus community searching for an outlet to engage with the issue directly. March 27 through 29, Macalester hosted Naming Hate, a series of lectures,…
On the morning of Oct. 27, a gunman walked into the Tree of Life synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh and started shooting. The gunman, who believed the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) to be responsible for bringing “invaders in that kill our people” and reportedly told an officer that he wanted all…
This week’s MCSG meeting was centered on a discussion of how the Legislative Body (LB) should address the recent acts of hate speech on campus. President Malik Mays ’19 presented the LB with several ideas. One of those ideas was to send out a series of statements drafted by MCSG representatives expressing their support for…
At around 2:30 a.m. on Oct. 11, a swastika was found drawn on the forehead of a costume mask stored in a storage closet in The Mac Weekly office in the basement of 30 Mac. The marking was reported to campus security later that day. This is the third incident of hate speech appearing on…
On the evening of Thursday, Oct. 4, two swastikas were found carved into a study table on the fourth floor of the DeWitt Wallace Library. This marks the third consecutive year that swastikas have been found carved into desks in the library, and the first appearance of the anti-semitic and white supremacist symbol on campus…
In the late morning of Nov. 16, 2017, a massive crowd of Macalester students, faculty, staff and administrators filled the Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center for a walk-in against hate. What started as a student-organized response to anti-Semitic and anti-Arab graffiti on campus became a rupturing event – sparking broad conversations about equity, diversity, cultural…
These drawings are echoes of an ugly and despicable history, but they are less about resurfacing that history than they are about getting a reaction out of the student body.
