First I wanted to introduce myself, for the majority of campus who probably doesn’t know me. My name is Chris Litchfield; I am President of the AU College Democrats, and a proud AU Student.
That is, I was until today.
Two Fridays ago, American University College Republicans invited Gov. Jan Brewer to speak on campus. In response to her presence, a number of individuals, myself included, organized a demonstration against the legislation she has implemented in Arizona. As Governor, she has supported not only SB 1070, the controversial bill that codified racial profiling into the Arizona criminal justice system, but additional legislation HB 2281, which bans the teaching of multicultural studies.
In both instances the laws have been crafted to place immense pressure on enforcers of the law, police officers and schoolteachers and to conform to a racist ideology which vilifies Latinos as ‘illegal’ because of their immigration status.
This culture of racism has directly affected students at AU and across the United States, and to show opposition to this culture, we disrupted her event. Controversy ensued.
However, this is really the beginning to the story, a story that while not unique to The American University, defines our campus every day.
This academic year, organizations on campus such as the College Republicans and the Youth for Western Civilization have organized multiple events targeting certain demographics with hateful programming and consistently pushed rhetoric that targets AU students with personal attacks.
On the Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah, the AUCRs hosted a pig roast on the Quad titled the Carnivore Initiative, affirming their “right to eat meat.” I suppose this was a show of bravado against the vegetarians and vegans on campus trying to “force feed” them greens or the folks of the Jewish faith who were observing a High Holiday “too faithfully.”
On the first day of Latino History Month, AUCRs fliered the campus with posters as part of their Anti-Che Day. While there perhaps needs to be a discussion of Che Guevara’s status in pop culture, the event was targeted too specifically to be anything less than racism and intimidation.
We are a campus that prides itself on our diversity. Many voices exist at AU, and allowing them to be heard is of the utmost importance. But there is a difference between free speech and intimidation – dialogue and hate.
AU students on the whole vehemently oppose racism, but in practice we refuse to admit our hand in perpetuating it. It happens every day in our classrooms, dorms and apartments. But we instead blind ourselves with the next electoral race or internship on the Hill or prestigious speaker. It’s easier, and we have all done it, but we can no longer make those excuses. Not if we care about our fellow students.
I am not immune either. As College Dems President, no matter which issue we faced I tried to argue that the organization should stand by the principles of the Democratic Party to stand up for those marginalized by economic inequality, racism and gender and sexuality norms.
And yet time and time again, be it in the call for sexual assault education on campus or in the face of targeted racism, the organization I love stood silent. It was easier to play politics, to spin the story or dodge the question, than it was to stand up for our beliefs.
We did everything that Congress does, and then we went back to our dorms and wondered about our spineless politicians: how the agency of a woman could be rolled back, how fair access to health care be challenged and how laws limiting the freedom of Americans, be them undocumented workers in Arizona or union firefighters in Wisconsin, could be passed.
But it starts here. It starts with our own attitudes. The politicos on AU’s campus, myself included, saw it only as a game to be played and a line on a resume – not the very future of our country. We took the easy path and oppression perpetuated itself.
Our campus should be a safe place for all of our students. However, it isn’t when certain groups continually harass certain demographics of students. Gov. Jan Brewer’s unchallenged presence on campus represented this tacit approval of hate.
After a semester of feeling abandoned by the campus at large, disrupting Jan Brewer’s speech seemed like the only way to send this message. How do we live by the beliefs we all are so quick to espouse? Paul Wellstone once said, “If we don’t fight hard enough for the things we stand for at some point we have to recognize that we don’t really stand for them.”
As of today, I am resigning from the College Democrats, an organization I dearly love but of which I am also ashamed.
Our political lives begin today, and I know the AU community can address the real issues of oppression here on campus, if we stand by our beliefs. They run much deeper than a single banner or speech or op-ed.
Chris Litchfield is a Junior in SPA/CAS.
