AS WE PLAY Penn State on Thursday, there will be the obvious student unity against this on-field foe. However, there are also issues much larger than an athletic contest to consider as we go into this week.
Here at the University, we enjoy the freedom to conduct our lives largely free from fear, as we seek to better ourselves through education. While these are liberties we take for granted daily, many students at Penn State, notably over the past year, have not been accorded this right.
On Oct. 6, 2000, Penn State Black Caucus President LaKeisha Wolf received the first letter in a series of hate mail, referencing the PSU football team's lack of usual success as a point of criticism for all black students at Penn State, and Wolf in particular. After taking the situation to the police, Wolf was told that several football players had also received threatening letters.
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Please be cautioned of the disturbing nature of this letter. It appears below, slightly condensed. "You niggers are all the same ... You keep your trap shut or we'll shut it for you. Niggers are to be seen and not heard. Learn your place or leave ...You taint everything you touch and now you can't even win a goddamn football game. So who needs you now! Like it or leave, black loud mouth bitch." The letter then becomes extremely threatening: "We ought to tar and feather you. Black slut! Eat shit and die NIGGER!"
On Oct. 16, 2000, continued hate mail targeted Wolf, a university football player and a black school trustee. Two days later, several hundred students and university community members organized a silent protest to discuss issues of racism and threatening letters at the university.
Part of the drive for this protest came from disturbing memories of the November of 1999, when at least 68 students received a threatening e-mail, followed by a second wave of similar hate e-mail to at least 24 students a few days later.
Throughout the course of the next several months, Penn State students and the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus worked with PSU administrators in revisiting the university's commitment to diversity, formulated as far back as 1994. The university, up until that point, had not been meeting its own goals as laid out in "A Framework to Foster Diversity at Penn State: 1998-2003" for completion by 2003.
In an April 20 letter threatening Wolf's life, the anonymous writer boasted of killing an adult black male and leaving his body on Mt. Nittany, a nearby mountain in the woods surrounding Happy Valley, Pa., as well as a bomb threat during graduation. Approximately 40 students collaborated in a sit-in during PSU's Blue-and-White Spring Game by rushing the field in order to draw attention to the lukewarm administrative response to such a perilous situation.
Building off of such efforts from courageous students, over 4,000 students, faculty, staff and other activists pooled resources for a march, persuading PSU President Graham Spanier to meet with 15 students in the Hertzel Union Building. A procession of students followed Spanier's company into the HUB to await the outcome of the discussion. After an unsatisfactory end to the discussion that day, hundreds of students remained in the HUB in protest, with several students even beginning a hunger strike.
Five days after Wolf received the second hate letter, the body of an adult black male was found in nearby Bradford County. Though not where the letter bragged that authorities would locate the body of a black male, it eerily echoed the same sentiment, striking fear into the hearts of many at PSU.
Only two days later, the body of another black male was found within 20 miles of the PSU, in nearby Centre County. This was the first murder of a black male in the county in more than 30 years. A university-sponsored investigation into the matter, described as "superficial" by some students, claimed that this murder was not related to the prior death threats, but many students felt their lives to be jeopardized by the volatile atmosphere in Happy Valley.
"We at Penn State are thoroughly disheartened by the administrative and police responses to these issues governing our safety. They are actively disassociating the events in question with our situation here, while students remain in fear of their lives," said Queen Nworisa, a senior at Penn State, in a personal interview.
We as students have a responsibility to plead the cause of our peers, especially in an environment of such blatant intolerance and bold ignorance. This coming weekend, there will be a national rally in State College to offer encouragement for our fellows at Penn State.
Given our game against Penn State here Thursday, we are presented with the momentous opportunity of showing our support to a campus plagued by the monsters of racism and hatred. It is our responsibility as students, with the power to help change this situation for the better, to capitalize on these circumstances. Our silence resounds loudly in the favor of similar intolerance. To pass up such an occasion as is afforded us this Thursday would be equally as offensive as the injustices perpetrated on the Penn State campus.
We ask that the student body, faculty, staff and other community members join us in chanting, "No hate at Penn State" before every fourth down.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," said Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
(Tim Lovelace and Ambrose Olumuyiwa Faturoti are third-year College students.)
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