Amherst College: “Roasting Fat Ones Since 1847” [View all]

[redqueen]

http://acvoice.com/2012/10/08/amherst-college-roasting-fat-ones-since-1847/comment-page-1/#comment-1871

The administration opted not to punish the individual students responsible for the shirt but rather to hold an unadvertised, effectively closed-door discussion with a handful of students and frat members. According to a friend of mine who was present, the boys-will-be-boys type comments made prior to the meeting (“We were just a bunch of drunk guys sitting around on a Friday night designing the shirt”) were replaced by apology (“We didn’t mean to offend anyone”)—and then some confusion and discussion over the real impact of the offensive “joke.”

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The administration’s inadequate response to the t-shirt incident was not an anomaly and seems part of a larger pattern of forgiving instances of violence against women on campus. According to a Title IX committee meeting I attended last spring, Amherst has expelled only one student for rape in its entire history—and only after a criminal court sentenced him to time in jail. Meanwhile, our disciplinary committee has found other students guilty of sexual misconduct but ultimately permitted them to continue their Amherst educations. Faced with the non-choice of staying on campus with his/her rapist or leaving, many sexual assault survivors I know take time off, transfer, or drop out altogether. If the fundamental injustice of this doesn’t already make you cringe, consider this: Research has shown that rapists rape again and again; repeat offenders perpetrate nine out of ten campus rapes, and thus continue to pose a threat to students.

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But many more of us are to blame. Everyone who knew about that shirt—regardless of if they bought it, wore it, praised it, or privately condemned it—is at fault. Hundreds of us saw or heard about it and did nothing. We didn’t speak up. We didn’t write about it. We didn’t demand justice or discussion. If we were outraged—and I’m sure many of us were—we didn’t voice it.

Had the t-shirt depicted a pig roasting an African American (or a Jew or a Native American), I believe the students responsible would have faced punishment. At the very least, there would have been public outrage. Articles would have flooded The Student and The Indicator. It might even have made national news.

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Often when women raise these issues for discussion, we are met with cries that we aren't helping, we are only giving horrible people attention, and that it is really better to stay silent, as if ignoring the problem will make anything better. This woman disagrees, and so do I.