This unsigned letter appeared across campus on November 15, 2016, a week after Donald J. Trump won the U.S. presidential election. On November 16, at School Meeting, twenty students (who names have been appended below) identified themselves as the letter’s authors.
To the Choate community:
This is not about politics. This is about human beings. Our grievances are not with Republicans, Democrats, or any group; rather, our grievances are with hatred we’ve experienced that should have no place on our campus.
The changes in the coming years will remain invisible to or act to the benefit of many. Many will be able to sit through Donald Trump’s time in office without consequence or oppression. However, this election is a fundamental attack on our existence as a predominantly marginalized and visible group of Choate students.
The droves of people who condone the vilification and scapegoating of minorities and women, either by voting for, supporting, or not speaking up against the rise of a movement have disregarded our lives. We are forced to reconcile ourselves with the knowledge that those who condone a candidate endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan exist in our classroom, around our dinner tables, and in our dorms.
Therefore, our tears, frustration, and anger respond not to partisan defeat but to a deep fear for our own humanity and that of our loved ones. We feel obligated to respond.
The oppressive ideologies that have come to forefront of America have persecuted us, accused us, and incited violence against many of us. We cannot unify unless each of us feels safe. We have composed a set of conditions that will be necessary to begin reversing years of our discomfort in this alien environment. These conditions are:
Our peers will respect our anger and pain. Insofar as this election has challenged our legal status, autonomy, and human decency, we reserve the right to grieve. We will expect our community to accept our emotions, to validate our struggle, and not to mock or belittle our desires for inclusion.
Our community will not harbor safe spaces for sentiments that oppose our very being. We assert that our mere presence in any area on campus should not be considered an attack on or invasion of a place in which we do not belong. Any clubs, organizations, or spaces whose integrity our presence compromises must evaluate why their existence depends on our exclusion. We will not continue to be foreigners in our home.
Our student body will not accept the right to free speech as an excuse for bigotry. We expect that those who support Donald Trump and his ideas will rigorously defend their part in the success of predatory rhetoric. Every day, many of us defend our perspectives and rights in a world of privileges with which we are not endowed. Now, we expect others in our community to explain why Trump’s repeated assaults on groups to which we belong did not invalidate his candidacy. Campus unity necessitates that we understand why our pleas have been overlooked.
We expect a distinction between the suppression of marginalized identities and the state of conservative students on our campus. The structural disadvantage minorities and women face is not analogous to the the marginal criticism from which conservatives claim to suffer. Because our suffering extends beyond this campus, we take offense to comparisons between our pain and that of intellectual minorities.
Students should not be shamed or denigrated for seeking support from the Choate faculty and administration. Adults in the community that may aid grieving students in this time should not be accused of endorsing a candidate or acting with partisan motivations. Students who feel threatened, unsafe, or fearful in the aftermath of the election deserve the support of adult figures on campus.
Only when the entire student body fulfills these conditions can we begin to feel safe and unified with the rest of the community.
Anselm Kizza Besigye
Antigone Ntagkounakis
Blair Cox
Caitlin Lawrence
Dilan Bozer
Eniitan Tejuoso
Haley WIlliams
Jaiden Cruz (can someone ask him)
Larisa Owusu
Lily James
Liza Mackeen-Shapiro
Lloyd Williams
Lucas Ferrer
Matt Lacey
Mohammed Memfis
Naomi Chang
Sophie Norton
Stephen Ankoue
Jerri Norman
Tomisin Oyinloye
