The hate speech and its results, events that rocked the Bowdoin campus in the weeks before Spring Break, have definitely left a scar. I am hopeful that tempers have cooled in the intervening weeks, but we should not let the events be forgotten. Bowdoin is not a place of hate and intolerance, but there are definitely ways in which we as a student body can improve. The events should encourage us to work harder to understand each other, regardless of our backgrounds.
However, it is important to remember that bias at Bowdoin and bias within the Bowdoin community is very different from bias in the Brunswick community. There is little that we can do about the latter save for fostering better communication with the town, and it is important to remember that the incident has nothing to do with the town; this is a Bowdoin-specific issue, and should be treated as such. Anecdotes about negative interactions with Brunswick residents have little relevance.
In order to deal with this situation, we thus have to work on integration and understanding within the Bowdoin community. As students, we need to work on creating togetherness, not exclusivity, in the name of diversity. Unfortunately, I think the many students' reactions to the hate speech have been counterproductive.
The protest that occurred just before break is a good example: it was meant to promote acceptance, but all it did was create another division on campus. I do not think poorly of anyone who did attend the protest, but I have gotten extremely negative responses from students who did attend when I told them I disagreed with it.
Bowdoin needs to draw closer as a campus, not fragmented further into social splinters. If such protests are not the solution, what are we to do? Bowdoin students simply need to be less exclusive. This is especially important after extreme events, but the same sentiment extends to everyday matters.
Student groups need to stop hosting events that reek of exclusivity. Sure, no one is going to be told to leave from an event hosted by any group, but that does not mean people are going to be made to feel welcome.
Students need to ensure that the events they organize promote unity. No one should be told they have to broaden their friend group if they do not want to, but if something is advertised for the entire school it needs to really be open to anyone who would be interested.
Events dealing with certain cultures should be open to all, discussions of sexuality should be open to students of all orientations and New Englanders should not feel like they cannot go to "international" or "multicultural" events because their presence would be "weird."
That is the core of the issue. I am not blaming the events before break on feelings of "weirdness," but the emotion of discomfort certainly lies at the heart of social fragmentation at Bowdoin.
Unfortunately, this means that the way forward is not clear-cut and easy. Yes, some events or student groups could be named differently, but that would not accomplish much: there are plenty of examples of cultural groups holding successful campus-wide events.
What we need to do as students is to work to see others' viewpoints. We can all do this when it comes to writing papers and picking apart academic arguments, and a degree of empathy is essential in class. What we have to do, then, is apply it to the rest of our lives.
Bowdoin is an exceptional school in many ways. We should just apply the same characteristics that make us special to areas outside of the academic. And if we work on eliminating exclusion, then we will only grow stronger.
Growing closer as a campus will not eliminate the hate speech and the responses to it from history, but it will help stop such events from happening in the future. Bowdoin should be a place of respect, and respect springs of mutual understanding.