Alexis Reape ’16 spoke in Chapel on February 26th about the crime of hate speech in the forms of slurs at EA and in society as a whole. Linked is the video of the Chapel service and below is her speech.
What is a legacy? Anyone who’s had the misfortune of speaking with me over the past six months has probably heard this question, usually in tandem with something I have to say regarding my extensive feelings on the musical Hamilton.
And it’s true. I have a lot of feelings about this musical. Hamilton is about the life of the first US secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton. People worldwide have become enamored with this musical, and to date, it’s sold out through next January. The entire time, Alexander Hamilton and friend-turned-political adversary Aaron Burr struggle to make their mark on the world and leave our fledgling country with a promising future.
Alexander Hamilton is practically defined by his death in a medieval-style duel, and, of course, his face on the $10 bill; Aaron Burr’s legacy is that, as vice president of the United States, he shot and killed Alexander Hamilton, branding himself as a social outcast and ending his already struggling political career.
As Burr and Hamilton struggle with the idea of their legacies over the course of a 2 and a half hour soundtrack, I began to think about the mark I’m leaving behind on the place where I have spent the vast majority of my life.
I’ve attended this school for the past 14 years. From Pre-K in Wetherill House to activity periods in the college guidance office, it’s been a wild 14 years. While thinking about the fact that I am about to leave, I’ve thought about all the highs and lows of my time here. Since it’s been such a long time, I have some things I regret. I have mistakes I’ve made which I’m not proud of, as I’m sure we all do.
One of the most persistent regrets I have, regarding things I did or chose not to do, comes from EA/Haverford day 2015.
Earlier this year I attended my fourteenth and final EA/Haverford day. It was chilly out, as usual for November, but despite the cold I was still having a pretty great time, as I’m sure most of us were. I was hanging out with my friends, and scored a seat in the stands for a truly phenomenal water polo game, and overall was just really enjoying the day. However, that all changed in a second.
It was at the football game. During a lull in cheers halfway through the third quarter, a person a couple of rows behind me took the opportunity to shout a homophobic slur at a member of the Haverford team, choosing to call a player on the other team a faggot.
I hate that word. I hate that I just had to say it. It’s an ugly word with a deplorable history, which I’ll get into in a bit, and anyone who has ever been to PRISM, EA’s Gender-Sexuality Alliance, knows this. It’s 2016, and we’re all old enough that I shouldn’t have to point out that being queer isn’t an insult and you shouldn’t use it as such. I also shouldn’t have to point out that calling some a “faggot” is rude, unnecessary, and hateful.
But because I was trying to have a nice day and because I was with my friends, I chose not to say anything. I decided to figure out the person’s name and talk to them after. I asked the people to my immediate left and right, but they didn’t know the person’s name, and by the time I turned back around, they had disappeared back into the crowd. I couldn’t pick them out.
I’ve regretted my decision to stay silent nearly every day since then. By staying silent, I validated their actions and, through my lack of action, validated their views on the appropriateness of yelling homophobic slurs.
And since I didn’t say anything then, I’d like to take the opportunity to say something now.
To the person who thought it was appropriate to yell homophobic slurs at a football game or on any other occasion:
I don’t know you. I don’t know your name, your grade, or your birthday. I don’t know if you’ve been at EA for 12 weeks or 12 years. I don’t know you, and you probably don’t know me. I don’t think I had ever encountered you before EA/Haverford day, and I don’t think I’ve encountered you since. Regardless, I feel it is necessary to share what I have to say.
Before I get into the events of EA/Haverford Day, I’d like to explain to all of you here what happens when you use hate speech –because homophobic slurs are hate speech, even if to you it’s “just a joke”. By definition, hate speech is speech that attacks, threatens, or insults a person or group on the basis of national origin, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability. And before I go further into this individual’s use of hate speech, I’d like to take a second to explain the history of the word “faggot”.
According to some sources, this word dates back to the Salem witch trials of the late 17th century. Homosexuals were hunted, killed and used as fire kindling, as they were deemed unworthy of a stake. The original meaning of “faggot” is a bundle of sticks, which soon became synonymous with homosexuals.
Today, just as then, “Faggot” is a slur, used primarily in the US and Canada to refer to gay men. The word is most frequently used by adolescents in an attempt to assert their authority and, in some cases, masculinity, but its use is more widespread than just that selective group.
Because there wasn’t the opportunity for you to explain your use of the word and why you thought it was appropriate, I’d like to explain to everyone what slurs and hate speech do to the people around you.
The instant you say a slur of any type, any positive atmosphere vanishes in a second. The second I heard you yell that someone was a “fag”, I wanted to leave. It didn’t matter to me that my friends and I were trying to make plans for after the football game, or that up until that moment, I had been having a great day. I wanted to exit the stands and go home.
You see, when you use hate speech, it’s not just targeted at the specific person you yelled it at. It’s targeted at the whole community. When you chose to call that player a fag, you didn’t just target the player in question, you targeted the entire LGBTQ+ community. You targeted people like Leelah Alcorn, a transgender teenager who killed herself at the age of 17 due to an overwhelming lack of acceptance both in her house and at her school. You targeted people like Matthew Shepard who, in 1998, was robbed, beaten, and tortured by two people he trusted, and was then tied to a fence and left to die. You targeted the 30+ transgender women of color who were murdered in the United States in 2015, including Keisha Jenkins, a 22 year old Temple University student who was beaten and shot by five men after exiting her car. It’s the same with all hate speech. You’re never really just targeting only one person.
This action is so much larger than the boy you yelled at or the friends you’re apparently trying to impress. Your hate speech makes EA an unsafe place, and your hate speech is an act of violence, whether you realize it or not.
I’m using EA/Haverford Day as an example, but as most of us know, this is not an isolated incident. We’ve all been to sporting events and we’ve all heard questionable cheers. We’ve walked down the hallways or into the locker rooms and heard people say hateful things. We’ve heard our friends say these things, and sometimes we’ve spoken up, but other times, we’ve stayed quiet.
That begs the question: what can we, as a school, as a community, as people, do?
During the past four years, if I’ve learned nothing else, I’ve learned that absolutely nothing will happen when no one has the courage to act. I got involved in LGBTQ+ rights and diversity because I realized that I couldn’t just wish for change; if I wanted anything at all to happen, I had to get involved myself and work towards a better future. I realize I can’t just sit and wait for someone else to do it for me, because that is the one way to guarantee that nothing will ever get done.
Should I have said something on EA/Haverford day? Yes. I should have stood up and been one the first to call out this student. But I didn’t, and I can’t change that. However, I also can’t change the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, nobody else said anything to this individual, either.
The fact of the matter is, no one in this room can change that day, or the countless days like it. However, we can prevent it from happening in the future. Before you speak, take a second and reflect: is this going to hurt the people I care about?
If someone points out to you that your language is hurtful or offensive to them, don’t just blow them off and claim that “political correctness” is destroying our country or something similar. Honestly, someone telling you that something you’re saying is hateful or offensive should be reason enough to stop, but I’m aware that that isn’t the case most of the time. When you get into any argument, try to sit and explain your views on both sides of the conversation. Talk, but listen as well. I know it’s difficult, and frustrating, and that the easiest thing is to just get up and leave the room. Don’t be afraid to stay in the room and have that difficult conversation. I will be the first person say that I sometimes struggle with this, but I promise you that things get better the longer you work at them, and I guarantee you that it’s worth it in the long run.
Don’t be afraid to tell your friends that they’re being rude or hurtful; trust me when I say I know that it’s hard enough to tell strangers, let alone the people you’re closest to. It’s hard to stand up to strangers, and even harder to stand up to your friends, but I believe in this and I believe in you.
In closing, I’d like to bring this back around to the legacy talk. Hamilton and Burr, damaged fundamentally by being orphaned at such young ages, struggled their entire lives trying to ensure that they would be remembered after their deaths. Ultimately, both were defined by their final actions.
I’d like to apologize in advance to anyone who’s about to see the show in the future because I’m about to ruin the one song that isn’t on the soundtrack. In the first act, the penultimate song is called “Laurens’ Interlude”. In the song, Alexander’s wife, Eliza, reads a letter from the father of a friend. The letter details the death of John Laurens, a close friend of Hamilton’s. The last line of the letter is something akin to “John’s dream dies with him”. Hamilton then stands up, knocking over his chair and removes his glasses, turning to his wife and declaring, “I have so much work to do”.
There is so much work to be done. My final EA/Haverford Day will always be marred by the memory of hate speech, and I think it’s important to think and talk about our legacies and the mark we’re leaving behind.
I like to think I’ve made some sort of difference throughout my 14 years here, even if just to a single person. I’m okay with that being my legacy. However, I encourage you also to ask yourselves: what will your legacy be?
Thank you.