Hate and prejudice at UNCG

According to the latest gossip circling around my residence hall (Phillips-Hawkins Hall, pictured right), there was supposedly a hate incident that occured last week. From what I have heard a girl had a swastika and the word “nigger” written on her door.

The rumors are backed up with posters about a “Stop the Hate” hall program, stating “Did you know that a hate incident occured in Phillips-Hawkins last week?” Although the posters do give credence to the fact that something happened, it just doesn’t say what happened. I’ll bring more information on the incident when I find it out.

And since I don’t have all that much information concerning the hate incident, now is the time for me to rant:

The “Stop the Hate” Program is one run, I believe, primarily through the UNCG Office of Multicultural Affairs. Although the brochures on it include sexual orientation in list of categories that are sometimes used as biases or prejudices in hate crimes or incidents, I haven’t seen much work on LGBT issues by the “Stop the Hate” program or by our Office of Multicultural Affairs either.

UNCG PRIDE! has tried to work with them before and while some of the responsibility of working with the office does lie on the shoulders of those of us who are working in the group, I really do think the ball has been tossed to the other team now. LGBTQA students have been working on this campus for going on 32 years. UNCG PRIDE! was started as the Gay Student Union in 1974 and although we have had many name changes, we are still here. UNCG PRIDE!, as far as we know, is the one of the oldest LGBTQA student groups in the nation and is the oldest LGBTQA student group in the State of North Carolina.

UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke and even NC State offer some sort of official recognition of LGBT issues: all three have some sort of an LGBTQA student center, office or program department. At Wake Forest University, the school gave their Gay-Straight Student Alliance their own lounge in the student center.

I don’t know what it is about UNCG. There has only been one event that I can remember doing with an official University office/department. I just really wish we had more support and I really, really wish we could have an office of LGBT students or an LGBTQA resource center like some of the other schools around our state.

Another thing I want to rant about is the difference between the University’s reaction to the hate occurence in my residence hall this year compared to my experiences last year in Weil-Winfield. I was a freshman last year and almost every day… sometimes more than once or twice a day, the white board on my door or the door itself would be covered in hate messages based upon my sexual orientation. Many times, some of the materials I placed on my door (bumper stickers or smalls signs and such) were ripped down or defaced. When I complained about it the only thing the staff was willing to do was talk to the residents during a hall meeting. At one point I was even told that I was making the situation worse (a sort of “You are creating your own problem” statement) by having the pro-LGBT materials on my door.

While the hate incident based on race in Phillips-Hawkins has received immediate reactive efforts from the University’s Housing and Residence Life and Office of Multicultural Affairs officials, my experiences were largely ignored. Where’s the justice in that?

UNCG is in grave danger of losing its title as an accepting and comfortable place for LGBT students and other minorities unless University officials step up now and start to recognize some of these issues.

Many people say that UNCG is UNC-Gay… my response to that: Not really.