“F*ck your Feelings”
This blog post is dedicated to the students of Hanover College as a show of support and as an assertion that they are a vital part of our community. On Sunday, October 25th there was a Trump Parade in Jefferson County Indiana. It was organized by a group called “The Sons and Daughters of Liberty” and was advertised on Facebook. The parade of approximately 150 vehicles flying various flags supporting Donald Trump included Hanover College on their route, and despite most campus roads being privately maintained, they didn’t notify the college or ask permission. They did not make their route public, so there was no opportunity for the college to know they were coming. The lack of consent for the parade would have been concerning enough, but when I saw a message from a faculty member that detailed occurrences of harassment from parade participants towards students including spitting and telling a student of color to “Go back where they came from,” I was horrified. Imagine that horror leveling up when I saw that the parade participants continued the harassment online while making claims that there was no harassment, calling our students and the professor liars. I understand all to clearly what these students experienced, and I wasn’t even present at the parade. Behold, a blog dedicated to outlining the shameful harassment culture that exists in Jefferson County, Indiana and why we as a community must address it.
The Professor.
I like to start with positive evidence when I am outlining terrible things, and I am starting by fortifying the credibility of the professor that raised the concern publicly. I am kind of an expert on professors, and I don’t throw the word expert out there lightly. I grew up with a father that was a college faculty member. Many of my parents’ friends were professors when I was growing up, so as a child I probably spoke more to professors than I did to any other adults. I benefited from relationships with many professors in achieving both a Bachelors and a Masters degree. I worked as a staff member in Hanover College’s Office of Admission for 12 years, and we worked with faculty to help prospective students understand whether or not our faculty would be a good fit for the kind of educational experience they were seeking. Living on a college campus means that most of my neighbors are faculty, so I am literally surrounded by professors! For about 9 years I even worked in a social justice scholarship program where I mentored students over their 4 years at the College, meeting with them regularly and learning about their experiences with faculty. I am spending all of these words outlining my expertise because the professor in question fits into a category of some of the highest and most solemn respect that I could offer to another human.
There are many professors that students complain to, but often no action is ever taken to address the complaints. This professor is the kind of professor that students go to when they need support that is sympathetic and leads to actionable change in our campus community. This professor does not take that role lightly and does not abuse the power that their voice holds. They are thoughtful, kind, approachable, and trustworthy. This professor will not be named here because they saw an undue amount of online harassment from raising the issue to the public, and they even had to make their facebook profile private to stop the onslaught of hate they were getting in response to their statement.
2. The College.
Hanover College was on the secret Trump Parade route for a specific reason, as stated in a WDRB interview by parade organizer Rick Berry,
“We went to the College because Mike Pence was an alumni there.”
Parade organizers Rick Berry, Greg Sanders, Lisa Seng Shadday, Rick Reuss, and Chris Shelton thought it was pride for their Vice-President that brought the parade to Hanover College’s campus. In my opinion, it was actually entitlement and the desire to harass one of the most diverse and “liberal” parts of our community. Why else not release the route publicly? Why else not ask for permission to travel on private property with heavy pedestrian traffic? Why else not notify the college that the loud and disruptive parade would interrupt the biggest study day of the week? Why else not honor the alma mater of Mike Pence with a simple, head’s up?
When Hanover College President Lake Lambert made a statement about the parade, the Hanover College Alumni Facebook Page posted the statement because many alumni were concerned about what actions were being taken to support students. This will be a long blog, so I will not share President Lambert’s statement here. What I will share is the statement that the Hanover College Alumni Office shared after they removed the statement from the President from their Facebook page,
“Hanover College will not allow hateful, threatening, harassing, abusive, defamatory statements on this website. The rules are posted and can be reviewed if needed.
The comments from the post from President Lake Lambert has been deleted. Offenders and or non-alumni will be removed.”
How am I supposed to believe that no harassment happened when 150 vehicles drove through campus if a statement about the parade was met with enough harassment that the College had to remove an entire post and re-work their rules and permissions to their Alumni page? From working at the college, and at times directly with social media, I know that the overarching policy with social media is to not remove posts for the sake of transparency. Apparently the level of harassment was so high and toxic that they made an exception to that policy in this case.
3. Freedom Fridays. (Trigger Warning: Racist language)
Harassment has become a weekly occurrence for me. Every Friday I meet friends by the Jefferson County Indiana Courthouse in Madison, and as traffic passes we hold signs that say “Black Lives Matter,” “Justice for Breonna Taylor,” and “Honk for Justice.” We get a lot of honks, and like the Trump Parade we see quite a few middle fingers. That isn’t all we see and hear. There is real harassment in the mix, so yes, harassment can come from a moving vehicle. I compiled a list of some of the statements we have heard and gestures we have seen here:
Gestures: White Power hand symbols, Nazi Salutes, sexual hand gestures.
Vocal feedback: “All Lives Matter,” “White Lives Matter,” “Black Lives Don’t Matter,” “F-ing N-word Lovers,” “Communists,” “Terrorists,” “Racists,” “Trump 2020.”
I am sure there are more, but these are some of the worst and most common. Despite all of this, I will keep showing up at Freedom Friday because I don’t want my community to forget about the injustice of Breonna Taylor’s story. The fact that we keep showing up despite this harassment doesn’t make those words and gestures okay. I have enough fear from this harassment to not feel completely safe in my community, but I will keep going back because it is scarier to me to just let the ugliness stay under the radar and unopposed. The description of what happened on Hanover’s campus is completely believable to me because I have personally seen similar actions in our community. I have much more to share about our experiences at Freedom Friday, but that is for another blog post.
Photography isn’t the best way to capture the hateful language and gestures that are directed at protesters, but these gestures and faces illustrate my point.
4. Virtual Harassment.
You may have already picked up on the pattern of harassment that occurs online. On top of the posts removed by Hanover College and the Hanover College Professor due to harassment through social media, there is already an impressive record of online harassment in other venues. Our county hosts an assortment of online “gossip” forums. You would think that one gossip forum is one too many, but Jefferson County is just that dedicated to gossip. From what I have been told, there are multiple gossip groups because there is so much vitriol, racism, and hatred that segments of gossipers defect and start their own gossip groups. The bullying bleeds into all forms of social media. I can’t possibly share all of the harassment I have seen online, especially in online statements where friends and I have been asking to change our local School nickname, the Rebels. We have received so many requests for us to leave the community if we don’t like the school nickname, that I am surprised that no one has offered to buy us houses in another county or state.
The other day when I shared my initial anger about the Trump Parade harassment, I got some private messages out of the blue. I recognized the person as someone who had in a public statement referred to our Retire The Rebel group as Communist, Marxist, Terrorists. Here is how they started their first ever private message to me:
These are the words of someone who claims that students definitely didn’t get harassed at a Trump Parade, and that there is definitely no connection to the word Rebels and the racist history of the Confederacy.
5. Bad Words.
I am secretly terrible at cussing. I try occasionally, but those words just don’t come naturally. I decided to use “F*ck Your Feelings” as the title for this blog for a few reasons. If you know me, you know that it isn’t something that you would expect me to say, so it was partly to act as click bait. Did it work? If you don’t like that word, be warned that you are about to see it unedited and in all of its terrible glory.
The other reason I used this word was to make my final point. This phrase is a quote from one of the flags displayed in the Trump Parade. A quick google image search will give you plenty of examples of what it may have looked like:
Parade organizer, Rick Berry, said in a WDRB interview about the purpose of the parade,
“You know, the purpose of these things is to drum up enthusiasm, get out the vote. These things are a lot of fun. A lot of patriotic people, lot of friendly people.”
I tried, but with messages like “Fuck Your Feelings” displayed in the parade, I just don’t see how that encourages voting, expresses patriotism, or evokes friendliness. It does speak to harassment, intolerance, and a refusal to have real conversations. Our community is struggling with so many things including high rates of suicide, homelessness, addiction, food scarcity, and more. How is “Fuck your Feelings” a non-controversial message displayed at a political parade organized in part by a city official? Even if not one word was said to student at Hanover College, “Fuck Your Feelings” is harassment enough.
Election day is fast approaching, and soon we will know who will be President for the next four years. No matter what the outcome of the election, I know that there will never be enough “Just Be Kind” signs to go around to make this community truly kind. Whenever you have to remind your community to “Be” something, you have to assume that the community needs this reminder. We can’t be a welcoming community if our best efforts for communication are put into gossip forums and the requests for change are limited to the indirect approach of yard signs. We can’t be the community that we claim to be, if this issue is not addressed. COVID-19 is certainly exasperating this situation, but we all know that this problem isn’t new to 2020.
It is time for community leaders to lead in this effort. When it comes to business development, tourism, and college recruitment, one of the keys to success is having a welcoming community. Hanover College students of color put together a petition this week asking their College to take steps to make them feel safer, or they would not return to campus for the next semester. We can’t tell them to not feel fear or unwelcome because their feelings are valid due to the experiences they have had. Just as colleges need to recruit and retain students, our industries need to recruit and retain talent, and our local businesses want to entice tourists to visit and spend money. We aren’t going to maintain ourselves as a “Stellar Community” if we don’t take some accountability and address this rampant toxic behavior. Caring about each other, especially our feelings, is what community is all about. Any excuse that our leaders could make to avoid this issue is only further assurance that it must be addressed. This is your call to action Jefferson County. Communicate to our leaders about taking steps to facilitate community conversations and assert that harassment does not belong in our community.
