EDITORS' CORNER
OPINION
A red cross and a reference to a 15th century French duke has caused an uproar at Northwestern University as LGBT students and professors fear for their safety.
Around Jan. 6, someone painted a “Cross of Burgundy” and wrote “CHARLES THE BOLD DUKE OF BURGUNDY 10 NOV 1433 — 5 JAN 1477” over a “trans flag” on campus. Students regularly paint over “The Rock” with various messages.
Even though the first person to report the cross did not know what it meant, she felt unsafe for her life.
“Something felt really off, and that visual cue, especially on a memorial for a trans student, just felt like something was wrong up there,” Smith Yarberry told The Daily Northwestern. Yarberry is gender-confused, sometimes just goes by “S.” and uses “they” pronouns. Her real name is “Sofia.”
The flag caused an immediate reaction as Yarberry, a “sixth-year English Ph.D. candidate” who writes “erotic” poetry,” and other LGBT individuals and allies jumped into action.
“Concerned students and faculty worked together over email chains in the following days to research the markings and allusion to the duke of Burgundy,” the student newspaper reported. “Others reached out to Student Affairs separately to notify the University about the symbol.”
The “chevroned X,” “was adopted by a Spanish pro-fascist group in the 20th century,” the team of researchers concluded.
“It’s one thing to go repaint the entire rock white with a red (symbol) and take away the trans memorial,” Yarberry (pictured) told the student newspaper. “But to use the trans memorial as the backdrop for a symbol associated with Nazism and fascist ideologies, that is a very political statement.”
While Yarberry and others were painting over the X, “a student approached them and took responsibility for painting the cross.”
“[T]he student mostly defended the decision as solely expressing interest in the duke of Burgundy. The person did not identify themself,” the newspaper reported.
That was not enough for the aggrieved LGBT members and allies, some of whom connected it to their broader problems with Northwestern.
Last November, the university agreed to provide single-sex changing and showering options for female students as part of a deal to unfreeze $790 million in research funding frozen by the Trump administration. Its hospital and medical school also agreed to continue to not commit transgender surgeries on minors.
Critics, including the community of red cross researchers, said the school capitulated, connecting the deal with the Trump administration to the decision by administrators to not intervene further about the painted rock.
“Second-year English graduate student Annie Howard [who] works with Yarberry at the Workshop in Trans Studies,” called the symbol “very degrading and cruel.”
Howard said the university’s deal with Trump “shows the natural consequences of these top-down decisions that make us more vulnerable, and then it just sort of emboldens this kind of cruel behavior.”
In other words, someone who had a random fascination with the Duke of Burgundy painted the cross because of the university’s deal with Trump. Makes sense if you don’t think about it.
A postdoctoral fellow said “it is offensive” regardless of the intent.
“The context of the deployment of these terms matters,” Adam Syvertsen, a postdoctoral fellow said. “Whether or not the student intended this to be offensive, it is offensive, right? Simply because this symbol has meanings that they may or may not have been aware of — meanings that are very hostile to queer students.”
Yet, it was not “hostile” enough for Yarberry, the “trans poet,” to recognize it right away.
Not a very effective hate crime if no one knows what it means
Having covered hate crime (hoaxes) for years now, it would appear to me the goal of identity-based crime is to cause fear and intimidate people of a certain race, religion, or sexual orientation to feel unsafe.
Even hate crime hoaxers understand this, which is why the threats they concoct are straightforward: “F N-word, Trump Rules,” one faked, hateful note read, for example. “BLACK PEOPLE DON’T BELONG,” a Southern Illinois University Edwardsville hate crime hoax perpetrator allegedly wrote. The message is clear, even if it is crude and offensive.
The university thankfully did the right thing. Two administrators, “Assistant Vice President of Campus Inclusion and Community Tabitha Wiggins and Assistant Vice President for Wellness and Dean of Students Mona Dugo,” said the school “does not review, approve, or remove paintings (on The Rock) based on viewpoint.”
The administrators told Yarberry that they understood why the painting was “painful” but they would not be intervening – and that’s the right choice.
