BUZZ
ANALYSIS: Do the spray-paintings mean what students, admins think they mean?
This past Monday, several students at Emory University were walking along the campus-adjacent Hearn Nature Trail when they discovered a “KKK” spray-painted on a tree.
The student paper Emory Wheel was good enough to remind its readers that the three letters “historically stands for the Ku Klux Klan.”
The as-yet unknown vandal(s) also spray-painted “FU” on a nearby tree trunk, and defaced a plaque dedicated to Professor Hoyt Oliver, who taught religion at the school’s Oxford College.
All of the graffiti occurred near a cemetery that holds the graves of Confederate soldiers.
The Wheel and university sprung into action upon receiving news of the desecrations; in its report, the Wheel included the content warning “This article contains references to hateful language directed toward minority groups.”
It also contained the advisory “If you or someone you know experienced hateful language or slur use,” followed by the phone numbers of the Emory Police, the Atlanta Police, Emory’s Counseling and Psychological Services, the Lines for Life Racial Equity Support Line, and the Trevor Project’s LGBTQ crisis support service.
In a campus-wide statement, Emory Deans Dean Badia Ahad and Darleny Cepin noted the graffiti was “removed immediately,” and that they were aware how the incident “can cause pain, fear, and anger,” among students who may “feel targeted” by it.
“[W]e want you to know that this does not reflect who we are as a community,” the deans said.
Oxford Student Government Association Executive Vice President Delaney Arnold called the vandalism “disgusting and embarrassing” and noted its “significance”: Emory’s campus was utilized as a Confederate military hospital in 1861.
“The fact that declarations like that are kind of marking Oxford as not a safe space for everyone is really concerning, especially with Oxford’s history and their role in the Civil War and a lot of the historical issues of being a university in the South,” Arnold said.
Curiously, it seems no one has yet considered that the “KKK” and “FU” spray-paintings might have been directed at the cemetery — which, as noted, contains the graves of Confederate soldiers.
At Emory back in January, an unknown person (or persons) trampled a very large n-word (“about five feet in height”) into the snow on the campus’ McDonough field … which also set off paroxysms of grief and despair.
The Wheel not only included trigger warnings in both of its articles, but blurred out a photo of the epithet. It even pointed to the United Nations’ definition of “hate speech” since Emory’s “Respect for Open Expression Policy” doesn’t “explicitly prohibit the use of any specific words or phrases.”
Emory’s Department of Equity and Civil Rights Compliance launched an investigation into the, er, snowing, and President Gregory Fenves said he heard from students “how shocked, horrified and hurt” they were.
The Emory Black Student Alliance called the snowing a “chilling act of hate” and accused university administrators and police of “fail[ing] to take meaningful action.”
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