Get ready: The Harvard Crimson reports that “deeply disturbing and offensive images” were discovered on a whiteboard in the McKinlock residence hall.
Photos sent to the student paper purport to show racist comments alongside a pair of faces, “one labeled ‘Black’ and the other ‘Other blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, Jews.’” A search of social media does not yet reveal the images.
Also written on the whiteboard were the terms “globalists,” “caravan,” and “Soros,” the last referring to billionaire progressive benefactor George Soros. As the culprits perhaps desired, the Crimson notes that “[i]n the lead up to the midterm elections, far-right politicians and pundits circulated a conspiracy theory that Soros was funding the caravan of immigrants traveling to the United States.”
Crimson contributor Jenna M. Gray told her roommate Malaaz Ghandour to report the graffiti to her tutor and the Leverett House deans, noting she “hadn’t really seen racialized comments before or anything directed at any particular ethnic group” on the board before “so it stood out to [her] in that way.”
Late Thursday evening, John L. Pulice III ’15, who serves as a tutor in McKinlock, wrote in an email to residents that House staff had brought the matter to the attention of the Harvard University Police Department. HUPD spokesperson Steven G. Catalano did not respond to a request for comment.
“I am sorry if any of you were also impacted by these – no community can or should tolerate hate-speech, least of all a community that is also our home,” Pulice wrote in his email. “If any of you would like to talk about this, I and other tutors are available.”
Pulice also wrote the drawings “appear to be part of a pattern” in McKinlock — a pattern Ghandour and Gray both said they recognized. The students said they had heard of another complaint by Leverett students in response to whiteboard drawings related to gender and sexuality.
Leverett Resident Dean Bilal A. Malik wrote in an email that while House administrators are looking into “how these drawings appeared,” their “first and foremost priority is working with our students and other community-members, to understand how they were impacted, and how we can help.”
In a small display of a journalist being an advocate, Gray complained that the university’s acknowledgment of the incident was “vague” and “sounded like a pretty standard response.”
She added “I haven’t heard really any action being taken or anyone being held accountable for what they wrote.”
Perhaps that’s because officials haven’t identified a suspect yet. And if this situation is like many other college “hate” events — including the Harvard Law School “black tape” debacle — the culprit never will be discovered.
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