The Daily Tar Heel
Printing news. Raising hell. Since 1893.
Friday, March 29, 2024 Newsletters Latest print issue

We keep you informed.

Help us keep going. Donate Today.
The Daily Tar Heel

Letter: The power of being shoulder to shoulder

TO THE EDITOR:

This past Friday, I went to the rally held on the steps of the South Building where UNC students from The Real Silent Sam Coalition and others were speaking their fear and anger. They spoke candidly about the lack of support they’ve felt from the administration. They spoke about how isolating the UNC campus experience can be and about the chronic stress of not feeling welcomed. Hearing their words, I pictured a disconnected community: especially as one speaker highlighted the blatant segregation of UNC’s fraternities.

About halfway through the demonstration, a woman took the stage and warned us that for 10 seconds we were going to be uncomfortable. She then instructed us to find someone who didn’t look like us and lock arms with that person. The student next to me quickly turned and offered me her arm. She is black, I am white. I was so grateful that I had someone to link up with. We stood together as the speaker talked about how essential it is that we “... have each other’s back” and get closer to each other. She pointed out how most people had to do a lot of shifting to find someone who didn’t look like them because we often cluster ourselves in racially homogeneous groups. I’ve noticed this throughout my education and have been complicit in it at times. I’ve seen tables in the lunchroom completely segregated by race and/or ethnicity. The conversations that I’ve been part of haven’t always had a diversity of experiences and perspectives, leaving me uncertain of how to connect.

Strangely or magically or because neither one of us were sure what to do, the woman who I locked arms with during that one short speech didn’t let go of me until the rally was over half an hour later. Standing by her I felt accepted and receptive. I heard, in a way that I hadn’t before, the pain that the students on stage were expressing because I felt connected to it.

If schools and we as individuals maintain connection with each other as a top priority, it will be harder for us to forget that, as one speaker referenced from the rally stage, “Whatever is done to the least of us is done to all of us.”

Right before I sat down to write about the day, a text message came in from my mom: “Paris in chaos, thought you should know, you may want to email and make sure everyone is alright.” Numerous attacks across the city have left over 100 people dead and the country in a state of emergency. I listened to President Barack Obama addressing the nation in response to yet another wave of terrorist acts: “This is an attack on all of humanity and the universal values that we share ... France is our oldest ally. The French people have stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States time and time again.” Besides my mother and father, my closest family is in France. There have been countless bombings and terrorists attacks in the past few years, but I find myself saddened and angered in a new way because Paris and France are part of my heart, of who I am. 

Until we get close enough to connect, we won’t have each other in our hearts and feel real pain when one of us is hurt. I don’t want to be able to turn away from someone’s sadness and fear when they’ve been wronged like Black students of UNC were by the Confederate protest that was recently allowed on our campus. As one student from the stage pointed out: “It was an act of terrorism — I use the word terrorism because I was terrified.”

Let’s start eradicating terrorism at home. I don’t mean with physical violence, I mean by never again condoning a “Confederate rally” and maintaining a priority of protecting the lives and well-being of our students.

This isn’t just a job for the administration. There are many ways to confront structural racism, but honest friendship is a great way to begin bridging divides on an individual level. This is by no means the only work to be done, but it’s part of it, and so if we’re trying to integrate our communities (many of which are more racially isolated now than at the time of actual “integration”), let’s be brave enough to each take responsibility for the solution.

Katie J. Souris

Graduate Student

School of Public Health

To get the day's news and headlines in your inbox each morning, sign up for our email newsletters.