This fall, the College of Arts & Sciences launched a new initiative called “Countering Hate: Overcoming Fear of Differences” in response to recent incidents of racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the UNC community.
“Last year there were a number of incidents that left students feeling vulnerable on campus to different currents of bigotry that we are seeing nationally,” said Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld, senior associate dean of social science and global programs and co-chairperson of the Countering Hate initiative.
Two of the most prominent controversies last year included the presence of Silent Sam on campus and claims that the Conflict over Gaza conference was anti-Semitic.
“Countering Hate is an effort to understand how certain kinds of bigotry and intolerance have become particularly virulent and dangerous in the ways they are intersecting and targeting multiple kinds of communities,” Colloredo-Mansfeld said.
To foster community and understanding as well as give students an opportunity to discuss difficult topics, the College of Arts & Sciences will sponsor various programming, including speakers, workshops and performances. The goal of the initiative’s programs is to bring a cross-section of the campus community into a shared moment of learning and conversation.
Linguistics professor Misha Becker co-hosted a public forum entitled Difficult Discourse: The Language of Confederate Monuments and Racial Conflict as part of the initiative's programming. The forum featured a panel of experts from various disciplines who discussed how people were talking about Silent Sam and the issues of race surrounding it.
Mostly attended by students, Becker said she was pleased with the discussion and questions asked.
“We just have to, I think, recognize that there is still so much inequality, still so much lack of connection and lack of understanding across groups of people that we just have to keep having these conversations,” Becker said.
Faculty, such as Elyse Crystall, a professor of English and comparative literature, will also teach courses linked to the initiative in the spring. Her course, Literature of Race, Literature of Ethnicity: Disposable People, Disposable Lives, will use various stories and accounts of racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in order to engage in a semester-long conversation about when, why and how these forms of hate erupt.