On Thursday morning, the entrance to Weyerhaeuser and part of Whitworth University’s Hello walk was covered with chalk being used to protest.
Touching on themes of racism and injustice, students covered the sidewalk with quotes and Bible verses in protest against political commentator, Stephen Davis, who was invited to give a talk on campus by the Whitworth Turning Point USA Club.
“I was feeling very distressed by the fact that we are inviting speakers to spread misinformation and don’t have credentials about what they’re speaking about,” explained Sophia Anderson, a student at Whitworth who put the protest together. “It’d be one thing if the speaker had an education in sociology, or political science, or history even, and yet he seems to lack all of those things. I found that really interesting and counterintuitive to our mission statement, because we claim to want to support a diverse body of students and an education of mind and heart, but how can you do that if you’re promoting misinformation and anti-intellectualism?”
At 8 p.m. on Wednesday, students like Anderson, as well as members of the Polynesian Club and Black Student Union (BSU) joined together in protest. They wrote quotes like “Our lives end the day we become silent about things that matter” by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, and other statements like “Denial is easier than addressing your ignorance”.
Stephen Davis came to campus to talk about Critical Race Theory as a “con.” Anderson explained that “his whole deal is that systematic racism isn’t real”. However, Anderson emphasized that for people of color, systematic racism is real, and you cannot just ignore it. “This is our reality, and negating that and inviting people to discredit that isn’t going to help anyone”.
“This is someone that wants to defund Black Lives Matter”, explained BSU member Vernon Glass. “We’re a university that wants to promote diversity and promote how diversity can engage into belonging. I don’t think it would be helpful at all if we invite (Stephen Davis) here”.
The point of the protest was not only to voice concerns from the people of color community and express their disapproval of the Turning Point speaker, but to facilitate meaningful dialogue among students. The community hoped that the protest would urge students to critically think about the messages they’re consuming as well as their validity.
