Challenging Our Perspectives

The purpose of MLK Day is to honor the struggle for equality and Martin Luther King Jr.’s efforts to advance that struggle. PEA sets aside an entire day every academic year for its students to attend workshops to learn about King's impact on our world, a tremendous opportunity to internalize King’s dream for racial and social equality. In the past, the workshops have been run by many articulate speakers with interesting and thought-provoking stories to tell. Unfortunately, MLK day this year was tainted by the keynote speaker's racist, unprofessional speech and consequent Q&A workshop. Because Lourdes Ashley Hunter's poor behavior took attention away from our acknowledgement of King's achievements as well as the talents of the other speakers, Exeter squandered this chance. On MLK day this year, I was ashamed to be part of an audience that would stand and applaud for this kind of display.

In a speech in which she urged that the Academy be burned down (metaphorically, one hopes), Ms. Hunter contemptuously dismissed "pasty white people" and said that those in the audience who were melanin-deficient were unwelcome and should be confined to a few high-end vacation spots. She proceeded to even defame and humiliate a faculty member. During the Q&A workshop, when certain students questioned her propositions, she also shut them down because their white skin color supposedly made them unworthy of such responses. By belittling people who happen to have a similar skin color, Ms. Hunter’s behavior reflected that of the racists she criticized. In my experience, many students at Exeter also dismiss unpopular viewpoints as merely a product of an identity group that they have simplistically defined. And yes, as evidenced by Ms. Hunter's speech, whites, cisgender people, straight people and males are often deemed unworthy of serious consideration in talks about cultural tolerance.  Ms. Hunter's assumption that all whites can afford to go to “Aspen and Martha's Vineyard” is a perfect example of the existence of the stereotyping of such groups. To be white is not necessarily to be rich. Like all other races, whites are divided economically, politically, and socially. Focusing exclusively on racial identity ignores the vital issue of class and a wide array of defining traits.

Although many of Ms. Hunter's words offended me, I certainly don't object to PEA's accommodation of speakers whose views offend me.  In fact, I came to Exeter to be offended—to be presented with views that I find objectionable and to have my own views challenged. But, in refusing to answer students' respectful questions, Ms. Hunter destroyed any chance for discussion and debate. She violated the integral elements of an Exeter education, as well as the principle of free speech, which is crucial for any real intellectual inquiry. Ironically, Ms. Hunter's performance may have been an excellent lesson in that it clearly demonstrated silencing others is not the most effective way to persuade an audience of your cause.

Ms. Hunter's contemptuous derision of white people was particularly inappropriate on a day set aside to honor Martin Luther King's legacy. A vital ingredient of King's imperishable achievement was the enlistment of whites in the struggle to achieve racial equality. King famously appealed to what he insisted was their innate goodness and what he defined in his "I Have a Dream" speech as "the true meaning of [the American] creed." He directed that speech at a national white audience that held far more benighted views on race than do many whites in America today, and he specifically directed it at white southerners. In 1963, he could find it in his heart to enfold white southerners into his cause and to urge them to be true to their best selves. If, in 2018, Ms. Hunter can only offer what King called "the cup of bitterness and hatred" and exclude what might very well be the most progressively-minded white audience imaginable, then her proposed message will only amount to racial animosity and conflict.