In Defense of the Protest

When three school employees dressed up as Trump’s border wall with “Make America Great Again” emblazoned on their bodies, it was an attack on the Latinx and immigrant communities on campus. Everyday atrocities are happening at the border in concentration camps where people our age are being held. 

Another girl said:

I was given a blanket and a mattress, but then, at 3 a.m., the guards took the blanket and mattress. My baby was left sleeping on the floor. In fact, almost every night, the guards wake us at 3 a.m. and take away our sleeping mattresses and blankets. They leave babies, even little babies of two or three months, sleeping on the cold floor. For me, because I am so pregnant, sleeping on the floor is very painful for my back and hips. I think the guards act this way to punish us.

These are stories from Texas border control facilities. These conditions are undoubtedly inhumane. There were an estimated 5,460 children kept in these conditions according to an ACLU statement this October. Justifying these actions and in response to sanctuary city policies, Donald Trump was quoted as saying, 

We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in...You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals. And we’re taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that’s never happened before.

Calling people “animals” is dehumanizing and hateful rhetoric that is used to justify harmful policies like the concentration camps and the border wall. These are policies that have impacted our community and led to the death of many children. Thus, regardless of intent, there was no way for the Latinx community to interpret the wall costume as a joke. The impact on our community is too great. 

We were hurt that this action came from adults and that other adults did nothing to stop it. On November 1, 2019, we decided to organize a protest which aimed to stand with the Latinx-Exonian community. We wanted to bring awareness to the gravity of the crisis at the border and the lack of empathy/concern for the Latinx community at Exeter. 

We decided to make the protest a silent and peaceful demonstration at Grill. The Grill employees were notified and supportive of the protest, and we prepared statements which clarified that we did not intend to direct the protest at the employees or their jobs. Those involved in the protest stood with their arms linked along the Grill entrance. 

The choice to form a wall with our bodies at Grill was meant to serve as a physical representation of what the border wall has become. 

When the wall is justified with rhetoric which expands those harmful ideas to immigrants in general, that feeling of alienation which many in the Latinx community experience is also expanded. 

Needless to say, we achieved that goal. The fact that Exeter is still talking about our protest shows that it was effective in bringing this issue to the forefront of discussions.

We have been accused by both our peers and teachers of trying to get the Grill employees fired. 

Our statement was meant to notify the public in a succinct way what had occurred, what our reactions were, and what our goals were. 

The second was “a response from the Academy reinforcing our school values and principles.” A response from the school would help with the process of healing for our members. We felt alienated from the community due to the incident, and a response from the school would have reassured us that the academy values us and our community. The third was “an explicit policy clarifying the boundaries of political speech by faculty and staff.” We believe it is important that the faculty, regardless of political affiliation, are clear on what exactly the difference is between attacks on personhood and political speech. As students, this is not a policy that we have the ability to draft, but we believe that it is an important policy to have for our school to use in the future. The final demand was “continued, impactful conversations on our community values and how we can maintain them.” 

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice ...who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’... Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.