[Flip Strength Test: Mt. Holyoke.]
Women's college viciously attacks freshman girl for conservative reporting
Kaitlyn Schallhorn
on Dec 04, 2014
Mount Holyoke College students attacked the appearance of a freshman female after her report on a Ferguson rally went viral.
After her Campus Reform article, Yvonne has been threatened at her dorm room and anonymously cyber-bullied by Mount Holyoke students.
Nothing says progress quite like a hoard of liberal college students bullying one of their peers because of her conservative values.
This morning, a Campus Reform correspondent awoke to a threatening note taped to her dorm room door after she wrote a
piece on a Ferguson protest that took place on her campus.
Quote:
[THE PIECE]
White students discouraged from participating in Monday’s Ferguson demonstrations
Yvonne Dean-Bailey
Massachusetts Campus Correspondent
@y_mdbailey
on Dec 02, 2014
A Massachusetts student told "white folks" to keep their hands down during Monday's Ferguson protests.
Five Massachusetts colleges staged a joint walk out Monday afternoon to protest Officer Darren Wilson's non-indictment in the fatal shooting of a Missouri teenager.
Mount Holyoke's dean of students sent out a campus-wide email encouraging students to participate in the protest.
“White folks” in Massachusetts were told to keep their hands down if they joined a campus walkout Monday afternoon to protest the recent grand jury decision in the shooting of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
Susanna Holmstrom urged classmates Sunday night not to raise their hands in mock surrender in the “ Five College Mass Walk Out” if they were “white folks.”
“I encourage white folks participating tomorrow to keep our hands down, to avoid centering ourselves in the actions, and to listen much more than we speak,” Holmstrom said on the event’s public Facebook page.
Holmstrom cited a blog post from FreeQuency, which blames white privilege for white protesters’ participation in Ferguson related activities.
“I understand wanting to show up and support, but white people need to understand that this symbolic act of raising your hands in a position of surrender is meant to illustrate how black people are violently targeted by police because of their race,” the post says. “If you don’t experience that, you should not mimic the gesture in an attempt at ‘solidarity.’ It is centering yourself in a narrative that you cannot tell because of the protection your white privilege gives you.”
Monday’s “Five College Mass Walk Out” included Mount Holyoke College (MHC), the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst College, Hampshire College, and Smith College. The grassroots effort, led by MHC, invited thousands of students via Facebook.
“This is a call for action coming directly out of Ferguson,” Dianna Tejada, an MHC student who helped organize the multi-college walkout, told Campus Reform. “They called, and we answered.”
In a campus-wide email to all students, Marcella Hall, Dean of Students, encouraged students to attend the walk out.
“Please remember faculty and administration are here to support you with questions, comments and concerns about Ferguson, race and social justice,” Hall, who attended Monday’s protest, wrote in the email obtained by Campus Reform.
The protest began as a rally outside the MHC student center Monday at 1:01 PM, the time of Michael Brown’s death. The rally quickly escalated into a march and group leaders led protesters through campus and onto the streets of downtown South Hadley, Mass.
Within minutes, College Street, the main road in town, was shut down when protesters blocked traffic for half an hour. Police officers arrived on the scene after a few minutes and protesters chanted, danced, and chastised them.
The large group—totaling upwards of 500 people—included students from MHC, community members, professors, and even high ranking deans of the college.
Ultimately, Holmstrom’s plea was ineffective as many white students and community members raised their hands in the middle of the street throughout the protest.
Student organizers at MHC and surrounding schools released the following statement on their protest Monday:
“The United States was built on a foundation that marginalizes, disenfranchises, incarcerates, exploits, and murders anyone who is not a white, heterosexual, Christian, wealthy, man,” the statement reads. “With the historical of [sic] and ancestral trauma our bodies carry as Women of Color, the murder of Michael Brown, Jr. marks the last straw.”
Thousands of students nationwide walked out of classrooms and protested Monday. The protest occurred one week after a grand jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson, the officer who fatally shot Brown in August.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @y_mdbailey
http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=6109
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[distainfully?]
Yvonne Dean-Bailey, a freshman political science major at Mount Holyoke College (MHC), attended the student-organized protest held on Monday. She took photos, reached out to the event organizers, and researched the demonstration. And like anyone in professional journalism strives to accomplish, Yvonne found a unique angle for her story and ran with it.
But it was that angle—an event organizer asking “white folks” to keep their hands down during the demonstration—which angered crusaders for equality at Mount Holyoke so much that they resorted to “fighting the good fight” with hateful notes and vicious attacks on an online message board.
Since the article, Yvonne has been called a bigot, “closed-minded” [sic], hateful, homophobic, privileged, racist, rich, and transphobic. Yvonne’s appearance, character, intellect, and integrity have been eviscerated.
These attacks have all come from women—her Mount Holyoke peers.
Of course, none of these ad hominem attacks can be duly attributed, though the site requires a MHC email address to post. While these petulant college kids are so quick to become social justice warriors, they must do so anonymously in a purely phenomenal show of cowardice.
According to Mount Holyoke’s website, the college was founded in 1837 as a place where women could “develop their intellects, hone the power of their voices, and cultivate courage.” But what kind of courage are the women cultivating when they spend their collegiate days hiding behind anonymous online posts attacking the views—and the appearance—of one of their peers?
These women are not empowering each other or honing their own voices. They’re creating a homogenous liberal echo chamber where only the sounds of chosen voices can ring out without fear.
“Kindly take your bigotry and miniscule world view [sic] home with you and leave them there when you go, or consider somewhere else to voice your ignorance,” reads the note from Yvonne’s secret admirers.
Admittedly, I didn’t attend an all-women’s college, but I don’t think that was the type of female empowerment and cultivation of courage Mary Lyon had in mind when she dreamt up the school. But as a woman, I'm not afraid to say the level of intolerance the women at Mount Holyoke have displayed towards Yvonne is absolutely abhorrent.
To their credit, Mount Holyoke administrators, when reminded of the school’s strict anti-harassment policy by Campus Reform, have encouraged Yvonne to schedule a visit with the Dean of Students—a visit that will include the organizers of Monday’s Ferguson protest.
Are the women of Mount Holyoke so afraid of Yvonne’s conservative voice that she has to be flanked by the very peers who could be behind the anonymous threats at all times?
Yvonne says she doesn’t feel safe on her own college campus, her own community, but as she knows, true courage does not bend to frivolous attacks of intimidation.
“Despite this I will continue to be an independent and active voice on campus until all sides are considered,” Yvonne told Campus Reform.
While immaturity and cowardice run rampant around Mount Holyoke, it seems Yvonne’s own bravery is the only flickering hope that any of the school’s founding principles can still be found on that campus.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @K_Schallhorn
http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=6117