The Purchase Independent

Dear Editor,

We screamed and spit; pointed and laughed; chanted and stoned the ignorant protestors with our trash, and all parties fed off the adrenaline. The students cheered and reveled in their rightness and in their number, their support. The middle-aged protestor suffered the torments and trash, the jeers and laughs, and fought for his silly beliefs as if he were a saint- in his mind perhaps he saw himself as a saint or martyr. The policemen chuckled. It was the kind of event our Purchase community, myself included, innately craves, a real protest. But in our stance against ignorance, we all but failed. We succumbed to our adrenaline and anger, and we forgot ourselves. We cursed and screamed “fuck you,” to one of our fellow students. We hated him. I don’t know his name and don’t wish to (dare I look him in the eye?), but he was the student reading from the Bible. We didn’t pull him aside to talk to him, we didn’t do anything to try and save him from ourselves- his fellow students. I am not questioning the obvious close-mindedness and arrogance of the protestors (and I want to commend Russ Zambito for his handling of the situation and especially for leading us, the crowd, away from the protest, in a move that illuminated the danger of hypocrisy in participating in our anti-protest), but I would like to say clearly that is was severely close- minded of us to be so hateful to other human beings, especially because one of them was one of us. Our community, without stopping to chew, swallowed whole one of it’s own and called it a victory. We’re getting sloppy- forgetting to think or feel for others. Purchase students, above all others, should be well aware that hate catches like wildfire and can even burn those who have felt its heat before. Shame on us.

Signed,
Dante De Leo

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