Given recent events, I'm sure nearly everyone is edgy about safety around Charlottesville these days, which is why an issue I encountered this weekend was particularly surprising to me. On Saturday morning, I braved the on-again, off-again rain, parents in tow, from my Lambeth apartment to Scott Stadium for the hardly epic showdown of a football game. Upon reaching the first "checkpoint," if you will, prior to entering the stadium, as usual I was prepared to show my student ID. I always take my ID out of my lanyard, of course, because it has to get scanned at the actual gate. As I was about to go on my way, he eyed my lanyard and noticed my orange whistle. He told me that the whistle would not be allowed inside the stadium. This troubled me. This was no ordinary whistle; this was my rape whistle. I work late a few nights a week, getting home around 10 or 11 at night, sometimes as late as 1 a.m. I park my car at University Hall, and although it's a short walk to Lambeth, the sketchiness of the area at those hours is debatable. I like having a rape whistle. I inform the man that what he wants to take from me is not just a regular whistle, it's a rape whistle. It's for emergency purposes, not for feigning inadvertent whistles. Unfortunately, he is trained to see any whistle as a "noisemaker," and noisemakers aren't allowed inside the stadium. So I'm left with no choice but to surrender my noisemaking rape whistle. I suppose I could have argued and maybe been allowed to keep my whistle, but maybe authoritative figures, security guards, police officers, and the like around here should focus on more important things than this. We should all be on the same page with student safety at the top of our priority list, even if it means disregarding trivial "rules" here and there. And when I get a new rape whistle, on my honor, I won't use it as a noisemaker at the football game.
MaryKate Morani\nCLAS II
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