The Queer Student Union hosted a Minority Intersections and Emergency Dialogue on April 21. Members of different student organizations gathered for a student panel and dialogue. This meeting was modeled after a smaller version of the event held by the QSU last semester.
The panel consisted of representatives from the Asian Student Union, Black Student Alliance, DREAMers on Grounds, Middle Eastern Leadership Council, Native American Student Union and the Minority Rights Coalition. The members of the panel spoke about how their racial, religious and gender identities intersect and affect their lives.
After each member of the panel spoke about their experiences, the audience broke into groups for the dialogue.
Zoe Pettler, incoming president of education for QSU and a second-year College student, said the dialogue became an “emergency dialogue” after students found racist and transphobic statements chalked around Grounds Monday morning.
“In light of recent events, we’ve decided to expand our dialogue,” Pettler said. “We’re going to start off with minority intersections dialogues as planned. Moderators from Sustained Dialogue will make sure we stay on topic before we transition into discussion of current events.”
Each moderator was given a list of questions for the group to discuss. While many questions were about minority intersections, QSU provided information about the chalkings to allow group members to discuss the events of the past week.
“We’re going to have people talk about how it’s affecting minority groups at U.Va.,” Pettler said.
Pettler said the dialogue was originally planned to discuss how different identities interact and intersect. The dialogue is also a way for groups that are represented by different organizations on Grounds to work together.
“It’s trying to get different multicultural groups on [Grounds] to come together and talk about how different racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and religious identities intersect with LGBT identities,” Pettler said. “It’s about talking about how the different organizations interact with each other because there isn’t a whole lot of dialogue between them and trying to make sure people feel welcome in different groups according to their different identities.”
In addition to discussing their own minority intersections, members of the panel addressed the importance of coalition building. Because many groups were negatively affected by the chalkings, they said they believe it is important the groups unite.
“It’s a space for people to talk because people have a lot of feelings about what’s been going on,” Pettler said. “It’s a way for different minorities to talk and find a common solution.”
At the very beginning of the meeting, members of the QSU executive board announced that they had been planning a “Chalk-In” campaign, which took place Sunday. Participants planned to sit with a sign reading “We don’t stand for bigotry” in various places around Grounds and hand out flyers condemning the negative chalkings.
Shannon Khurana, vice president of student activism for QSU and second-year College student, stated QSU aims for the Chalk-In to be a positive ending to the “cycle of positive and negative chalkings.”
“The reason we’re doing this is because those slants have been written out of cowardice in the night,” Khurana said. “Because those people don’t want to learn and listen, we need to put our face out there, so it’s not just stuff written down. There [are] people behind this.”
The goal of the Chalk-In was to offer support to minorities who felt threatened by the negative chalking found Monday morning.
“I hope that this makes people feel safe and that U.Va. is a place for everybody,” Khurana said. “We’re coming out of the darkness into the light saying, ‘We’re here for you.’”
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