A letter to the Elmhurst College Community

Notes: a version of this letter has been written as a letter to the editor of The Leader. Also, please feel free to comment and answer the questions I pose.

An Open Letter To The Campus Community:

This letter is a response to the religiously motivated graffiti found on October 8 in a Daniels Hall bathroom stall. Last week, the campus received an email from Campus Security reporting that a staff member found a threatening message directed toward Muslims.

Upon hearing about this incident, I was hurt- not just that another act of hate has been committed against our Elmhurst College community- but that there has been no reaction on campus. No buzz in the library café, no mention in around the fireplace, no talk among friends about our reactions. I fear our campus is becoming apathetic to hate. Each time someone attacks a part of our community we rise up with support and push back against ignorance and hate.

But I fear we are losing energy. How does this happen? How can we cease standing up for our values- as individuals and as a community?

We all have the power to affect the social climate of our community. It may feel sometimes as though the haters hold all the power, but let us remember that those of us who see power in respect and affirmation are greater in number and have just as much passion for our convictions. It is the responsibility of us all to continue to condemn incidents such as these and to fight every day to educate each other about the importance of community and respect for diversity and pluralism.

I have seen our community come together for positive social change: I had the great honor this year of working with more than 540 first year students during orientation to pack nearly 120,000 meals to provide nutrition and hope to people around the world who are suffer from malnutrition. While packing these meals, I had a wonderful conversation with a fellow student, Savannah. Savannah shared her incredible dream of returning to a community like the one in which she grew up and making it a safer place for all of the people who live there. Savannah showed me that day, in her each word and the passion in her voice, that safe community and acceptance of all people is something she values. And I do not think Savannah is the only one in our community who shares this value.

So, I ask you, fellow members of the Elmhurst College community: what do we value and how do we communicate that? Are we a community which values ignorance and hate? Or are we a community which values affirmation of plural identities and respect? What if we act on our values in our daily lives? What would our community look like then?

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Better Together

Hi, I’m Rae.

I just returned from the Interfaith Youth Core Fellows fall training. Thus begins not only a year of hard work around interfaith activism for me, but a world movement for religious pluralism.

In a world that paints religion as a negative force, young people must come together for the common good as people from different religious backgrounds  to demonstrate that our community is better when we work together for mutual understanding and respect. In the coming year, youth on 20 campuses around the United States, from Boston to LA, are organizing our campuses to work for social justice. We will be asking “What IF?”

What IF we band together around sharedvalues and decided to take action to improve the world we live in?

This blog will be chronically the  journey of the movement for religious pluralism as seen from Elmhurst College, a small Liberal Arts college of the United Church of Christ in Elmhurst Il. Welcome!