Campus Opinion
Intervarsity and Our Reputation
By Lisa Brigham
Rhodes University students made a big effort to attend the Intervarsity week-end events as they turned out in big numbers dressed in personalised purple overalls.
Despite having the forces against us such as swine flu and our campus workers being on strike, many students took advantage of having the Intervarsity being held in such proximity and headed out, drinks in hand to support their teams.
What impressed me was the diversity of students that came together to support the sport. Some girls went all out and ‘bedazzled’ their ‘ralls while others tie-dyed them. Boys went beyond the usual realm of foul language and scribbled graffiti and got creative by drawing drunken mice and sport symbols. ‘Race’ and ‘culture’ was truly tested as a separating factor and the student body seemed to cheer as one at the events I attended.
However, after all the sun, fun and maybe one too many beers some students took all the good intentions of Intervarsity and once again put Rhodes University’s reputation on the line.
Fackson Banda, one my own lecturers, and his family were victimised with unruly and backward behaviour when a few students, dressed in purple, yelled out the word ‘nigger’ when Banda and his family were in town in their car. As a student I know that we all become a little rowdy when we have too much to drink but to hear this truly saddened me. This has shocked many students and Tania Esmeyer, also a student in one of Banda’s courses says outraged “they should be kicked out of the university and maybe they would feel more at home with those people from Bloem!”
Students aren’t the only outraged people on campus at the moment and the Dean of Students recently posted a letter regarding this issue on the university’s website saying that:
“Unfortunately this was not the only offensive and shocking incident that has been reported to my office. The University community and the Grahamstown community at large have contacted my office to express their outrage at the levels of drunken, loutish behaviour from our students, easily identifiable as such through their purple and white overalls. Many of the slogans written on these garments were deeply offensive and amount to hate speech and to “rape speech” (in the words of one of the complainants). What is most disturbing of all is that students presumably wrote these slogans on their overalls when they were sober, and proudly displayed them not only on campus, but in town and in our shopping malls.”
Surely by now our generation has gotten past this mind set? Obviously not. I myself was targeted just a few weeks ago by a few students who walked past me as I was getting into my car. It was a Saturday afternoon and they were quite drunk by the way they were walking down the middle of the road and stumbling over each other. As they passed by me they pointed and started laughing and the one boy shouted out “must be nice to be white, to have a car after everything you worked so hard for”. This shocked me and sensitive as I am felt truly humiliated as other students across the road started to stare.
Racism and excessive drinking seems to be two big problems with students here which should be addressed by not only the student body and the SRC but also by the administration of the university.
