Last Thursday, Feb. 20, the Page 13 section of the Georgetown Voice featured a full-page cartoon entitled “Beating a Dead Horse,” which depicted two white students, GUSA president-elect Joe Luther (COL ‘16) and vice president-elect Connor Rohan (COL ‘16), using bats labeled “Satire” and “Heckler” to beat two fellow Hoyas, then-GUSA executive candidates Chris Wadibia (COL ‘16), a black man, and Meredith Cheney (COL ‘16). Wadibia and Cheney were depicted in a horse costume, with Cheney in the rear of the costume. The cartoon, designed by Page 13 editor Dylan Cutler (COL ‘16), was labeled offensive by numerous Georgetown students and student organizations over social media. Student responses to the cartoon inspired a town hall meeting at St. Williams Chapel Sunday and a rally in Red Square Monday to open up a dialogue about issues of diversity and unconscious bias on campus.
The day after the cartoon was published, student representatives of the Black Leadership Forum posted a response to the cartoon to the group’s Facebook page. They wrote, “The white patriarchal message this image sends is insensitive and incredibly racist given the history of black men and women being lynched and beaten at the hands of white people in this nation’s past and present.” Other reactions on social media called the cartoon “heinous.”
That evening, the Voice published an official apology on its Facebook account and redacted the cartoon from its website. The post admitted the oversight made in publishing the image and apologized for the release of the cartoon. Although the apology clarified the intended message of the cartoon, it remained focused on grievances raised by students in response to the cartoon.
A town hall meeting in response to the image, attended by over 100 people, was organized and moderated Sunday by Georgetown students, including Javan Robinson (MSB ’15), vice president of the Student Activities Commission, Innocent Obi, Jr. (SFS ’16), and Cheney. Robinson said that the decision to organize the town hall was not prompted by the post from the Black Leadership Forum but was instead a reaction to the violence and negativity of the cartoon, which the organizers first believed was an attack on the Wadibia-Cheney campaign. “The main issue that we took from it was that it was a Hoya beating down another Hoya,” Robinson said.
Students voiced multiple criticisms of the cartoon at the town hall. Some saw it as advocating violence. One student of color suggested that the cartoon “threw salt on wounds that are really deep for some people in our community.” Colleen Roberts (COL ‘15) thought the publication was especially insensitive given the recent Black Lives Matter Movement against police brutality.
Student Ben Costanza (COL ‘18) said he felt the criticism was unjustified because the image was not created with racist intent. Many responded that, regardless of the intention, the fact that the Voice released an image many associated with racist imagery signaled a lack of cultural awareness and sensitivity on the part of the paper.
Roberts said, “The fact that there was no awareness that this could have been triggering, regardless of [what was] intended … is not acceptable.”
Cutler attended the meeting, and at one point rose to make a tearful apology. “I made a mistake,” Cutler began. “My privilege is that I have the ability to look past … the possible damage that that image could cause. And I’m sorry. I stand with you. … I want to help silence the message of hate.” Cutler’s apology was met with a standing ovation.
Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olsen and Vice President for Mission and Ministry Rev. Kevin O’Brien, S.J., who provided the chapel for the meeting and appeared at Monday’s rally, both said they were impressed with students’ respect and honesty during Sunday’s dialogue.
The Facebook event for Monday’s rally was titled “Beating Ignorance, Raising Consciousness,” and was organized by Kimberly Blair (COL ’15), co-chair of United Feminists. Students and faculty stood silently for ten minutes in a large circle in Red Square, each with one fist raised. Blair asked them to show dedication to “beating racism and sexism against your classmate.”
Blair’s speech at the rally oriented the conversation toward a more widespread culture of elitism, privilege, and unconscious bias on campus. She also pointed towards academic reform as a possible step forward. Blair said at the town hall the day before, “How are you supposed to be ‘men and women for others’ when you don’t know who the others are?”
She handed the energy over to speakers for the Last Campaign for Academic Reform, who have circulated a petition asking the university to enstate a diversity requirement as part of the core curriculum.
One of the speakers, Mia Campbell (COL ’18) said that introducing a diversity requirement to the curriculum has been an effort on campus for over twenty-five years, but could benefit from the current dialogue sparked by the cartoon.
Esther Owolabi (COL ‘15) explained that the group needs a majority of professors at the Main Campus Executive Faculty meeting in March to sign on to their proposal to secure the requirement. The petition is currently in circulation online.
In a similar vein, the organizers of the town hall, including Robinson, Cheney, and Obi, Jr. have started an organized hashtag movement called “#ThisWayForward.” They hope the movement can grow into a new student organization that would give students a space to discuss the various issues facing oppressed groups on campus.
They hope the organization would provide a single forum for students to come together to discuss these issues in a respectful and trusting setting. They say they are looking for lasting change on campus, not just a brief trend.
“The college life is all about growth,” said Robinson. “You can’t grow by yourself.”
