One week after that terrifying torchlight march, U-Va.’s new Hoos make a home
|
Version 1 of 2. Charlottesville — Rachel Olson laughed with her new roommate as they unpacked the bins and bags crammed into their tiny dorm room at the University of Virginia. It was just a week earlier that Olson, a first-year student who is biracial, was tracking news of hundreds of white nationalists and white supremacists marching with torches through the heart of the campus, shouting racial slurs. Now, she needs to make this place home. “It was scary,” Olson said Friday. In those moments, broadcast around the world, “you really saw what was going on in people’s heads. They said what they were thinking, finally.” That brought another revelation for the 18-year-old from Virginia Beach. “We, as U-Va. students, can help change that, because we’re the future. . . . We’re the new generation.” Starting college is an anxious time for many students, with questions about leaving home, meeting strangers and becoming independent. But at U-Va. this year, the tensions are far more visceral, the unknowns far more stark. The need to make this place their own is even more crucial. There were reminders everywhere of the influx of white nationalists to Charlottesville last weekend, and of the attack on counterprotesters that killed a woman named Heather Heyer and hurt many others. There were signs, too, of optimism and resolve for unity. [Recounting a day of rage, hate, violence and death] A purple poster displayed in the bookstore says simply “Heather.” Professors are busy revising syllabi, many changing the first class into one to talk it out. Alumni volunteering to help new students wore T-shirts that proclaimed: “Hoos Against Hate.” Last week’s violence touched everyone. A mother who is white said she choked back tears when she first saw the flames on television. Her son Bryce Griffin, 18, of Potomac Falls, said his parents asked him if he was scared, if he still wanted to go to U-Va. But for many of those in the Class of 2021 who are not white and Christian, coming to U-Va. took courage. They have fears both immediate and long-term. “These people may come back,” said Erica Stephens, an African American student who grew up in Vernon Hill in rural southern Virginia. “They could be all around us — we don’t know.” Many of the 3,800 or so first-year students dreamed of this school for years. Olson fell in love with it in eighth grade, after visiting Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, coming to the campus he founded and seeing the Rotunda he designed. “I don’t know if you can explain, just like a feeling of, you belong somewhere,” Olson said. “But I came here, and it felt like home.” Bryan Lopez, 18, a Mexican American who grew up in Waco, Tex., learned to love it this past year as he realized its school of architecture, its history and its close community were exactly what he wanted. All have had their ideas of the school shaken this past week. [Thousands light candles at U-Va., reclaiming their campus] “Every person who I’ve run into,” Lopez said, “my instructors, my friends, every interaction has been, ‘Are you still going to go there, with everything that goes on there?’ ” Jhanya Williamson, 17, an African American from the Bronx, said one relative tried to talk her out of coming. Stephens’s mom asked if she was sure she had chosen the right college. Lopez’s mom, after hearing news about the hatred and violence, saw his list of school supplies when she came home one day from her job as a restaurant cook. She joked that he wouldn’t be needing them — because he wouldn’t be going to U-Va. “There is worry there, for sure,” Lopez said. Group chats among the Class of 2021 students of color suddenly got real. “It's terrifying,” Williamson was thinking. “I’m going to be living there in a week — is this going to keep happening?” Very rarely had Lopez ever felt unsafe because of his race. “But now, things that I felt when I was a child and didn’t understand are coming back. That, honestly, is a scary regression.” He kept asking his new roommate, who is from Charlottesville, if this was normal, if racism was common here. [After clashes with white nationalists, U-Va. employee suffers stroke] Lopez worried that the community he admired — the sense of trust embedded from the honor code, the sense of respect, the desire to give back — would be broken apart. Stephens wondered if the applicant pool would change. What if people with white-supremacist thoughts were drawn to the school, and minorities were deterred? Without the diversity it has now, she said, “that would basically ruin the U-Va. I know. I don’t want that to happen.” This week, as the first shocks wore down, fear was countered by anger and defiance, by courage and hope. “I’m afraid,” Lopez said, “but I don’t have the luxury of fear. That’s what they’re trying to instill in us.” “I’m not going to let fear overtake my experience there,” Williamson said. In recent days, these strangers, almost-friends and soon-to-be-classmates pulled together in online conversations. “We’re all just really trying to stick together and make some positive out of this whole experience,” Stephens said. “I know there are some who are fearful and scared and they just don’t know what to think. That’s where the rest of us come in — just hold each other, hug each other, build each other up with words — because that’s basically all you can do.” This isn’t U-Va., they reassured each other. This isn’t Charlottesville, either. Olson never regretted choosing U-Va., she said. “I just knew it was going to be a more difficult transition.” Her mother Trina Olson Keeny, who is African American, said: “I trust the faculty and the administration of the University of Virginia. They’ve done an incredible job communicating how safe our children will be, and how hatred and prejudice will not be tolerated here.” The Class of 2021 at Dartmouth College sent a letter to U-Va.’s first-year class, rejecting bigotry and sending support, an effort joined by other colleges across the country. “Let love be the torch that guides you,” Dartmouth students wrote. They quoted Jefferson: “In matters of principle, stand like a rock.” [New students at Dartmouth and other colleges write U-Va.] U-Va. has a complex history with race. It was built on Jeffersonian ideals and built in its early years by enslaved people. Over time, the public university has seen racist incidents, ever-growing diversity and attempts to better recognize the role of slavery. Earlier this year, the school announced plans for a large and prominent memorial to the contributions of slaves. In the last five years, minority enrollment has grown significantly. The school is still majority white. Nine percent of the Class of 2021 identified as black or multiracial. This week the community tried to reset the normal rhythms of the school year. Lines of cars and vans snaked into town, stuffed with families and plastic tubs full of clothing and sheets. “Everyone here is nice,” Olson said. Greg Jackson Jr., 32, of the District, who graduated from U-Va. in 2007, helped organize an open letter to the new class from black alumni. He said he wanted to show them their safety is a priority for the university and that alumni would hold the school accountable. Quentin Washington, 34, of New York, a 2004 graduate, said the newcomers struck him as resilient. “They’re just so confident in themselves,” he said. A small group of alumni crowded around a table Friday writing notes to first-years on U-Va. stationery, giving advice — “Be sure you get on the right bus,” said Haike Giragosian, 39, who graduated in 2000 — and joking about whether they should include tips on streaking the Lawn. Stephens said seeing thousands fill the campus Lawn for a candlelight gathering Wednesday night, and reclaiming the space and their community, made her certain her class will turn all that hate around. “I hope the world will,” she added. “It’s not a U-Va. problem or a Charlottesville problem — it’s a societal problem.” Olson and her roommate, Jordan Benderoth, began to move in Friday morning, unpacking bedding, sweaters and a string of lights. Benderoth, 18, from Virginia Beach, brought the mini fridge and the coffee machine. Olson brought the printer and the Magic Bullet blender. “Rachel, you are crazy,” Benderoth said, as they started on a massive load of clothes. Maybe that night, they said, they’d swing by the cookie place. Maybe on Saturday, they’d help one of Benderoth’s friends move in, too. They were settling in. But not settling. “My class is a generation of changers,” Olson said. “We’re going to change ourselves to be more loving people, to be examples to follow.” Svrluga reported from Washington. |