The Crier gathered Saint Anselm students’ reactions to the aftermath of the recent events in Ferguson, MO.

“It’s really hard to watch what’s happening,” senior Madison Waters said about the protesting and rioting in Ferguson.

When asked if riots should be considered a freedom of speech, she said yes.

“I think whenever there’s a tragedy such as that, or in any circumstance, people are always going to [lash out]. And I think that’s how different people handle different emotions and what they’re feeling. I don’t agree with lighting things on fire, flipping cars, burning churches. I don’t think that’s the way you should handle anger and frustration. But I understand where it’s coming from.”

Junior Shatiaka Allen said she too doesn’t agree with the destruction of property, but the peaceful “Protesting is great. You’re getting people there, and there’s a lot of young people going out and making their voices heard.”

She said that while some people consider the protesting as a riot now, it’s because we are living through the events and do not have a correct perspective.

“So was Dr. King marching,” Allen said. “That was considered rioting. That was considered being the wrong way to try and get civil rights, and I think that this is what it is now. I think if we look back, ten years from now, it will just be considered that they were protesting, but right now, because it’s happening right now, it’s a riot.”

Junior India Barrows said that protesting will die down, and questions whether progress will have been made if that is the only reaction.

“We need to rise above that knee-jerk reaction and actually try to do stuff to effect change,” Barrows shared. “I know there are peaceful protests, and I know it’s a media coverage issue that it’s more toward the negative than the positive, which is just natural in American media. But I think that we need to make even twice or three times the effort to be a peaceful organization.”

Waters said that “I think that the news and the media really only shows the extreme and doesn’t really focus on how the average, everyday person is handling it and addressing it.”

Allen said one must be careful where they get their news.

“I think some media is horrible,” she said, “because they’re just perpetuating information that’s already been proven false.”

All three students agreed that racism was never stamped out following the civil rights movements and that it has evolved into something different.

“In the sixties, it was more obvious, like ‘this is a person, he’s going around walking in Klan’s gear,” Allen said. “Well now, I think racism is more systematic and internalized, so people don’t notice it anymore.”

“I think there are stereotypes that are always in the back of our head, not just against African Americans, but against people of all different races,” Waters said.

“I think because we strive for equality, we still keep those stereotypes in the back of our head but we think we’re moving forward. By hanging on to those stereotypes, that’s what’s keeping us back.”

Allen called for a conversation to be had work to bring about a cultural shift where race isn’t ever a derogatory measure of a human being.

“I think if America wants to be post-racism, you’re going to have to talk about race at some point and acknowledge that there are issues with it,” Allen shared.

“I think that if people stop looking at it as a scary topic, because I feel like we can talk about terrorism but we can’t talk about the racial stereotypes that go along with that.”

“I think that some people feel that if you don’t talk about it, it’s not there.” Allen shared. “But I think that you’re just ignoring the situations and the plight of the people that have to suffer due to it. I think once you talk about racism that you’re able to acknowledge the micro aggressions that you might be doing to your friends, or just things that you probably wouldn’t have recognized had it not been brought up.

Barrows agreed that the conversation needs to happen, and calls on the college administration to facilitate them.

“I’ve had two professors switch up the syllabus to address the situation,” she said. “That makes me feel more comfortable to be here, because it’s like, they acknowledge that I exist, which oftentimes I don’t really feel here sometimes.”

She cited the demographic numbers at Saint Anselm—1544 white students and (if you were to include the responses that indicated ethnicity unknown) 380 minorities.

“I think that [the administration] need to acknowledge our existence, and that they want us here, and that they want to make us feel comfortable here, because a lot of times feeling like the other, it’s awful,” Barrows shared.

“They’re the administration. That’s their job. My brother went here; I go here. I love it here. But just like any place I think they can do so much better. I think that diversification and understanding where we all come from and embracing us and making us feel more welcome and more comfortable to be ourselves and not assimilate into another culture, instead of embracing and mixing all cultures, should be a priority among the higher administration.”

On Wednesday December 10th at 12:30, a demonstration led by Barrows took place in Davison, along with a multi-race group of students dressed in all black and bearing signs with the names of black teens slain by police.

After reading aloud a speech that decried American police brutality against minorities, the group dropped to the floor to simulate killed minority teens such as Michael Brown.

The demonstration then moved to the Coffeeshop.