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		Letter to Editor April 11, 2006  Updated April 17, 2006* Letter © 2006 Anna Cynar. This letter first appeared as an email sent on Friday, April 7, 2006, during Pride Week at Michigan Technological University, shortly after many hateful, anti-gay messages appeared in chalk in many locations on the MTU campus. Published with Permission.

Scrubbing chalk ...

By Anna Cynar

This morning as I was getting dressed, searching for my "gay? fine by me" shirt, I was thinking to myself that perhaps we've finally made progression on this campus. Then, it was suggested to me to walk around campus with a camera. It was sickening. Me in my shirt, the sidewalk with its hate.

"Fags must die," "Kill fags," "Kill all Queens," "Kill all gays," "Die Homos." With each snapshot I wondered, why? It wasn't so much, why had they been written? because hate is irrational and ignorant and based on fear, and there are a lot of fearful people in this world. It was more wondering why was it still there at 9:30 in the morning, as many had passed it on their way to classes, glancing and passing, staring and shrugging?

So my foot became a tool, scraping away the messages. In my mind I was imagining that movie-like moment when a flood of people would join together scraping side by side, because hate, like chalk, crumbles under the weight of love. Yet, that moment didn't happen, at least at that time, as mass waves of students continued to walk by.

But then, it happened. Somebody asked if they could help. At first I wondered why I was being asked permission.

Hacking away at the remnants of snow, we scrubbed in silence. Then a few more people came, and we scrubbed in silence. Nalgenes and coffee pots filled with water splashing onto the sidewalk, feet scrubbing in silence. It was as if we didn't need to talk, to say anything, because we didn't have to. We didn't have to distinguish who was gay and who wasn't because messages like that sting and disturb across the spectrum. For a moment we were joined together in a simple mission, scraping away at chalk. I think, though, that those simple things have more meaning than we realize.

Sometimes I think we go through our lives waiting for permission to awaken from being a spectator, from being silent; and every time we do something, like scraping away at chalk, perhaps as we awaken, we awaken a few others as well. Chalk does disintegrate, does wash away, because it is nothing compared to compassion and understanding. Although hate doesn't wash away with a splash of water, it can be flooded, flooded by voices who are not silenced by its foolishness. Let the wave of voices begin.

Editor's Notes: The author of this letter, Anna Cynar, is a third year student at Michigan Tech University in the Communication and Culture Studies program of the Humanities Department. Anna is from Novi, Michigan. * See the Apr. 12, 2006, MTU Lode article on the chalkings, by Matthew Norman, MTU Lode News Editor. The online article also includes several comments from readers. * See also the MTU Lode Opinion column, "Consider this -- Leaders weak on hate crimes," by Paula McCambridge, MTU Lode staff writer and Keweenaw Now reporter.

Note: Views expressed by our guest columnists and correspondents are not necessarily the views of Keweenaw Now.