Hate Crime
by Caitlin Sanders

My favorite song at the time was “Yeah” by Usher. Or maybe it was “Love Me For A Little While” by Janet Jackson. I guess it doesn’t really matter. Anyway, one of those songs was playing when I found out. I don’t remember who told me. It may have been Elliot or Alana, but it was probably my roommate. I do remember that when the hate crimes were mentioned we all thought the campus would get shut down, even though the website indicated that only Pomona had canceled classes.

I think I was more emotional when Rose finally let go of Jack’s hand and was left alone on that tiny piece of driftwood at the end of Titanic than when I found out a Claremont McKenna professor’s car had been vandalized and covered with bigoted slurs. Honestly, I thought it would be cool to get the day off. I had a big test the next day in my environmental studies class, so my initial reaction was one of relief. And I heard it was a top story. Maybe I’d be on the news.

We were all emailed schedules for the day and encouraged to attend as many activities as possible to show our support. No one wanted to look like a racist. No one wanted to offend the Jewish or African American populations. Everyone in my hall participated except Shane. We all thought he was shallow and cynical.

8:00 - Individual campus responses
10:00 - Office of Black Student Affairs’ (OBSA) press conference
12:00 - Sit-in show of solidarity at North Quad CMC
7:30 - Assembled college communities will begin to walk toward Parent’s Field
8:00 - Community Rally ( Pomona, CMC, Pitzer, Harvey Mudd, and Scripps)

I was quite conflicted about what my away-message on AOL Instant Messenger should say. It was important that I portray the right amount of respect so that I didn’t offend anyone. It was weird though. I had this feeling that nothing would be appropriate. Some people's away-messages were blank, in honor of the tragedy I guess. Would leaving it blank show enough feeling though? Would it show that no words could express thesignificanceofthat day? In the end I just wrote “CMC.”

“The OBSA requests that you wear black for this event in order to show community solidarity.”

I dug through Alana’s closet in search of anything black. I found a black mesh shirt with little frills on the sleeves and decided it would work. I matched the black shirt with a green, corduroy mini-skirt , but even in such sparse clothing , I remember sweating an embarrassing amount. I hoped no one noticed. That’s one of my most vivid memories of the day. It was damn hot. One of the hottest days all year.

All the major news networks had white vans in the CMC parking lot. The newscasters looked out of place among the students. The woman from ABC was dressed in a knee-length gray skirt and had perfectly manicured hair and a plastic face. She was holding a microphone, and a few camera and sound men made up her entourage. It looked as if they were waiting for something to happen so they could jump into action and capture the story.

There were hundreds of people packed into North Quad for the sit-in. We were all wearing black, and most were lounging in the sun, reading or chatting with friends. The mood was laid back. It was almost eerie how calm and quiet it was. Even though there were hundreds of people in attendance , it was so dead. The atmosphere made me feel as if someone had ordered the group to be quiet and everyone was waiting for the director to call, “Cut!” It felt like some sort of sober day-party where the theme was black. You should have seen the Scrippsies. Some of them were so decked out that you could have mistaken the sit-in for a Barbie funeral.

The weather was perfect for tanning. I walked over to my friend Robert’s suite. He was all by himself sprawled out on a red striped towel, wearing only a pair of tiny bright blue work-out shorts and reading a book. Earlier in the day a reporter had approached him on his towel and asked about the significance of the book he was reading, which had something to do with terrorism in Chechnya. For some reason the reporter thought the fact that he was separate from the crowd and reading this particular book must mean something. Was it a sign of protest? Did he disagree with the administration's handling of the incident? No. The sun was just brighter and more direct by his dorm and he wanted to get rid of his milky white thighs. We discussed the new Mel Gibson movie, The Passion of the Christ, and then I wandered back up to Pitzer to cool off.

The site of the rally that evening was a popular weekend party spot. I couldn’t help chuckling when I saw CMC administrators, looking extraordinarily respectable with their suits and airs of utmost authority, standing in the exact location where on a previous Saturday night I’d seen mud wrestling pits turn into massive pseudo-orgies. Helicopters circled above and their spotlights galvanized the crowd, which was eager to show the nation how much Claremont cared. We may have been a bunch of rich, sheltered, white kids from suburbia, but no one was going to accuse us of being intolerant. One student from each school got a chance to pump up the crowd, and the most talented and witty speakers were showered by applause from the girls in the front row. Then Kerri Dunn came out and the crowd went wild. The main attraction had arrived. We cheered and clapped . I felt invigorated and inspired , as if I were really part of something meaningful. It was a rush. At the end of the rally I asked my roommate who Kerri Dunn was.

A year later, I realize there is something disconcerting about my behavior that day. It was not the racial, religious, and gender-based epithets written on the car that stuck in my mind, but the uncertainty about my away-message and the struggle to choose an outfit that are imbedded in my memory. Why didn‘t I care? “Nigger lover” caused the OBSA to take a central role in the response effort. “Shut up” offended the women’s groups. “Kike” enraged all the Jewish students. But there was a certain sense that no one knew what they were fighting for. My peers seemed lost. Everyone had a reason to be offended, even scared, I suppose. But no one was.

The vandalism had the expected effect. Classes were cancelled while thousands of impressionable students rallied around the elimination of "ignorance." Dunn filed a police report and insurance claims to cover the damage to her car, and until witnesses came forward, no one on the campus knew they were victims of an elaborate hate crime hoax. Noticeably chagrined, Claremont suspended Dunn while they recovered from the embarrassment of the con.

When I got back from Spring Break , no one said anything about the fact that the whole thing had been a farce. No one said, “Hey wait -- we just got played!”

Is it because we go to school in Claremont? Has the sun and the Abercrombie and Fitch student body and country club atmosphere sucked away all our social consciences? Are our minds numbed by watching too much TV? Or is the apathy characteristic of college students in general? Are we just a lazy and self-absorbed age group? All I know is that when I got back, all the people I saw at the sit-in and the rally, as well as those few who spoke up and tried to raise awareness, seemed to fade into oblivion. Where did they go?

We should have been embarrassed. She made a fool out of every single one of us -- all the Scrippsies who got up extra early to put together the ultimate black outfit, everyone who stuck it out at the sit-in and in return got sun burned and dehydrated, the students who spent hours composing heartfelt speeches for the rally, the professors who gathered with students to console and comfort, and especially the student groups like OBSA and Hillel who came together to voice a strong response to such ignorance at the Claremont Colleges.

I guess it’s fitting, though. The “hate crime” was not real, but neither was our reaction. We came together because we had to. We rallied because they told us to. We were sad because that’s how you’re suppose d to act. But when I looked at the faces of my classmates that day, I saw nothing. Our apathy was thinly veiled; we were all just playing a role. The irony was that we were being told to care about an event that never really happened. Kerri Dunn spray-painted her own car and five prestigious private colleges came to an unprecedented stand-still. But to mo urn what? Her artistry, her skill at deception, her ability to play a role better than we could? Kerri Dunn got the last laugh on this one. But did anyone hear it?

Caitlin Sanders is a native of Marin County, California, and is a rising junior at Pitzer College.  She is considering a Sociology major.