Anastasia Cottone, Staff Writer
On Saturday, Jan. 20, a member of our student community posted a picture to the social media website Instagram that has sparked feelings of anger, disgust and disappointment throughout the university.
The image pictured the student, along with another female student, standing at the back of a bus with a racially insensitive caption reading, “@rosaparks it ain’t so bad.”
The image received immediate backlash by members of our community and several social media users. On Twitter, the image gained traction and people reposted it. Many of those people believe St. Bonaventure University holds their students to a higher standard than the type of behavior shown. One person, not a student at St. Bonaventure, posted the image with a caption reading, “I really hope this isn’t how St. Bonaventure wants their school to be represented.” This tweet is particularly upsetting because the individual who posted it is not a member of the St. Bonaventure community, demonstrating the vast reach of the Instagram post.
Many of the students on campus reacted to the incident by publicly voicing their disgust. One student posted the image on Twitter, captioned with, “This isn’t funny at all, shame on anyone who even liked this racist s***.” Another student also posted the image on Twitter with a caption that read, “There is absolutely no room for any kind of racism at my school, your school or anywhere else in the world. Hopefully this person gets what he deserves and isn’t a part of the otherwise amazing community here at St. Bonaventure for much longer.”
It is evident how disgusted we, as a community of learners, are by this unfortunate event. The president of our university, Dr. Dennis DePerro, addressed the incident in an email sent out to the Bonaventure community. In it, he said, “This comment illustrates not only a miseducation about the civil rights movement and the sacrifices people made for racial equality, but also a complete lack of understanding of how simple words can cut so deeply.” He also states that we should deal with this situation with compassion and understanding, as Franciscans do.
We, as a collective community, want society to know that this student’s post is not an accurate representation of the opinions or feelings of the rest of us. We are embarrassed that one of our community members acted in such an ignorant way, and hope that this type of behavior does not continue.
