You are most certainly correct. It is 2014, 151 years since Abraham Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation that freed all of the slaves that resided in the states in the Confederacy. It has been 51 years since Martin Luther King Jr marched on to Washington D.C. and delivered his famous “I Have a Dream Speech” and 49 years since the Jim Crow Laws were overturned and disbanded.
But did you also know that is has been 48 years since Marshaylyn Yeargin-Allsop entered Sweet Briar College in 1966, which is only 9 years after the Little Rock Nine and 4 years after James Meredith enrolls at Ole Miss? And 46 years since she became the first African American woman to graduate from Sweet Briar College?
By the way, she is an epidemiologist at the Center for Disease Control and Atlanta now and does credit Sweet Briar for helping her succeed.
But no, I am sure you were not aware. Just as I’m sure you were not aware that a good 20-30% of the women on campus are African American. And while that is a low percentage, we honor these women by referring to them as black pearls, because though they may sometimes seem rare, they are extremely beautiful and precious. However, to continue to point at Sweet Briar’s diversity, at least half the campus is either gay, bi, or transgender and no matter what it is the community is very supportive of these women and their decisions about who to love. In fact, one of the more popular clubs on campus is GLOW (gay, lesbian, or whatever) and as a college we have been named one of the friendliest campuses in regards to gay students. Politically, we are about 50/50. We welcome about 20% Hispanic students and a growing population of Asian women as well. Women come from all sorts of economic backgrounds, whether it is poor as dirt or families with old oil money. And the women that are well off are hard to find sometimes, majority of the students are only fortunate enough to attend Sweet Briar because of scholarships, grants, and loans.
Sometimes it can be hard to see, but we are truly a diverse community and support women from all kinds of backgrounds. We are a sisterhood that is all about feminism and thinking of more and more reasons of why women are more badass than men, something you clearly have seemed to miss.
First thing, I would like to point out that you are correct, you are not a hard-hitting journalist. In addition, if you have any plans for attempting a career in journalism, I would like to encourage you to rethink your life because the most important thing in journalism is to make sure you have your facts straight. Which, let’s be real here, you clearly do not.
The next thing is that we don’t know who created the signs, of which there were only four of that sat in one part of a hallway and not an entire dorm as you had portrayed. You claimed that upperclasswoman had “ransacked” a freshman dorm. Well, for one thing that dorm that the incident happened in wasn’t even a freshman dorm. Sure, there are many freshmen living in it, but there are also quite a few upperclasswoman as well. And how do you know it was an upperclasswoman? Not even the school is aware of who did it, let alone what year they are. Unless you personally know the culprit, which I highly doubt, you most certainly did not have any right in saying that.
On another note, I suggest you retake a geography class because Sweet Briar does not reside in “the backwoods of Virginia.” In saying so, you are insulting the people that live in Amherst, Madison Heights and Lynchburg.
Continuing, you claimed that we as a community have done nothing in response to these atrocious actions committed by one or two women. You call for a charge and hope that at least one of us will, as you put it, have “the guts to say that this was hateful and unacceptable.” Again, you are lacking real evidence because if you were actually here you would see the outrage that exists within every student. Social media is blowing up with how disappointed the students are with the unknown woman (or women) who we had considered to be a sister. Since this act does violate are treasured and highly respected honor code, we, along with the faculty and staff, are looking for the culprit so they can be rightly punished for their horrendous actions and the awful affect it has had on this community.
Another thing I would like to point out is that in journalism you are not supposed to report on your opinion. Journalists report facts, and though you have failed to do so, it saddens me even more so to see you reporting your opinion, which is very ugly and stereotypical. If you want to talk about my riding boots (which I don’t have since I’ve never been on a horse), my Hampden-Sydney boyfriend who will leave me for a younger woman (which I don’t have since everyone knows the real men are at VMI), and my old plantation money (which I certainly don’t have because my family lived on a poor farm in Oklahoma and could barley afford to feed the children), then I would like to point out that you must be a stereotypical blonde bimbo, a sorority girl who spends more time drinking than thinking, a spoiled rich brat who buys her friends and her way through life, and a blogger who reports dramatic untruths with the hopes of gaining more readers. Clearly, both stereotypes are not true (at least I hope the one in regards to you are not) so why must we point them out? Why do you feel the need to trash good and kind women based on the actions of one person? And why do you feel the need to drag these women through the mud and label them with negative and most certainly false stereotypes that I’m sure you yourself have been a victim of?
As I sit here and look at across my beautiful campus that my parents break their backs for (like I’ve said, I have no idea where this plantation money you mentioned is coming from), I feel sad for you. I am fortunate to be surrounded by the most amazing group of women and be in an environment where I am encouraged to take charge and change the world. No one is telling me what I can and can’t do, or saying that I shouldn’t pursue my dreams because the time for me to marry and start popping out kids is near. Instead, I am being pushed everyday to excel and I am awarded so many wonderful opportunities that will only help me succeed in life. And sure, we clearly have one bad apple, but she most certainly does not represent the wonderful sisterhood that exists here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. However, you seemed to have missed out on experiencing this type of wonderful since you feel the need to slander an entire community based on the action of one individual. Like I said, I feel kind of bad for you because if you knew the truth, your article would have a very different tone.
As I end this, I would like to leave you with two things. First off, I would like to leave you with the knowledge that in 2003, Sweet Briar renamed the slave graveyard that lies on campus back from the 1800’s when the land was a plantation. We now call it “Sacred Resting Place of Unknown Founders Who Labored to Build What Has Become Sweet Briar College. We are in Their Debt.” At the end of this I will supply a link for you to learn more about the African American history that exists at Sweet Briar and how we try to honor it today.
In addition, I will also leave a link for Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsop’s story. I find it to be very powerful considering the amount of work people put in to make Sweet Briar College open to all women, despite race. She was actually on campus just the other day and we celebrated our sister with a dinner hosted by student leaders.
Similar to how you ended your own article, I finally leave you with the hopes that I have. I hope that you will actually read this and see the errors in your article and understand that lack of facts makes for a horrible story. I hope you will reconsider the ill-fitting stereotypes that you have harshly labeled this community with. And I hope you will realize how many brilliant women you have offended by condemning us all because of the action of one person.
And you were right. Hate doesn’t look good on anyone- even a blogger with poor writing skills and too much time on her hands.
Rush to Rehab,
You are most certainly correct. It is 2014, 151 years since Abraham Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation that freed all of the slaves that resided in the states in the Confederacy. It has been 51 years since Martin Luther King Jr marched on to Washington D.C. and delivered his famous “I Have a Dream Speech” and 49 years since the Jim Crow Laws were overturned and disbanded.
But did you also know that is has been 48 years since Marshaylyn Yeargin-Allsop entered Sweet Briar College in 1966, which is only 9 years after the Little Rock Nine and 4 years after James Meredith enrolls at Ole Miss? And 46 years since she became the first African American woman to graduate from Sweet Briar College?
By the way, she is an epidemiologist at the Center for Disease Control and Atlanta now and does credit Sweet Briar for helping her succeed.
But no, I am sure you were not aware. Just as I’m sure you were not aware that a good 20-30% of the women on campus are African American. And while that is a low percentage, we honor these women by referring to them as black pearls, because though they may sometimes seem rare, they are extremely beautiful and precious. However, to continue to point at Sweet Briar’s diversity, at least half the campus is either gay, bi, or transgender and no matter what it is the community is very supportive of these women and their decisions about who to love. In fact, one of the more popular clubs on campus is GLOW (gay, lesbian, or whatever) and as a college we have been named one of the friendliest campuses in regards to gay students. Politically, we are about 50/50. We welcome about 20% Hispanic students and a growing population of Asian women as well. Women come from all sorts of economic backgrounds, whether it is poor as dirt or families with old oil money. And the women that are well off are hard to find sometimes, majority of the students are only fortunate enough to attend Sweet Briar because of scholarships, grants, and loans.
Sometimes it can be hard to see, but we are truly a diverse community and support women from all kinds of backgrounds. We are a sisterhood that is all about feminism and thinking of more and more reasons of why women are more badass than men, something you clearly have seemed to miss.
First thing, I would like to point out that you are correct, you are not a hard-hitting journalist. In addition, if you have any plans for attempting a career in journalism, I would like to encourage you to rethink your life because the most important thing in journalism is to make sure you have your facts straight. Which, let’s be real here, you clearly do not.
The next thing is that we don’t know who created the signs, of which there were only four of that sat in one part of a hallway and not an entire dorm as you had portrayed. You claimed that upperclasswoman had “ransacked” a freshman dorm. Well, for one thing that dorm that the incident happened in wasn’t even a freshman dorm. Sure, there are many freshmen living in it, but there are also quite a few upperclasswoman as well. And how do you know it was an upperclasswoman? Not even the school is aware of who did it, let alone what year they are. Unless you personally know the culprit, which I highly doubt, you most certainly did not have any right in saying that.
On another note, I suggest you retake a geography class because Sweet Briar does not reside in “the backwoods of Virginia.” In saying so, you are insulting the people that live in Amherst, Madison Heights and Lynchburg.
Continuing, you claimed that we as a community have done nothing in response to these atrocious actions committed by one or two women. You call for a charge and hope that at least one of us will, as you put it, have “the guts to say that this was hateful and unacceptable.” Again, you are lacking real evidence because if you were actually here you would see the outrage that exists within every student. Social media is blowing up with how disappointed the students are with the unknown woman (or women) who we had considered to be a sister. Since this act does violate are treasured and highly respected honor code, we, along with the faculty and staff, are looking for the culprit so they can be rightly punished for their horrendous actions and the awful affect it has had on this community.
Another thing I would like to point out is that in journalism you are not supposed to report on your opinion. Journalists report facts, and though you have failed to do so, it saddens me even more so to see you reporting your opinion, which is very ugly and stereotypical. If you want to talk about my riding boots (which I don’t have since I’ve never been on a horse), my Hampden-Sydney boyfriend who will leave me for a younger woman (which I don’t have since everyone knows the real men are at VMI), and my old plantation money (which I certainly don’t have because my family lived on a poor farm in Oklahoma and could barley afford to feed the children), then I would like to point out that you must be a stereotypical blonde bimbo, a sorority girl who spends more time drinking than thinking, a spoiled rich brat who buys her friends and her way through life, and a blogger who reports dramatic untruths with the hopes of gaining more readers. Clearly, both stereotypes are not true (at least I hope the one in regards to you are not) so why must we point them out? Why do you feel the need to trash good and kind women based on the actions of one person? And why do you feel the need to drag these women through the mud and label them with negative and most certainly false stereotypes that I’m sure you yourself have been a victim of?
As I sit here and look at across my beautiful campus that my parents break their backs for (like I’ve said, I have no idea where this plantation money you mentioned is coming from), I feel sad for you. I am fortunate to be surrounded by the most amazing group of women and be in an environment where I am encouraged to take charge and change the world. No one is telling me what I can and can’t do, or saying that I shouldn’t pursue my dreams because the time for me to marry and start popping out kids is near. Instead, I am being pushed everyday to excel and I am awarded so many wonderful opportunities that will only help me succeed in life. And sure, we clearly have one bad apple, but she most certainly does not represent the wonderful sisterhood that exists here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. However, you seemed to have missed out on experiencing this type of wonderful since you feel the need to slander an entire community based on the action of one individual. Like I said, I feel kind of bad for you because if you knew the truth, your article would have a very different tone.
As I end this, I would like to leave you with two things. First off, I would like to leave you with the knowledge that in 2003, Sweet Briar renamed the slave graveyard that lies on campus back from the 1800’s when the land was a plantation. We now call it “Sacred Resting Place of Unknown Founders Who Labored to Build What Has Become Sweet Briar College. We are in Their Debt.” At the end of this I will supply a link for you to learn more about the African American history that exists at Sweet Briar and how we try to honor it today.
In addition, I will also leave a link for Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsop’s story. I find it to be very powerful considering the amount of work people put in to make Sweet Briar College open to all women, despite race. She was actually on campus just the other day and we celebrated our sister with a dinner hosted by student leaders.
Similar to how you ended your own article, I finally leave you with the hopes that I have. I hope that you will actually read this and see the errors in your article and understand that lack of facts makes for a horrible story. I hope you will reconsider the ill-fitting stereotypes that you have harshly labeled this community with. And I hope you will realize how many brilliant women you have offended by condemning us all because of the action of one person.
And you were right. Hate doesn’t look good on anyone- even a blogger with poor writing skills and too much time on her hands.
Information about African American Heritage at Sweet Briar: http://www.tusculum.sbc.edu/africanamericans/slavecemetery.shtml
Information about Marshalyn:
http://www.newsadvance.com/new_era_progress/news/black-and-white-sweet-briar-s-journey-beyond-color-lines/article_e1558c2c-9e6e-11e3-a0bc-001a4bcf6878.html