Letter to the Editor: Addressing the Mr. Fraternity ‘Controversy’

By Miriam Parson

After a late Sunday morning and a few hours of work I picked up the Gettysburgian this week to find a piece titled “Anonymous Gburg Forum Article Sparks Controversy.” I read all three submissions and then the submissions on the Gburg Forum, including an alumnus’ words and the editor’s words. We need to address the issues that these voices brought to light but did confront.

The language used in all submissions is filled with judgment, anger, sarcasm, jabs and self-defensive reactions to the same language from the other side. I am seeing my peers act and react in fear of a label, in fear of each others’ perceptions. I see a community composed of multi-faceted, intelligent, ambitious members wounding each other, building walls around the ‘others’ and then defensively entrenching themselves. In a campus as small and as potentially tight-knit as Gettysburg has the luxury of being, we cannot even watch and listen to our neighbors’ lives with acceptance despite disagreement.

What kind of community are we when a voice self-censors her/himself because s/he fears judgment? What kind of community do we foster when that fear is confirmed? How are we able to responsibly build community through our current and future endeavors when we cannot even respect other members of a relatively (globally speaking) homogeneous neighborhood?

I am typing in tears. Students, alumni, leaders of every sort are cutting rifts between each other because mutual miscommunication or shear, total lack of communication has degenerated into surges of hate. I turned to an article two pages before the ‘Mr. Fraternity Controversy’ in the Gettysburgian and there is a voice crying out from isolation and loneliness on our campus, declaring these the products of our small campus (‘Schocking Opinions’, Nov 16, 2006). This language and this rejection cannot persist in our community, in our home. I am not addressing an issue of Greek or Independent, pearl earrings or Allies button, LaX or X-C, but instead an issue of open communication pathways to shape an accepting community – forged by ALL sides, groups, and individuals.

Our community here is what we chose to make of Gettysburg. So let’s use language wisely. Let’s respectfully listen to our neighbors and when we chose to disagree, let’s do it with that same respect. Let’s create the atmosphere that we know to be peaceful, to be encouraging, to be positively productive.

Thank you.
Best,
Miriam Parson