To the person who undermined and defaced efforts toward fundamental progression at Glenbrook North by urinating not once, but twice, on publications advocating in favor of feminism: thank you.

Thank you for sending a tremor through the school that reminds us how necessary it is to fight for righteous causes and how necessary it is to educate people on these causes. Clearly you have not been educated well enough on the importance of women’s rights or on the fight for fundamental rights at all. Your actions, immature and ignorant as they were, highlight a deeper problem that has reared its ugly head since the recent presidential election.

In light of our president-elect’s blatantly sexist approach to women, you have brought additional awareness to a mission that our country needs now more than ever.

We are but one high school in a country on the trembling edge of change. Our response to this change cannot simply be to emulate the many recent acts of hatred displayed toward those who do not fit into the conventional American majority. 

Since the election, cars, walls and playground equipment across the country have been vandalized with the swastika symbol and “Make America White Again” scrawled in graffiti. Mosques have received letters calling for genocide, and students from a high school in Texas chanted, “Build the wall” during a volleyball tournament against other schools with students of Hispanic ethnicity.

If we continually choose prejudice over acceptance or judgment over empathy, we are most certainly never going to “Make America Great Again.” What we will do, however, is backslide into more bigotry, more racial polarization and more hatred.

In order to make strides toward a more desirable future, we need to start talking and listening. Some students walked into their 2-3 classes on Nov. 9 crying over the result of the election because they think the “winners” are all homophobes and misogynists and racists and nationalists. They see our nation as a place where it is suddenly acceptable to pee on a poster that advocates for equality, and this is a frightening notion. Before the election, the sentiments Trump pronounced were empty threats, regarded as ignorant babble. Now, his thoughts have been validated and legitimized, and they cannot be taken lightly anymore.

At our school, it was only a poster and an article that faced defamation and crude disrespect, but around the country, the identities of actual people will confront a similar threat.

The only way we are going to take any steps toward a functional society is to start conversing. We must realize that Trump’s hateful rhetoric is real and in motion, that it is no longer something to joke about. We need to be cognizant of the consequences of these sentiments, and more importantly, we need to spend time constructively building dialogue between those who voted for Trump for reasons unrelated to misogyny or race and those who are unaware as to what the other reasons are.

We need to talk to one another instead of urinating on ideas we disagree with.

So, to he who peed, thank you. Thank you for showing us that growth is not linear, but rather constantly in flux, moving forward and backward like ocean tides. One day, we make leaps toward the future, toward open-mindedness and tolerance. The next day, we regress, calling for a wall to be built, making derogatory comments and peeing on equality. 

Thank you for performing a startling act of prejudice close enough to home to awaken us to the pertinent demand for discussion and understanding.

Now more than ever, our voices matter.

Sincerely,

The Torch Editorial Board