The late 1990’s was a continuous stream of events that shaped the turning of the millennium.
Matthew Shepard was found tied to a fence, beaten and left to die over night. He was targeted because he was gay.
James Byrd Jr. was tied to a truck naked and dragged behind for three miles, because he was black.
The Columbine High School shootings, which consisted of the death of 12 students, one teacher and two suicides, occurred on April 20, 1999.
These horrific crimes are all depicted in a documentary brought to our campus by the Race Relations Task Force. Thursday, April 2 in the Culp Ballroom, students and faculty gathered to view the film, “Journey to a Hate Free Millennium.”
This interactive presentation was developed by many groups on campus including the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, Human Development and Learning, the Black Faculty and Staff Association and the Office of Equity and Diversity, just to name a few.
The film shown is described as a powerful, exploratory short film about hate crimes in America.
This film apologized for nothing, and exhibited the truth about racism during this period in our country. Written and directed by Brent Scarpo and Martin Bedogne, the film’s heart-wrenching moments came to a head with Matthew Shepard’s mother recalling her sons final days. The signs picketed at his murder trial read, “Fag dies, god laughs!” and “No special laws for fags.”
It was obvious these overwhelming scenes brought up heartbreaking memories for the entire audience. After the film the audience and the facilitators created various roundtable discussions throughout the ballroom.
The dialogue’s intent was to engage and challenge on issues affecting our ETSU community. The facilitators engaged their circles by asking questions like, “Do you feel like there is hate crimes or incidents of intolerance on our campus?” or “What kinds of things can our campus do to make all students feel comfortable?”
Preview was said to be one of the most positive things on campus for students of different backgrounds interacting. “The idea was to formulate and work on short- and long-term ideas to foster dialogue affecting students on campus,” said grad student Bailey Garrett. The documentary ended with asking the question, “What will the new hate free millennium be like?”
Now, in 2009, we can ask ourselves, are we anymore hate free than we were 10 years ago?

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