Do NOT vandalize your roommates’ Trump merchandise

College is meant to function as “the free marketplace of ideas.” One thing that is beautiful is that people from a variety of backgrounds come together and all bring unique perspectives to the table. This can range from racial identity, to cultural identity, to people claiming public allegiance to the least intelligent but most powerful person in the world. 

That being said, our job as scholars, or as people who have more than two brain cells, is to protect their right to boast their ignorance as they please. This means that under no circumstance should you ever, rip, burn, tear, scratch, steal, throw away, draw penises on, or in any other way creatively vandalize Trump-related merchandise.

When we vandalize, all we are doing is making it clear that in no way do we as rational people tolerate ignorance and facsim being represented on our campus. All we are doing is telling our Trump-supporting peers that their support for his hatred has no place in our school, and that, by publicly supporting Trump, they label themselves as the enemy of any self-respecting institution. 

What kind of school would we live in without public support for Trump? How many undocumented students could feel a little safer knowing there is no one on campus actively seeking their deportation? How many women could move throughout their day without the men in their classes actively supporting an alleged domestic abuser and rapist? 

If someone reading this were to key the car of someone with a “MAGA” or “Hilary for Prison” bumper sticker, which of course under no circumstance you should, it might make that person think twice about advertising an ideology that actively terrorizes all marginalized people in our country. 

All these people are doing is overcompensating in the form of hate symbols that trigger and re-traumatize anyone who the Fuhrer—I mean president—has threatened, called a rapist/drug dealer, or advocated violence against. 

Is equality not about letting the enemy walk over you? Is equity not about engaging with people who do not believe you should exist? Is being a good person not about protecting neo-nazis and white supremacists who are just “sharing their opinion”?

Well, doing any minor property damage to send a message certainly would be the opposite of any of these things. 

At the end of the day, it comes down to two simple questions. The first is if you were to do the unthinkable and send a message in this fashion, what kind of person would you be? A hero? A badass? An ally? A good person? And the second is, is it worth it? 

I can only tell you the irreversible and horribly damaging effects that this behavior can have on the monsters in your classrooms that call themselves your peers. Choice is one of the things that makes America great; this choice is yours.