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CHOIR HOSTS T ALUMNI CONCER
MONTAGE p. 8
Serving the St. Louis Community College - Meramec community since 1964 • ACP Award Recipient VOLUME 59, ISSUE 8
MAY 2, 2024
WWW.MERAMECMONTAGE.COM
Meramec’s Fork In The Road
JACOB POLITTE MANAGING EDITOR
O
Free speech, antisemitism and potential police misconduct come to the forefront after two long days in mid-April
n Thursday, April 11 and Monday, April 15, a religious protester who came to campus left many students and faculty upset and dissatisfied with the college’s overall response. Adjacent to the situation, a separate incident has left at least one Meramec police officer under investigation and various students on campus calling for their and another officers’ removal. THE INCIDENTS April 11 Around 11:30 am, a large crowd gathered in the Student Center Quad, their attention drawn to a man spewing anti-semitic, anti-LGBTQ rethortic. The man, who livestreams his demonstrations on YouTube under an account called “Kingdom Reconcilers” was in the Quad verbally confronting students, which the college says is unfortunately protected by free speech laws. For two hours, the man had a continuous presence in the Quad, going back and forth with students, including Zainab Ahmad, who wasn’t sure she was even heading into campus that day after Eid Mubarak celebrations the day prior. “On Wednesday, I was celebrating with my family,” Ahmad said. “And so on Thursday, I was actually not going to come to class, I was very tired. And I hadn’t talked to my professor. But [...] I had a lab assignment due that day.” Ahmad said she entered campus that day from the parking lot adjacent to the Science buildings when she noticed the commotion. “And I just heard a lot of noise, which you don’t normally… I feel like you don’t hear that much noise on our
campus to begin with,” she said. “And then I just saw a whole bunch of other Muslim students gathered and then closer to where that guy was standing. I saw just like a ton of all different kinds of students standing. Ahmad said that during her years on campus, she was used to people in the Quad coming and interacting with students, but this man targeted her specifically after seeing her hijab. “There are preachers or even political solicitors that come on campus, so [that’s] nothing new,” Ahmad said. “But as I was walking by, I was getting ready to go towards Science East, and he just started pointing and yelling at me, and I heard him say that all Muslims are pedophiles. And that’s just like… that’s not something I take lightly [where] I’m like, ‘Well, I’m just gonna go to class now.’ And so I kind of turned my head and I saw that he was pointing at me and some other girls who had hijabs. So I pulled out my phone, [and] I started recording.” Ahmad’s video on Tik Tok regarding the incident has amassed over 1,000 views and counting as of press time. In the video, she is shown debating the protester. “I walked up to him and I very calmly and I asked him, I was like, ‘Can I ask you a question?’ And immediately, I mean, he was already very hostile towards me. And this is the part that I have like fully recorded,” she said. “And I asked him, ‘If you are so devoutly Christian, can you explain the contradictions between the denominations of Christianity?’ To which he started attacking our beloved prophet and Islam. He started saying Muhammad was a pedophile, all Muslims are pedophiles [and said] ‘Why don’t you go talk to your
community because they’re very wicked, and they’re all terrorists.’ And I remained very calm.” She continued, “I was like, ‘My community’s very lovely.’ And then [...] he was trying to egg me on. And he was like, ‘Oh, why are you such a tyrant? Why are you…’ You know, all these [statements], he was trying to get a reaction out of me. But he didn’t, because I’m not someone that you can make very angry very quickly. And again, I’m one of the older students on campus. So I was very calm. And then a lot of people started watching at that point, and were seeing that I was very calm and my reaction to him. And I think that wasn’t going the way he wanted it to go. I think he wanted a reaction.” A student, Emily Hall, was recorded on the protester’s livestream charging at the man yelling “Shame!” before being taken away by campus police. That footage has been edited out of the protester’s livestream after the fact, but KMOV did obtain footage of the incident before it was edited out. Hall was not able to be reached for this story as of press time, but she did attend one of the campus forums on April 16 where she spoke about her experience. April 15 The protester returned to campus again the following Monday, and the response to his presence drew a large crowd and many visceral reactions. Ahmad was made aware that he was on campus, and chose not to directly interact with him further. She wasn’t surprised that he returned. “I want to say I was surprised, but honestly, I’m not,” she said. “I think part of the reason he came back is because he got the reaction he wanted.
I think he got the news coverage. [...] He probably felt like there were words left unsaid, so he wanted to come back and insult more people.” Although Ahmad did not seek out the protester directly, he acknowledged her by name after seeing her on the sidelines. “I did not personally engage with him, and that was very intentional. And I was already nervous to begin with, because, you know, the first thing that goes through my mind is okay, did he see the news story, he now knows my name. Before he just knew where I went to school, what time etc. So I was worried for my own safety.” “But I have to walk through that quad to get to my class,” she said. “I could have tried to go through another building and then quickly, but then why am I on my own campus having to like dip and duck to avoid somebody who’s threatening my safety? So I went to my class and I didn’t engage initially.” Jack Wight, who works in the Academic Success and Tutoring Center as a tutor, said his involvement in the situation came after the fact. He and Ahmad were both publicly doxxed by the protester. “[...] The proselytizer was at the quad, yelled at my name and social media in front of a crowd of people and called me a homosexual,” Wight said. “Which is true, but imagining a scenario in which I was not out of the closet or or there were more homophobes around, what could that have led to?” Ahmad was standing near STLCC’s Executive Director of Diversity and Inclusion D’Andre Braddix when the protester called her out by name.
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