Leave it to the liberal University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill student body to decide what messages are “triggers” and need to be silenced. Yep. Somebody hurt their little feelings again and they  go crying because the big, bad, pro-life “bullies” were out in full force showing them messages they would rather not see and would rather bury somewhere deep in their subconscious whilst they display their oh-so-“inclusive” angst.

On the heels of Obama’s “least of these” speech in his welcome message to Pope Francis, pro-life students at UNC-Chapel Hill took to the campus to inscribe these chalk messages around the common areas:

The messages were spearheaded by the university’s Carolina Students for Life chapter president, Grace Garner and were mopped over subsequently a few hours later.

“We went out at about 7:00, and some of us were out as late as 2:00 in the morning.”-Grace Garner

UNC chapter of Students United for Reproductive Justice (SURJ) president, Jennifer Myers announced around 10:00pm that evening that she and another member of the group had “mopped up” the chalk messages, and encouraging other students to follow suit. This from their Facebook Page:

Triggering/problematic /co-opted anti-choice messages have been written on the bricks all around campus (largely the quad area). We have mopped up most of them, but the same messaging has already been re-written. If you see someone writing anti-choice and triggering messages and feel safe approaching them, try to engage them in conversation about it. Otherwise please erase the messages in whatever ways you can. We’ll be walking around with a mop throughout the day to do this, but obviously we can’t be everywhere.

This is triggering. This is violence. This is co-optation. This is not okay.

This is the latest update from SURJ this morning:

Students United for Reproductive Justice is committed to ending the violence against Black, trans, and queer bodies and the bodies of women and girls on our campus and in critical policy discussions. Some of the language that was written across our campus was co-opted from the Black Lives Matter movement. This co-optation desecrates the complex histories and current lived realities of people of color in this country, which SURJ views as dangerous and grounds for erasure.

This rhetoric is not uncommon in the anti-choice movement and is being employed on a larger scale in the U.S. government, with the recent movement to defund Planned Parenthood. This is extremely worrisome, because nearly all of the care offered at Planned Parenthood health centers is preventative services and screenings, including contraception, testing for sexually transmitted infections, pap smears and breast exams.

One of the chalk messages that was drawn on this campus reported false information about Planned Parenthood, and much like a national anti-choice organization’s recent slander campaign, attempted to misrepresent them.

The defunding of an organization that provides vital health services to millions of people in this country is not the answer.
The creation and re-creation of these damaging stigmas and stereotypes is not productive.

Chalking co-opted language and turning it into hate messages that are dangerous for our student body is not conversation.
If you want to engage in conversation, we would love for you to come out to our documentary screening and discussion on Monday, September 28th in Union room 2420. We will be showing the the documentary, “The Last Clinic”, and hope to address some of the stigma about abortion and promote dialogue amongst students. You can find out more about the event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1499947073649015/.

Thank you all for your strength and support.

Be safe and be well,
SURJ

Where on the chalk message that includes the hashtags #blacklivesmatter, #muslimlivesmatter and #gaylivesmatter did students from SURJ-Chapel Hill see an attack against these movements?  Oh, right. It was the inclusion of “alllivesmatter” and “prebornlivesmatter” that you saw as the blatant attack.  By this logic, the language was “co-opted” from the #blacklivesmatter movement and therefore a hostile move to sway the student population (the ones whose brains have not been hijacked just yet) to make a logical connection between these embraced movements on the campus versus the pro-life movement that is not the “cool” movement of the hour. This “co-opting” apparently was so “dangerous” that you had to wipe the “controversial” hashtags away.

The language depicted in these chalk drawings was not hostile. Nowhere did we see blatant threats to the well-being of “Black, trans, and queer bodies and the bodies of women and girls” on their campus. The pro-life community’s statement of #alllivesmatter was encompassing and including these students and potential UNC Chapel-Hill students who may be “Black, trans, and queer bodies and the bodies of women and girls” in years to come-if they’re not aborted first.  “Loving the Least” encompasses all walks of life-“Black, trans, and queer bodies and the bodies of women and girls”. What about the desecration of potential realities of people of color in this country?

Where was the “violence” these people speak of? Where was the hate? These groups like to encourage the conversation only when the argument is in their favor. They then thank readers for strength and support. What these young minds don’t seem to understand is that strength comes from standing up for what you believe in without the desire to silence the opposition. Strength comes from mutual respect, regardless of whether you agree or disagree. Strength comes from hearing the arguments and understanding why the conversations are happening as opposed to being spoon fed the conversation by your peers and agreeing blindly to their perspectives. Sadly, they snuffed out strength as quickly as they believe a tiny life should be snuffed out without question. I feel for the kids coming out of our university system today. Following like blind sheep is viewed as power and any thing or any one who opposes them is a threat that causes them to curl up in a fetal position and pout in a corner somewhere.

At least they have the opportunity and ability to curl up in that fetal position. They can thank their mothers for that.