On Tuesday, December 6, 2016, the campus of Texas A&M University was once again in the national spotlight. A few weeks ago, a prominent white nationalist named Richard Spencer announced that he would be speaking (please note: he was NOT invited by any current student, faculty or staff member of Texas A&M) on our campus, in the Memorial Student Center. Immediately, there was an outcry among both current and former students and members of the Bryan/College Station community. In response, Texas A&M organized and publicized a counter-event called Aggies United, to take place in Kyle Field, around the same time as Mr. Spencer's speech. I attended this event, and took notes in order to both recap the event, and offer my reflection of it.

Recap:

The three hour event, hosted by noted actor and activist Hill Harper and Student Body President Hannah Wimberly, began with an Aggie Talent Showcase, which featured several faculty groups including the Bill Clark Trio and the Marion Anderson Quartet. Stuckey the Rapping Professor, student rapper JC Juice, and Aggie Swaram, a South Asian A Capella group performed throughout the evening. The Fade to Black dance ensemble and Ballet Folklorico, a Mexican folklore dance ensemble showed off their talents as well. Having only heard of Stuckey and Fade to Black before, it was really cool to learn more about the diverse talent on our campus. I had never seen Mexican folklore dancing before, but I loved it and would want to see it again.

Religious leaders representing Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, and Christianity also came together to speak about the need for unity in the face of division. Nimrah Miraz, whose desire for unity was even seen on her beautiful American flag printed hijab, identified herself as an "Aggie American Muslim" spoke on behalf of Muslim students. Other religious speakers were Pastor Sam Hill of New Birth Baptist Church in Bryan, Dr. Ben Sharp, a bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, and Jewish Rabbi Yossi Lazaroff.

Quarterback Trevor Knight, joined on stage by student athletes from various sports, spoke on behalf of Aggie student athletes and thanked students and the community for attending,

Speakers for the evening included Chancellor John Sharp, President Michael Young, Max Glauben, a Holocaust survivor, and Roland Martin '91, host of TV One's NewsOneNow as well as some current students. Below are a few quotes and stories from the various speakers that really stuck out to me.

Chancellor Sharp told the story of the man who saved his father's life during World War II. After his father's legs were incapacitated, another soldier (who he did not know) left the safety of his position to drag his father back to safety on the beach. All Chancellor Sharp knew was this man was Hispanic, but only because Sharp's father said the soldier was cursing in Spanish the entire time. The beauty of this story is that the man who saved Sharp's father did not know if the he was white or Jewish or Muslim or gay or an atheist or any other label we use to divide ourselves. He knew he was an American soldier, and that is all that mattered.

"We can understand what is right and what is wrong; we can understand the difference between justice and injustice. We can understand the difference between hate and love, that coming together we can affirm the positive and disaffirm and disqualify those that are spouting out hate, disunity and division." - Hill Harper

"No one's prayer for inclusion goes unanswered tonight." - President Michael Young

"Loyalty is defined as acceptance forever." - Josh Lewis, President of the Black Student Alliance Council

"I now spend many hours speaking to students, telling them of what true love for the country and what true unity means. If all of us became upstanders and tried to treat each one of us the way we like to be treated, we wouldn't need any armies [and] we wouldn't have too much hatred among us." - Max Glauben

"When life happens around us, we can be unfazed, touched by emotion, or moved to action." - Pastor Sam Hill, New Birth Baptist Church

At Aggies United, I learned from Caleb Armstrong, president of LGBTQ Aggies, that this year, Texas A&M has been taken off the list of colleges least friendly to the LGBTQ community. That is a big deal, considering it once took a lengthy court battle and decision by Fifth US District Court of Appeals (Gay Student Services v. Texas A&M University) to allow LGBTQ Aggies to form a group on campus. We're not perfect, but this is a step in the right direction.

Josh Lewis, President of the Black Student Alliance Council, spoke about he felt that the loyalty was "a dream deferred," in that the loyalty we so proudly tout as one of our core values does not always come across in practice. He spoke of being afraid to speak up in class and experiencing other students assuming that he was only at A&M due to Affirmative Action, or by being an athlete. While I am upset that he has had to experience these things, I am so glad that he chose to speak up about it in a way that called the rest of us to action. Aggies United was not an event to show off how awesome we are at handling social issues, but to be a forum to showcase experience, both positive and negative, and work to find a way forward.

The evening also featured performances by singer/songwriter Ben Rector and soul singer (and actress and model) V. Bozeman, most recently seen on FOX's Empire as Veronica. Throughout the event, videos from a variety of public figures including news anchor Dan Rather, former Aggie quarterback and current Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill, and Rachel Bloom, star of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on the CW.

Personal Reflection:

Before I begin, please let me say that these views are entirely my own based on my own beliefs and experiences as a middle-class, white, female, Christian college student. I understand that people are going to disagree with me, but I ask that any comments/dialogue be constructive and respectful.

The first Aggie in my family was Claudius M. Easley, class of 1916. He was a sharpshooter and two-star general who served alongside his son in World War II. Claude never made it back home to Aggieland; he was killed in action in the Pacific in 1942. If you walk in the "Honor" entrance to the MSC, you'll see his name on the original plaque dedicating the building to Aggies who gave their lives in service to their country. I, of course, never got to meet Claude, and he never got to know that he started the Aggie tradition in my family (carrying on into the fourth generation now), but I think he would have been proud of us today. I think he would have been proud to know that instead of listening to someone spout the nonsense that brought Hitler (and World War II) into existence, we chose to be good Ags, and stand by each other. I think he and former Texas A&M President Earl Rudder, a man who fought Nazis on the beaches of Normandy, would probably have been disgusted that a man with Nazi-like views chose to speak there. But I also think that men who saw firsthand what life was like under repressive regimes both in Europe and Asia would probably also say with in same breath that the First Amendment right to free speech is guaranteed to those we vehemently disagree with, just as much as it is guaranteed to us.

It should be noted that as I left the Aggies United event, I witnessed confrontation between students and supporters of Richard Spencer. There was a noticeable police presence, and from what I saw, they did not intervene in protests until the student protesters had surrounded a Spencer supporter. The Spencer supporters finally backed down and began to walk away, followed by student protesters chanting "don't come back." To be honest, I don't know how I feel about that. On the one hand, I don't want them to come back and spread their hate and try to stir up trouble on our campus. But I also know that no mind has ever been changed without communication. I kept thinking about how much Jesus Christ loves that protester, the one holds views vastly different than my own. I am just as much pf a sinner as he, yet I felt justified in telling him to get out and never come back. What if God had said that to me the first, second, thousandth time I fell short of expectations and sinned against Him? What if He had said "Nope, that's it. You're too far gone. You're welcome at my table anymore." I have no business telling that man the same thing. To this man (and those like him), I say that I love Him because Christ loves him, and I welcome him back to campus if he comes with the intention to learn a little more about us and what we believe, not with the intention of inciting violence or unrest. I love my fellow Ags too, and their safety and security is also very important. After the event, I heard about the police arresting two people, who were not students, and accounts of violence and escalation by the police. I cannot comment on that since I was not there to witness it, but all in all, it seemed like a relatively peaceful protest.

I don't know what it is like to be a minority on this campus, but to my fellow Ags who are members of other races, religions, genders, or have difference sexual orientations as me, please know that I will do what I can to use the my privilege to fight for you and your issues and rights, because if they are your issues, they are also mine. I'll stand up for you. I'll fight for you. I think you can find a lot of Ags on this campus that would say the same.

On the day following the event, I read this thought-provoking letter written by a former Marine and current student at Texas A&M, that caused me to examine my own thoughts on the Aggies United event and the circumstances around it further. None of us knows everything, including the solution to racial issues on our campus and in our country, but the one thing I know for sure is that as long as we keep talking keep investigating keep trying to move forward, eventually we will.