23 October 2004, Fort Myers, FL
Florida. Ft. Myers. Florida Gulf Coast University. This is not an abstraction anymore. I can look out the plane window and see the southwest coast of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.
Development. Newly scraped land. Lots of it, flattening out the mangroves and cypress forests. We are in the western everglades.
Jim Wohlpart welcomes me. We hug as though we have known each other for years. As Chair of the Department of Arts and Humanities, he has held the line. He is the one who has gone toe to toe with President Merwin.
We immediately go straight to Florida Gulf Coast University where a group of students are waiting. We will have two hours together. I want to hear what they are thinking, what they have gone through, what their hopes are for tomorrow.
The campus is astonishing -- a group of satellite buildings in the midst of palmetto plants, mangroves, cypress mounds, and ponds. Panthers live here. Alligators. Wild pigs. As we walk across the bridge to where the classroom is, either side is lined by long-legged birds: great blue herons, white ibises, and egrets.
I am dreaming of roseate spoonbills.
My stomach is churning. We walk upstairs, down a hallway, and into a classroom. Fifteen to twenty students are sitting around a large table. Jim and I sit down. It is completely silent. The students are as nervous as I am.
Thank you. I said. And the silence broke. The students introduced themselves and shared in a ritualistic fashion. Each taking their turn. Each taking their time. It was like watching a lotus unfurl so slowly, the opening imperceptible, until one startling moment when you realize there is blossoming before you.
They were honest with the full range of emotion present. Patrick, Jim, and I listened.
I was so thrilled to meet Brandon Hollingshead who wrote me the letter on behalf of the students to invite me to speak outside of Convocation; C.J. Pisieczko, the editor of The Eagle, the student newspaper; Graham Bearden, who wrote me about how the honorarium could be used by the students to create a forum on free speech; Donna Roberts, another one of the organizers; and there was Darlene Roney, the young woman who called me the morning after my call with President Merwin and interviewed me with Lauren Thomas, to find out for themselves what had happened and why.
Fourteen student groups were represented around the table, with the exception of the Young Republicans who had been called by the Bush campaign to help with President George Bush's visit to Ft. Myers. Brandon said that the Republican representatives apologized for not being here; he told them he more than understood. "I said, 'Hey, this is your moment.' They were so excited to be able to help at the rally.' "
"Bush is a mile and a half from where we live in the ghetto," said Brandon's friend, Krista Robbins. "Seven thousand people in our neighborhood. Republicans on one side of the street, democrats on the either, screaming at each other."
When I asked how the students felt and why they responded to the president in the way they did, one of the students (who shall remain anonymous) simply said, "I thought, 'I'm a freshman. I paid a lot of money to come to this university. They robbed me.' I said, 'Screw you.' "
Another, "It just seemed like the right thing to do."
Another said, "This is why I came to college. These past two weeks have been heartbreaking, just talking to people, so closed minded, so sad. Makes you want to jump off a cliff."
"President Merwin's decision was so disappointing. I was angry. Frustrated. And then I just thought, What can we do to remedy this situation?"
"I've never cared about anything enough to stand up for it."
"I wasn't very involved at first as a student at FGCU. Over the past year, I have grown and totally changed. This whole event has been an accumulation of everything I want to do. How do I translate this into what I want to do next?"
"I was disappointed. I love this school. I love being a student here. I hope we can grow and learn from this and move beyond it."
"We are adults who are learning how to think critically. We don't need safety. We need to be challenged."
"We didn't mean to effect change, we just wanted you to come."
"We acted out of what we wanted and created this ripple effect that none of us could have imagined."
The students had questions: "How do we talk to one another?" "I've had a hundred doors slammed in my face in this county as I've been canvassing for Kerry. How do you deal with rejection?" "How do we stay strong?" "How do we open up lines of communication?" "How do we discern who is telling the truth and who is not?" "Is the use of force ever an option? Is the use of force ever appropriate?" "What's the difference between a pacifist and an activist?" "What is radical and what is conservative?"
I then asked the students more questions. What do we call this "situation?"
The students brainstormed with both humor and thought:
The Postponement.
The Injustice.
The Censoring.
The Cancellation.
The First Step.
The Uninvited.
The Denied.
Bayaniyan. (a Phillipine word meaning "the spirit of community unity")
And then in all the excitement, one of the voices said, "I think we should call it fortuitous."
