In response to allegedly race-motivated hate crimes following last Tuesday's terrorist attacks, Penn students are organizing a campus-wide grassroots media relations effort in hopes of countering the backlash toward Asian Americans in Philadelphia.
At a meeting last night in Harrison College House, two Penn students attempted to organize a coalition of leaders to head the effort. More than 60 students from a number of Penn activist and minority groups attended the meeting, and more are expected at an open meeting tonight on College Green.
The campaign intends to increase local media coverage of hate crimes as well as boost the prominence of the issue in political and journalistic circles.
"A friend of ours here found out that his temple had been burned down in Matawan, New Jersey, and the way he found out was not through the media, but that he actually had to go there" four days later, said Engineering junior Sandeep Acharya, who, along with College junior Vivek Arora, organized the effort.
"We feel that we should act quickly to put pressure on media and political figures in the local area," Acharya added. "We should be putting pressure on the media to report the things that are going on, we should be putting pressure on politicians to discuss our plight."
The students pointed to multiple recent attacks on Asian-American students and community members, which they said were not reported in the Philadelphia media.
Leaders said they hoped to gain attention for the issue with mass action: hundreds of phone calls to the three television networks, reams of letters to the editors of local newspapers and letters to and discussions with local politicians.
"We just want to bombard the local TV media," Acharya told those at the meeting. "Call the networks and express concern over the reporting of hate crimes, as well as asking them if they're ever going to have speakers on that represent our issues."
Organizers said they hoped that 80 to 100 students would participate in the effort, which is not affiliated with any permanent campus group or any single racial minority.
The movement has already drawn support from the Penn chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Penn Arab Society, the Muslim Students Association, the United Minorities Council, the Program for Awareness and Cultural Education, the Penn Indian American Advocacy and the Asian Pacific Student Coalition, among others.
"There are many groups on campus that are collaborating together to affect change and to make themselves heard," UMC Chairwoman Jennifer Kwon said. "Because there's such a strong presence right now and so many people are working together to collaborate, there has to be some positive result. The media can't just ignore them."
Several students said they supported the effort because they currently felt unsafe. Some even said that they were afraid to go downtown in current circumstances. Several told stories of temple and mosque bombings and attacks on individuals in the local area.
"It's not just out of fear for myself because I look Indian or Arab and I'm afraid of being attacked, but because... we're not always treated as first-rate citizens," College junior Lakshmi Aggarwal said. "A lot of people are being attacked violently."
But those at last night's meeting said they were confident that their strategy would sway the media to tell their story, and to allow minority advocates to air their concerns.
"I think there's a lot of energy here that, if properly focused, can have an outcome on Penn's campus," College sophomore and Penn ACLU President Joshua Brown said. "If they can come together and figure out what to do here, and solidify the leadership base, they can do a lot of good things."
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