Rachel Lavin-
When I was asked to write a blog representing Halls, to me it was the ultimate assignment. I love Halls. I love this little patch of South-side we culchies and foreigners have made our own. It is our redbrick oasis in the middle of this hectic city. It has slowly become the first place any of us have truly ever called home away from home, with all its familiar crevices, the familiar gates we all have attempted to climb over at one stage, the benches by the traffic-cone filled pond, the different courtyards competing for the title of ‘maddest bastards’, the wilds of the ‘ghetto’, the overall buzz, the familiar emblems, Halls’ viscous cat, the grumpy warden and of course the hilarious Paul from security. This is it all, here in Halls.
But then I naïvely forget, representing Halls isn’t all basking in our familiar haven, laughing at our familiar sights, creating a looking glass to admire our home-made campus. There are the ugly sides too.
Last weekend, SU candidate Elaine McDaid was harassed leaving Halls on the 128 bus by a group of five male residents. She was physically and verbally attacked under the pretense of campaigning for her opposing candidate, Chris O’Conner. Of course, this had nothing to do with Chris O’Conner. It probably had nothing to do with campaign loyalties. It was something else. It was a twisted sense of humor that thought it would be funny to violently harass a girl when she was alone. It was a hideous arrogance that caused someone to see it as their place to patronise and abuse someone in such a way. It was a serious show of cruelty by a group of five males, showing a lack of conscience and letting mob mentality allow them to abuse those more vulnerable than themselves. And most profoundly, it was an underlying competition. These students didn’t want to see someone else trying to better themselves, trying to become equal, to become successful. They wanted to undermine and hurt that sense of determination they find threatening, because they themselves would be too cowardly ever to do what their victim is able to do.
However, I refuse to call Elaine a victim. This should not change the race for the S.U. and should not damage her candidacy. We should not look at her differently, or cast a vote of sympathy. Our focus here should lie on the type of people that were on the other side of the story. The most infamous representatives of Trinity whose brush we all become tarred with; the twisted, arrogant, undermining and cruel type. It had emerged already this year with the infamous ski trip boys; whom merely affirmed the rest of the country’s belief we are all just rich arrogant asses. How do we counter-act this? Laugh it off? Accuse outsiders simply of jealousy? How ironic these methods are.
It will take a little bit more than that. We’ll need to grow a thicker skin. Not against outsiders, but those within the walls of Trinity. Too often it is okay to chastise each other about our courses, to negatively stereotype each other, to form cliques, to compete, to undermine those around us.
Yes, we are the smartest students in the country; I won’t deny that we got accepted into the highest-points courses. But that’s more a source of problems than anything. When you come to Trinity, you’re not the best anymore. You’re just one of many. So we displace our competitive sides elsewhere. Where you live, where you’re from, how you dress, how you talk. It’s one thing after another. The knacks we have of establishing status here, Trinity is just a muted High School Musical with cobbles.
And what is the result? We breed the ‘Trinity Head’ out of this environment, the type that come to think its ok to smoke fifty euro notes and attack the vulnerable. You may say it’s the same in any college, but we must question why Trinity is the most infamous. In an earlier edition of UT, one bartender when asked of his impression of Trinity students put the differentiation perfectly for me. “They talk over each other, about the most pointless shite. I have yet to see a true group of friends in here.”
We are all representatives of Trinity College here. We all feed into one another. It’s time to tackle our ugly side; to draw the line with put-downs that too often go too far; to question the stereotypes we too willingly apply; to stop competing with and undermining one another on a constant basis.
I said at the start I was glad to represent Halls, but I am not the true representative. This blog is just a medium of what is already there. It’s up to every one of us cogs in the Trinity machine to make it work, to make it a success, to represent our own worthy stereotype.
