Students drown out rhetoric out with music
BY: JACOB POLITTE
Managing Editor
The religious protester who caused a stir amongst the Meramec community in April returned to campus to livestream once more in October, and so did another preacher.
Montage Staffer Hiba Obeed was on the scene in a non-journalistic capacity when the “Kingdom Reconcilers” speaker returned on Wednesday, Oct. 9. She said that the protester was on campus for “a good three or four hours.”
She then elaborated further, “He came and said some crazy stuff about every minority group ever. Told the whole crowd we were going to hell. Two or three people tried shouting to ‘out-preach’ him I guess. In the end three people plugged in their guitars and started playing super loud music to annoy him and a lot of people went to watch them instead. I saw some people from the school talking to him and he packed up and left.”
Those students’ names were RJ Muhammad, Owen Schrader and Kristen Skordos.
Muhammad, a student at Meramec for the last year and a half, was on site for last April’s controversy, and was disgusted by what she had seen.
“My initial reaction was outrage at the brazen bigotry the entire student body was harassed with– especially our Muslim peers,” she said. “I remember the second day he came after he had harassed that Hijabi student. Me and a friend of mine went in front of his camera and kissed… we’re both girls. So, it definitely wasn’t my first time trying to drive him away and won’t be the last. There’s no empathy or patience in my heart for hateful people like him.”
Muhammad described her thought process when the protester returned, noting that originally, she wasn’t going to participate in the ongoing diversion started by Owen Schrader.
“I saw Owen originally playing on his bass alone after I had just gotten out of class,” she said. “I had my bass and amp with me, but I originally wasn’t gonna join because I’m only a novice in playing the bass. Then, after getting something to eat, I noticed Kristen had joined Owen, so that gave me confidence to join as well. It was as simple as switching my amp on and plugging my bass in. Before that point, we had never met before!”
Muhammad said the group was happy that “no one was listening to him anymore– and I felt really cool having a crowd listening to us.” She also said that she, Skordos and another student decided to start a band, called “Mind Cuntrol” as a result of the incident.
“So, I guess I can thank the bigot for that one good thing,” she said.
Later on in the month on Wednesday, Oct. 23, a different religious protester showed up on campus. This protester and the group that accompanied him are actually regulars on the Meramec campus, and have appeared semi-regularly in the Student Quad over the years. During this visit however, things reportedly got tense, although they did not escalate further according to Obeed. Music was once again played to drown out that group.
These visits come during a year where STLCC’s Free Expression policies have been in the spotlight. Noise and the playing of music is still discouraged by college policy, as are the use of amplification devices, but none of the students who used them were reprimanded by STLCC personnel.
