Let the White Student Union die already

Late last week, a group of mostly students organized outside the Pullen Library to consider a topic that’s garnered major local and national attention in recent months: the creation of a “white student union” on campus.

Led by a sole incoming freshman by the name of Patrick Sharp, the union was said to be dedicated to the preservation of white culture and committed to celebrating white heritage.

Despite assurances by Sharp that the organization’s intentions were innocent, it soon came out that not only did the Union have clear connections to a bonafide white supremacist group, but that Sharp himself reportedly had a history of making racist comments under an alias on the website stormfront.org.

Though not officially chartered and ineligible to receive funds from the university, the organization has understandably garnered a less-than-savory reputation on campus as nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt at promoting a single individual’s outdated and racist ideology.

However, for the last couple months, Sharp has mostly laid low on campus. He hasn’t been to any recent student organization fairs, he hasn’t petitioned the Student Government Association and he hasn’t visited classrooms – or done other things more established university organizations sometimes do.

So it’s somewhat surprising that the members of the Progressive Student Association decided last Thursday to hold an open discussion about the White Student Union after nothing new has really happened.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having discussions like these in theory – in fact, we should welcome opportunities like these to openly express grievances and hear complaints from others – but there’s another consideration we must weigh out: whether the attention we’re giving to the Union now is deserved and whether continued dialogue is really net beneficial to the student body at large.

At this point, barring some kind of unusual or shocking development, it seems pretty clear that the story has reached its peak – and to continue giving it space in print and time in conversation is only prolonging its expiration, if it hasn’t died already.

We already know that, in the past, Sharp has made it a priority to encourage media coverage that raises the Union’s profile on campus. Now that most have had an opportunity to decide for themselves what the Union is and what it represents, continuing to give Sharp that platform is a mistake.

Not only does it create a vehicle for the promotion of potentially unsavory ideas, but it also helps to reinforce stereotypes about the South and the people that live here. Further, it helps tarnish the overall reputation of the university as a modern, urban campus that welcomes diversity.

And at the end of the day, when people think of Georgia State, they shouldn’t see us for the agenda of a single student. They should see us as a leading research university with a multi-cultural student body that values and takes pride in the contributions of all that attend, not just those of Patrick Sharp.