Recent allegations of racism at Davis Square's Diva Lounge raise alarming concerns about prejudice and bigotry in the public sphere.
Racism is a terrible thing. People should get upset about it. Living in the United States, we have the right to enjoy peace and freedom, and enjoy community establishments in peace and courtesy. But it should not be an excuse to throw around blame, ignore the facts and behave irrationally.
As far as the case of Diva Lounge is concerned, it's still important for members of the Tufts community to be open to both sides of the story. Most importantly, students who ignore the proprietor's right to respond to the incident are only hampering efforts to remedy the situation at hand. While it is possible that the restaurant is complicit in racial abuse, it's very hard to say to what degree the managers and owner are responsible.
In researching today's article, the Daily ran into plenty of outrage resulting from the Viewpoint published in yesterday's paper. Many people were talking, but not to each other. Indeed, Isha Plympton, the Viewpoint's author, was not aware of the Facebook.com group that sprung up as a result of her piece. While the restaurant certainly might be complicit in harboring racism, the incident also may simply be the result of a single patron's bigotry rather than a restaurant's endorsement of racial abuse.
In the wake of the incident, students have banded together in an effort to prove to the establishment and its proprietors to show Tufts' commitment against racism. These students should be commended for their stance. At the same time, however, students should support and execute actions that a) can produce concrete results and b) promote peace and dialogue while avoiding those that will only exacerbate tension.
While the allegations are troubling, we find it inappropriate to endorse a boycott of the restaurant with the details of the night still unverified.
Instead, complaints filed through institutional mechanisms - the Human Rights Comission and the Better Business Bureau - are a great step: This systematic representation of the incident creates an empirical and concrete record of the incident both for formal investigation and further study.
The Facebook group that has been formed in order to address the allegations and to seek some semblance of a remedy; the group, called "A Call to Action: Racism at Diva Lounge," is already in the process of mobilizing their efforts in the form of a peaceful rally.
Only through peaceful rallying and fair dialogue can the Tufts community hope to better understand the allegations.
Racism could, and should, make people angry. And anger can be a great impetus to action. But that doesn't mean that reason should be left by the wayside.
