Love not hate
When the University of Florida announced that alt-right leader and white supremacist Richard Spencer would be speaking on campus, Florida Gulf Coast University student Skylar Williams knew that if there was a protest, she had to be there.
The day Williams planned to go to the protest, her mother sent her a page-long text message explain all the reasons why she shouldn’t go to the rally.
“She was like ‘I love that you do this and I love that you support all these great things,but it’s not your place to risk your life,’” Williams said. “Then I thought if it’s not my place, then whose place is it. If people with privilege don’t say something, then who will?”
Growing up in an upper-middle class home, Williams knew that she didn’t face the same struggles as other people because she was white.
While she had some instances where she noticed what racism was, she wasn’t fully aware that racism was still a thing until she began middle school.
“I went to a magnet school and it was in a darker side of town where there was a lot of crime,” Williams said.“The school was right outside of Tampa and in between the suburbs in Tampa and it was an art school and you had to apply to get in.”
Realizing that the majority of the population of the school was white, Williams noticed that racism was a thing when kids at the school would say racist things about the kids in the neighborhoods that surrounded the school.
Once she came to that realization, Williams realized that social issues in this country still existed.
When she found out about Spencer’s appearance at UF, Williams began to search for any possible protest that would be going on.
With her friends and family trying to convince her not to go, one moment swayed her decision of whether or not to attend.
“The same day I found out about the protest at UF, a Jewish student there had a swastika spray-painted on his car and wrote something I literally can’t repeat,” Williams said. “After I heard that, I was like this is coming to a school I hold closely to my heart. I knew I had to go.”
While her parents have supported her choice to attend protests, like the women’s march she attended in St. Petersburg, her parents did not want her to attend this particular protest.
“My parents were really prepared for and expecting the worst and the worst thing I was expecting was to get peppered sprayed or smoke bombed,” Williams said.
Despite her parents’ efforts to not go to the protest, her parents asked her to at least have someone attend the protest with her.
“I asked my friends and roommates to come but no one else would even bulge,” Williams said. “I felt kind of let down, not to judge them because I totally understand the severity of the situation, but I was really upset that no one was compelled enough to fight for this issue.
After 22-year-old Brian Houck received a call from Williams and heard about the protest, he decided to make to the drive to UF and accompany her
“I hadn’t really considered going until Skylar said something about it,” Houck said. I read that it was happening but I didn’t think anyone close to me would go. I kind of figure out then that it was something that directly affected my community.”
Once they hit the road toward UF, their emotions hit them like a freight train and they questioned turning around and just going home.
“I got really anxious as we were getting closer on the highway,” Williams said. “I was like huh I’m really doing this, this is kind of insane and I’ve never felt scared of something like that.”
Preparing themselves for what could have been similar to Ferguson due to the alt-right movement leader being present at the rally, they came to the agreement that if this was the way they went out, they’re glad they went out fighting for a good cause.
Arriving at the protest with thousands of police officers in attendance and snipers present on every roof surrounding Spencer’s whereabouts, Houck said a huge knot developed in his stomach.
“It was my first time at anything like that, so I was shocked by the amount of police there was,” Houck said.”
With her phone blowing up with messages from worried friends and family, Williams turned her phone on do not disturb and left it in the car as she and Houck prepared for the protest.
Expecting to be greeted by two sides chanting at each other, Williams and Houck were greeted by a peaceful protest where people had begun to chant words using love to mask hate.
“It ended up being really peaceful, but it could have been really bad because a bunch of Nazis could have showed up,” Houck said.
Before beginning to march around the building where Spencer was speaking, Williams recalls being overcome with pride when she was surrounded by people who didn’t support Spencer’s ideas.
“I knew I had Jewish friends and black friends up there that didn’t want to go to school that day because they didn’t feel safe,” Williams said. “I can feel safe because I’m a privileged white woman and even though everyone says you shouldn’t feel safe, I did,so why not use my safety to serve as a voice for people who didn’t feel comfortable attending.”
As time went on during the protest, Williams and Houck began to feel more comfortable despite the numerous snipers surrounding them.
“I ran into a couple of people that I know from Stetson and USF at the rally and there was this big sense of community at the rally which is important at those types of things,” Williams said. “I really love that it was more about love rather than hate.”
Looking back a month later, Williams is glad that she decided to attend.
“I was able to see that there’s more hope because in the past couple of months with what happened in Ferguson, I lost a lot of hope. Seeing that (Spencer) was there speaking at UF I lost even more hope,” Williams said. “But once I was there, it was really nice to know that there are more people willing to support good.”
