Mark Twain once said: “Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” I for one find his words gaining more and more important as the days go on, especially with the recent incidents at CCSU.

The quote is simple and easy to understand: do good and everyone may prosper and appreciate the effort. Of course, some might read this and think I’m attempting to draw further attention to the racial graffiti heinously painted upon the walls of our campus or the belligerent pamphlets posted to disparage the LGBTQ populace of our community.

The reason I write is for more than just those incidents. Think for a moment of the cavalcade of disturbances that have occurred in the past few years here at CCSU, like a sling of sexual misconduct incidents, with one dating back for decades, and our own police under scrutiny for allegations of sexual misconduct and rape.

It might be easy to remark at this point that CCSU is reaching new lows as prejudice and hatred are openly displayed and members of the community simply attempting to live their lives are called out and degraded. In this time, it must be paramount that we come together, as the campus did during the silent rally not long after the abominable insults to our fellow members of the CCSU community.

More than that, there should be a continuous effort to show unity during times of difficulty – to show that despite what might divide us, more brings us together as human beings in the ever-present drive toward our future. We all strive in a common effort, working to better ourselves and, hopefully, the world around us, and standing alone in that undertaking is one of the most difficult things a person can do.

I must not be mistaken in what I am attempting to convey; rallies and events made to emphasize our solidarity are bright, burning shows of togetherness and exemplary moments where we can come together and show that, despite what might divide us, we are still unified.

Though we must do more than that, we should strive daily to enrich and lift up those around us with the understanding that we are all in this effort with one another, not just as students and not just as members of a community, but as human beings.

For a quote to emphasize the reasoning behind coming together, disbanding our preconceived notions of anger or prejudice towards one another, I must again return to Mark Twain. “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured,” he said.

So I ask of you, every member of the CCSU Community, do your best to show solidarity with your fellow members of the human race, every day.

With such an effort underway, hopefully, we will not only leave this institution a better place than we found it, but we ourselves will be better people upon walking off into the world.