Welcome to Hell, Wake Forest. We have a message for you.

Wake Forest is numb. We never feel the pain we inflict upon our Mother So Dear, but when we do, it breaks us. When we do feel the pain of our shallow friendships and empty cups, we collapse, break down, run away. Despite our lacerations, we cannot scream.

We cannot scream about the injustice that runs through the lifeblood of this student body.

We cannot scream about the grindstone of our academic work.

We cannot scream about depressive cycles of our social lives.

This is that scream that could not be expressed.

If, at first, our scream sounds too harsh, then hear us out. Look away from your screen to the people around you – and, more importantly, to the people who have been made invisible.

This is a project of those invisible, obfuscated bodies.

We have been phased out of your clubs, kicked out of your parties, left out of your meetings, and passed over in your rushes. We are five students who are too afraid to speak to you as friends, too angry to speak to you calmly, too tired to speak to you loudly. We have chosen instead to scream.

Hear our scream, unified and furious. Remove your muzzle, and let the sound of your voice join ours in a grand cacophony. Become a heretic. Become a demon, not a deacon.

Join us in the Sixth Circle.

For each of the five circles we traversed to lie in this tomb with you, we have five demands. Let us show you.

🔱

First, we demand a true democratization of politics.

The condition of political discussion at Wake Forest is pathetic. We all pretend that we can obviate the inevitable dynamics when figureheads claim a monopoly over “left” and the “right.”

Snap out of it! From the interest convergence nightmare of the WFR to the boring mediocrity of the OGB, from the holier-than-thou farce of the democratic socialists to the paralyzed Republicans and Democrats, there are no spaces for those of us with nothing of value but our shouting. Not unless, of course, we sell our identities to the “diversity and inclusion” circles in Benson or the collective sigh of Student Government.

We beseech you, Wake Forest, don’t just let your voice be heard. Let your voice be free! The president of such-and-such a group should not determine who can learn, who can scream. Let your thoughts be free of the weekly-meetings-on-Wednesday, the moderated discussions, the condescending panels. Don’t be so afraid to speak your mind, to be wrong, to be a-little-too right. Surround yourself with your thoughts, immerse yourself in the light of those around you, and watch them all combine and collide in dazzling ways.

Scream with us, Wake Forest. Let our dissonance create a symphony!

Second, we demand that our ideas, not just our speech, becomes free.

The Wake Forest Student Code of Conduct was not made by us, nor ever was it made for us.

It reflects fear. It is not a guide for our community. The University has always had an inkling to shut down peaceful protesting, no matter whether the protest originates from the right or the left. We can see the numerous signs of this all around us: the “free speech zones” that restrict chalking to the lower quad, the prohibition of “unruly” behavior, and the obvious shutting-down of “controversial” speech via the absurd harassment policy.

Even more tragic has been the response from Wake Forest “activists” – from the right and the left, they have galvanized around protecting “free speech,” rather than addressing the true reality: Natty O is afraid of what our voices can sound like when we all scream as one.

We must break, not just push, the “conduct” boundaries that put some voices over others. No more free speech zones! No more Mr. Nice Deacon! Recognize the importance of all voices, not just those imbricated in Wake Forest’s political web of lies.

Let us find friendship in freedom, not sadness in silence. Let every idea run free across this campus until the beautiful red bricks are tattered with the numerous, creatively unimaginable, colors of our generation!

Third, we demand that servicepeople be treated with respect at Wake Forest.

Wake Forest systematically undercuts its staff. Servicepeople – especially in food service and cleaning – are treated like shit by the rich, entitled brats at this school. Nearly everyone can think of a time when they’ve seen some drunk daddy’s boy give a worker flack.

What’s more, workers are underpaid, and they have no job security. Do you ever wonder why you can only remember a few faces from the Starbucks line before those surrounding them are whisked away? That’s because they keep a few regulars to prevent us from learning that the vast majority of the people who make your double-shot espresso mocha coconutmilk latte will be fired for no good reason.

From the Tradition Council’s vice grip over the wasteful rolling of the quad to the disgusting disrepair of residence common spaces, we have lost the ability to care for each other.

Therefore, our demand is an end to Aramark’s monopoly over our dining and catering options, as Aramark is the company that oversees the devaluation of workers’ lives.

Our demand is an end to the unethical contracting of janitorial staff, which allows them to be paid below the wages recommended by the University.

All servicepeople must be paid enough money for them to thrive, and they must come to enjoy acknowledgement from the students whose food they cook and vomit they clean.

This demand is an old one — fought for by generations of heretics and forgotten by generations more. Do not forget, Wake Forest. Not again.

Fourth, we demand an end to social Greek life.

Ah, now we have made you angry, haven’t we? We who scream are furious too. Furious about the polarization of social life around fraternities and sororities. Please, friends, hear us out.

The Greek system is fundamentally coercive. They prey upon the insecurities of freshmen, who pressure each other into the destructive rush process. You need not look further than “Derby Days” to see the power that sorority women hold each other to, and fraternity men enforce. The Greek system purposefully monopolizes the time and space of social life on campus, acting as a leech that sucks the livelihood out of independent groups, students whose marginalized positions prevent them from seeing themselves in Greek systems, and poor students.

Not surprisingly, the dirty lounges of frats are hotbeds for sexual assault, a fact that we all know but refuse to speak about – including the weak advocacy groups of PREPARE and THRIVE who have been co-opted and redirected by complicit sorority women. Do better.

We have no quarrel with the Greek letter organizations who cater to students of color or service. Our ire is positioned toward the Tri-Delts and Dekes of the world. Your monetized grip over our social life has stifled our creative energy for far too long.

From the red solo cups filled with roofie-spied punch, glance upward toward our power and know that your days are numbered.

Fifth and finally, we demand an overhaul of the curriculum.

Wake Forest graduates are exceedingly-incompetent at basic cross-cultural interactions. Unfortunately, navel-gazing with other suit-clad people who look exactly like you in Farrell Hall does not equip you for an increasingly-interconnected world, a world where the people in power aren’t always going to operate just like Chad from Pike. Your Living Learning Community can’t prepare you for a real community.

When high school credit for a silly AP course in history can count for “cultural diversity,” then we know our system is broken. It’s no wonder why Wake Forest students often graduate without basic knowledge of the world around them: They bound through discussions of identity and society like Miss Teen USA in 2007. Put shortly: For a liberal arts school, Wake Forest produces no liberal-arts people.

The curriculum must be changed! No longer should WGS majors never dip their toes into economics, nor business majors graduate without ever hearing about gay people. But this overhaul cannot start or end at the level of divisionals. Requirements do not inspire curiosity.

Perhaps, if we were to break out of our buildings – our Tribbles and Carswells and Olins and Greens and, of course, our Farrells – and talk to each other, we might learn outside of the tattered remnants of the classroom.

We might learn there, in that space in between, to love each other. To understand each other. To care for each other. To hold each other.

🔱

Like Virgil, we have lead you to this circle, but we will take you no further today.

By the time you read this, surely the right has already called their donors to pick apart our demands. The left has probably beckoned us into safe spaces, Campus Police has likely tried to track us down, and the KAs have their daddy’s favorite lawyers on the line. Like the idols who ignored us, the administration will have called us “cowards” and “terrorists” for our methods.

But we know their tricks. We have been careful. In your investigations of the Sixth Circle, you need only know these facts:

We come in peace, relatively speaking.

We are not waiting – we’re working.

We have been here.

And we are not going anywhere

This is not Wake Forest’s first foray into our hell, and it will not be the last.

It feels strange to speak heresy at first. But you will feel the power of your words in your gut, and your tenor will rise. You’ll grow more frantic.

And like us, you too will scream.

Yours in song,

Dante, Virgil, Beatrice, Lucifer, and Farinata.

Heretics of the Sixth Circle.