I feel like there is probably a better subheading to put this under, but this is where it’s going right now. To be amended later, probably; stay tuned.
Temple students do not like feeling like their safety has been compromised.
To go to Temple, you either have to be or you have to learn to be remarkably street-savvy. North Philadelphia is by no stretch of the imagination a “college town”. It is a living, breathing, underprivileged and under-protected neighborhood. There are no fences surrounding campus, no barrier to keep the rest of the world out of our bubble. Temple is the city is Temple is the city.
And yet… because campus is a campus, and takes up several contiguous blocks, it often feels like the rest of the city can’t get to us. And we do not like to be reminded that this isn’t true.
This evening a person who was not a Temple student shot themselves on campus, within a block or two of most of the freshman dorms. And, to be blunt, everyone freaked the fuck out. We understand, as people who live in one of the country’s more dangerous cities, that crime is a constant possibility. But there are boundaries that should not be crossed, and one of those has to be the boundary between Temple and the rest of Philly. I am not trying to be insensitive, and I feel for that person and whatever they went through that caused them to take their own life, but they did it at the expense of others’ safety, and that is not fair. To take your own life is one thing, but to deliberately fire a gun into your own head within view of thirty people in a public space at dinnertime on Thursday is another thing entirely.
I realize that this could– and probably has– happen anywhere, but, you know. Admissions will tell you that Temple has some of the best safety precautions possible in place, and we do. Just know that, here, the danger is always clearer and more present than it might be somewhere else.
-JX
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