In nine hours almost 200 students spoke out against the Carleton University Students’ Association’s (CUSA) upcoming concert.
The Facebook group created March 27 urges CUSA to cancel the concert because of lyrics in a song featuring Rick Ross where he raps about date rape.
While staff and students took to social media, the only response to come from the CUSA executive was a Facebook post by vice-president (finance) Michael De Luca that said “haters gunna hate.”
CUSA was silent until releasing an official statement online at about 1:30 p.m. Mar. 28. The statement says CUSA finds the lyrics in question to be “repulsive and uncharacteristic of the views and beliefs of CUSA.”
It also says CUSA is “in the process of looking into selling off the remainder of the tickets back to the organizers.”
It was very non-specific, did not address the fact that the concert is still taking place, and failed to address the comments of the executive– “haters gunna hate”–which belittles everyone opposed to this concert.
This is not about being able to please every single student, but about of students acting out against promoting rape culture on a campus that saw three reported sexual assaults in a month.
It is not enough to say that CUSA will look into returning the remainder of the tickets, or to issue a vague statement about how the incident reflects poorly on the organization, or to simply ignore the sentiments shared by the executive members of council.
CUSA is meant to be representative of and accountable to Carleton students and they need to make concrete steps towards addressing students’ frustrations.
