Preaching to the Compass

Lauren McClellan Illustration by Marleigh Culver

Preachers. Silent protestors. Anarchists. Men with tall crosses. We see them in the Compass all the time… but do we know what they’re screaming (or silent) about? If you have any classes near the Compass, then I would say you’ve seen many of the speakers that come to talk to VCU students as they’re passing by. They rant, they rave, and they attract attention. As opinionated as we are, sometimes students tend to rant and rave back.

Some of these speakers are normal looking, wearing sweatshirts and jeans. No one really bothers them. People just gather around and listen. This past fall, there was one speaker on a stepstool looking over the crowd, preaching about eternal life and being Protestant. Students were perched atop the half walls outside Shafer, listening to him talk about religion. For as long as I was there, no one really challenged him. Another day, there was a man preaching from the Bible, carrying around a large cross as he spoke. He generated much more attention because of his walking stick. Students utilize the Compass for their own devices as well. The next day, there was a silent protest on the “free speech zone” over a parking lot that has been built over an old slave burial ground. Many students laid down on the Compass in protest over the parking lot. Some had poster boards lying over their bodies with quotes, such as Martin Luther King’s “Justice denied anywhere diminishes justice everywhere.” Others walked around with signs that said things like, “If I died would you pave over me?” Although their protest was silent, the actions drew a lot of attention from the local news and even Gov. Bob McDonnell. On December 23, he asked for the parking lot to be transferred to the state by giving VCU $3.3 million in state funds. One well-known protestor among the many that come through the Compass is known as “Brother Ross.” This man usually is dressed in a suit with buttons on it that have such words as porn, homo, and sin struck out on them. He also carries around a Bible and what seems to be a gallon of water. He has been the subject of much heckling, notably from a guy with a ukulele who posted videos of him playing pop songs like Lady GaGa’s “Bad Romance” while Ross is preaching on the Internet. Ross started much controversy over his ways to tell if a woman is a lesbian, including such reasons as having short hair, watching Ellen DeGeneres, and playing on a female basketball team. As he rattled off his list, students shushed others who were screaming in order to hear each item in fake anticipation. Ross also mentioned his belief that a woman belongs in the kitchen. As he looked out through his crowd, with many females were in attendance, he said “I see a lot of empty kitchens.” This started much more screaming and yelling from the student body. Although Brother Ross attracted a lot of negative attention, he said, at one point, “I don’t want to offend anybody.” For as long as I’ve been here at VCU (which isn’t long yet), Brother Ross has attracted the largest crowd of any outside protestor, as that day, if you really wanted to catch a glimpse of him, you had to push your way through many people as if you were at a small concert. Sometimes the people in the Compass who are expressing their views are not lying down on the ground, being silent, or screaming so the whole area can hear them. Pamphlets and flyers are a popular way of communicating to passing students as well. One day, as I was walking to the library, I was handed a small flyer from a girl who looked to be about five years old. She had many other kids her age with her, and what looked to be two adults. I did not look at the flyer as I was in a hurry; I just said “thank you” and walked on. However, when I walked into the library, I took the flyer out of my pocket to see what the little girl—who I’m pretty sure should have been at school since it was only 10:30 AM on a weekday—had handed me. The flyer had information about sin and going to hell for those sins and many other things. I must pose the question; did the little girl who handed me that flyer truly understand what all of those words meant? Another form of pamphlet-protest was from a few college-age guys who handed out flyers about anarchy. They may have offended some, but no one screamed or shouted at them. As I walked through the Compass, some students engaged in passionate conversations about politics with these guys, but no one heckled them. Do these protestors really change our views? Do they get us thinking about the topics they rant about? Or do they just reaffirm our own beliefs? I know, for myself, I have learned one thing from these people in the Compass: the volume of the protestor’s voice has a direct relationship to the volume of the crowd’s voice.