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The Daily OrangeHillTV content ignites community-wide discussion
Hundreds gather at town hall meeting
By Laura Van Wert
Posted: 10/20/05, 5:03 AM EST Section: News
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A town hall meeting addressed the content of HillTV's entertainment show "Over the Hill" Wednesday night in the Schine Student Center Underground.
There was standing room only as Syracuse University students, faculty, staff and members of the Syracuse community packed the Underground at 6 p.m. for the open discussion forum. Members of HillTV, "Over the Hill" and the audience spoke openly about the issues of discrimination.
The meeting was conducted through a panel which included Hawa Jalloh, president of the National Pan-Hellenic Council, Jamar Hooks, vice president of the Student African-American Society, Vincent E. Cobb II, the NAACP publicity chair and Ariel Dupas, president of Creations Dance Troupe.
Throughout the three-hour meeting, members of the audience were invited to stand and express their own comments and questions. Several key issues regarding the future of HillTV and relationships among the entire SU community were addressed.
Several of the students in the open discussion called for the members of "Over the Hill" to not only have the show's production end, but also for their expulsion.
"Over the Hill" executive and associate producers Shawn Abraham and John Gaetjens said the show had ended as of Wednesday night.
"(The show was) deeply hurtful and deeply offensive, and us stopping our show is just the beginning of how we address this issue," Abraham said.
For a portion of the meeting, the two sat in front of the assembly, apologizing for their actions and for offending the campus community.
"As executive producer, I take full responsibility," Abraham said. "It's not necessarily representative of who we are now."
Abraham and Gaetjens said the show was intended to entertain people, not offend them. They said members of "Over the Hill" didn't even know the charged jokes they put in their show would offend people.
"The goal of the show was to entertain the entire SU student body, and we failed," said Matt Herman, a former executive producer of "Over the Hill," after the meeting. "We offended people, and there's no apology for that."
At the end of the meeting, many in attendance walked out of the room after Abraham referred to one of the offensive skits as "the lynching joke," during the question-and-answer session.
The audience erupted in anger after Gaetjens read his apology off of a piece of paper, asking: "Is our community not already divided?"
