FROM THE EDITOR: “RACIST”? Fuck The Hoya!

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I hope you enjoy our 2007 Race Issue Issue Issue. For 47 years now the Heckler has proudly provided you with the most in-depth analysis of the salient race-issue issue and how it has affected student life at Georgetown. However, I have to say I am extremely irritated (though, of course, not surprised) that The Hoya has tried to rain on our parade once again.

Over the past month or so, The Hoya, knowing full well we were about to release our annual racist issue, has tried to out-racist the Heckler to draw attention away from us and to themselves. This is despicable. I am calling out Max Sarinsky here: it is about time you got control of your staff and showed us some respect. We have put up with your silly little newspaper for decades, and one of us even bailed you out of jail freshman year, yet you continue to act childishly. Really Max, the Georgetown Independent wouldn’t even stoop so low as to write “RACIST” in red marker on their front cover to draw attention to themselves. This is our turf: We have done the red marker thing for decades.

Some of you out there might not be familiar with how our long-running feud with The Hoya came about, so I’ll give you a brief history. The Georgetown Heckler was founded in 1794 as The Georgetown Lampoon by future Congressman William Gaston to “educate the students on the campus issues of the month and provide entertainment to accompany their studies.” The publication changed its name to The Georgetown Heckler in 1877 after what was then the nickname of the university sports teams. At some point earlier, Georgetown athletes had become known as the “Georgetown Hecklers” after the crew team, which had been in the practice of hurling anti-Protestant slurs at opposing boats while racing. The Georgetown Heckler continued to be the only campus newspaper for many years.

However, one student, Patrick O’Hoyally, decided to start his own rival newspaper after he was rejected by the Heckler to be a contributing writer. In 1920 O’Hoyally founded The Hoya, naming the publication after himself, and his very wealthy father provided its financial support. Going further, O’Hoyally even got money from his father to pay off the Georgetown sports teams to call themselves the “Georgetown Hoyas,” which has unfortunately continued to be their nickname to this day. O’Hoyally taunted the Heckler in The Hoya for three years as its editor-in-chief (and sole writer) until he was arrested in 1923 for sodomizing and murdering the Georgetown mascot, a bull terrier named Lil’ Heckler.

Continuing in O’Hoyally’s example, similar taunting has spewed from the pages of The Hoya for decades now, and I think it’s about time it stopped. We have never shown anything but respect to The Hoya, and it’s silly that they are trying to paint themselves as being more racist than we are.