By: Marquise Drayton (’19), Staff Writer
I’m here with Maurice Grier, former candidate for the 2017 UNC Student Body President position. We’re here to debrief and discuss the post-election results, reactions and recovery after one of the most controversial and historic Student Body President elections in UNC’s history. Actually, I’d say that this was more interesting than the US Presidential election. Not in the sense that there was fake news and hidden emails. But the fact that we had two diverse candidates representing the Carolina community through their platforms: Elizabeth Adkins’ “Be You, Be Carolina” and Maurice Grier’s “L.OV.E.,” which stands for Listen, Observe, Value and Embrace. In the process, they touched many individuals with separate messages. With 2-3 weeks removed from the election, you’ve had some time to reflect. Decided in a runoff vote after weeks of other potential candidates being disqualified, complaints filed against you two, write-in candidates, and criticism of the UNC Board of Elections, Elizabeth Adkins won with 55% of the vote ultimately. What were your initial reactions on voting day?
Maurice Grier: So my predictable response was to congratulate Elizabeth. We both ran pretty good campaigns. For us to endure all of the different obstacles as two minority candidates was huge. I don’t think this school has ever had two SBP candidates who’re minorities going head-to-head at one time. As you were saying, this was a very historic race. Of course, I’d love to be on the other end of the spectrum for the winning team as far as votes are concerned. But in that moment, I didn’t want to reflect or think of anything. I just wanted to make sure that I put myself aside because the campaign and election was never about me. When we heard the news, they started with the winning percentage. Usually when you read percentages, you begin from the lowest to highest. But they started with 55%, which made me a little timid. Proceeding by saying that belonged to Elizabeth Adkins, I knew I lost in that moment. As they continued to read the remaining votes, I kinda drowned out because there was no reason to continue. Therefore, I hugged her and told her that she’d work for it. Seemingly, I was trying to get my team to leave. I think there were bigger plans that God had in place for me. I’d been spoken to by three different people, whom gave me hope, a new perspective and an understanding that often times thing don’t work out the way we want them to. We may not see the impact we make, but it goes far beyond what we can see. That can be applied to my faith, which is what I walk, by, not sight. It appears though we lost, but didn’t. We won.
MD: Even though you didn’t win the vote, you won plenty of hearts. Observing the grassroots lobbying that you and your team done around the community, ya’ll touched almost every part of Chapel Hill. From the off-campus LUX Apartments to North Campus to South Campus to Baity Hill Apartments for the graduate students. With your message of L.O.V.E., take us through the thought process of how you got this slogan and how important it was to use an abstract concept as a campaign message.
MG: Originally, I wish I had this elaborate story of how I came up with it. Actually, it was pretty simple. Applying to Carolina back in high school, one of the essay prompts was “What do you see on the other side of the rainbow?” I literally took a whole month to figure out what I was going to write. Approaching the deadline with a week left to finish my application, it was the only thing I had left to complete. Sitting at the computer for hours, I passed the time by getting food, watching videos, prayed, did some praise and worship. Just sat there like, “God, what am I gonna write about?” Then I recalled that my sophomore year, UNC Admissions’ Damon Toone visited my high school. While there, he asked us the question, “If you write a certain number of words on a sheet of paper that would be left in a time capsule that wouldn’t be open for a century later, what would they be?” He then called on me to answer. Essentially, it took 3 seconds to think because I’m pretty impulsive at times. I said, “Never give up.” What I didn’t expect was a follow-up question, not knowing yeah, this was Carolina. He asked why. Thinking it through for about five more seconds, I began talking. Despite what you go through, you never know how close you are to that end goal. You have more people to fight for than yourself. Those three words would serve as inspiration and be applicable to anyone, no matter what time zone, period or part of the world they were in because everyone goes through struggles. So I’m sitting at the computer reflecting on that experience momentarily. Instantly something dawned on me. I don’t know what happened but I just started typing about the lack of love within the community, in general. Something compelled me to write an acronym. Listen, followed by some description. Observe and started typing more. Doing this without much thought, I knew that was what love is. Love does not contemplate, it just acts. If everyone loved, we wouldn’t have much problems. That’s a struggle of not having a utopian society. Love is a way of us achieving that. Therefore, over the rainbow, I saw love. Generally, over the rainbow is something we don’t reach but we’re always chasing. That’s what I was going for knowing that near perfection is possible, while perfection isn’t so much. I couldn’t think of anything more fitting for the time period than love, especially after a presidential election that was fueled by people disliking and hating one another. It was the right time. Still, it hurts me that we didn’t win based on votes because that would’ve been amazing. It would’ve been amazing to show that so many people believe the opposite and Carolina can be this beacon of love other than everything else around us. I believe it’s still possible. It’s just a matter of where’s the best place for me to influence that change on a large scale.
MD: A politician is only but as good as their campaign team that stand with him/her, not in front or behind. Can you attest to your team’s hard work from campaign managers, canvassing residence halls, social media output, and other aspects?
MG: I would not have been able to do a single thing without my campaign team. Noah Legall, who’s my roommate, was the OG of the entire campaign. Literally since the beginning of the first week. Keep in mind, petition was supposed to last one week originally. First 4-5 days, it was just him and me. The week before, I told him I was going to run. He was like, “Okay, what do you need?” Sat in my room for hours upon hours creating my platform, our platform. We went group by group talking about specifics that everyone needed or who we could talk with to find out what they needed. It’s such a short amount of time to converse with different organizations, create spreadsheet, talk to people, get their ideas and advocate for them without taking their voice. It was amazing. And the amount of people Noah knew helped even more and his willingness to go above and beyond. He believed in this message of bringing people together. That goes far beyond the campaign. He’s apart of a group called SWIRL that’s for mixed students. They have a difficult time fitting in many communities and I can attest to that myself. That was a driving factor for him and myself wanting to see people come together because we’re often torn between different groups because we’re not 100% this. But no one really is… Don’t tell them that, you’ll blow their mind. Outside of that first experience, that showed me the kind of people that I wanted on my campaign. I wasn’t going for numbers; I was going for heart and people who cared. That was the differentiation between my campaign team and others. Other campaign teams had over 100 people, with complex systems of organization. I just sit there and listen like, “Okay, that’s great.” No matter how far I got, I had people who cared about the mission and not their resumes or looking nice or pretentious. It was about the people, seriously, the students. And there were times when my campaign team had to remind me of that goal when things got out of control. They were ride or die’s. Small, but mighty.
MD: So where to now? How has the campaign affected your personal growth?
MG: The campaign has impact me on a fundamental level as far how I’ve coped and dealt with my sexual assault as a child. Me being able to speak out about that, there was a video originally made by a DTH (Daily Tar Heel) photographer. He made it for personal product. I was told that he couldn’t use it. I used it for my campaign the day I debuted my website. Everything was altogether, it was all ready. They said if I released it, they would fire him. Me being who I am, I didn’t release it. But I had to video until the last petitioning day. That last day when I felt like I had enough, I saw that I was being hindered. So I released the video. Within the next 5-6 hours, we got the signatures we needed to get on the ballot. People were walking up to me saying I was a strong person as if before then I wasn’t qualified as a candidate. What it showed me was the strength of my story and being able to talk about my struggles. It was powerful, not weak. For so long I thought it was weakness which I why I was so silent about for a long time. That’s why sexual assault victim are so quiet about it. It’s not talked about enough. Getting to know those outside my campaign affected me this to come talk to me just showed me that I was being used for something so much greater than this election. Then my focus stop being so much on the election and more so a resource for those people. I learned how to navigate the rest of my life in a way that’s going to be conducive to that kind of success. Success isn’t defined in this election as winning or getting a title. That’s not success. Holistically, this campaign changed my outlook on how I see success and that’s life changing. That discovery will never go away and I’m very grateful of that. The next steps are focusing on my classes and making sure that I can continue to attain the success that everyone else values while being success in the way that I value it. Affecting others’ lives on a fundamental and intimate level versus superficial. I want to spread this love on a larger scale. I’d love to be apart of student government next year in the executive branch. But that’s not my decision we’ll see.
