“Chink.” “Homo.” “Whore.” “Fat-ass.” “Feminazi.”

Labels for people adorned signs that created the “Walk of Oppression” as part of the fourth annual Got Ignorance? rally.

Nearly 100 people gathered for the event, held at Parks Library on Friday afternoon.

Along with several speakers from the ISU community, the display was designed to raise awareness of racism, sexism, homophobia and other derogatory attitudes.

Ryan Delperdang, president of the Got Ignorance? campaign, said he hoped the signs would encourage people think before speaking potentially offensive labels.

“I wanted to have a powerful impact to make people think about what they say on campus,” he said.

Several people spoke about their experiences with ignorance in the community.

Penny Rice, director of the Margaret Sloss Women’s Center, broke into tears while talking about the challenges facing diversity on campus.

“We’ve got ignorance at Iowa State University and today, it’s really heavy and it hurts,” she said.

“If we just quit buying in to the capitalistic, imperialistic, patriarchal, white male supremacist system . we could all be friends.

“We could all have enough resources. We could all be OK. We could all love and be loved.”

Jerry Stewart, director of the Department of Public Safety, said the signs’ messages raised awareness of ignorance and oppression on campus.

“I would much rather see all of these signs on the ‘Walk of Oppression’ than to see them painted on our buildings on campus,” he said. “There’s nothing worse than getting a phone call on an early Sunday morning and being told of racist and other types of oppressing graffiti spray painted on campus.”

Warren Blumenfeld, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction, addressed the crowd.

Blumenfeld spoke of his outrage at widespread graffiti that included swastikas, anarchist symbols and anti-homosexual slurs painted on campus in a path from Hamilton Hall to Sweeney Hall on July 4, 2005. No arrests were made in connection to the vandalism.

“We can never forget what happened here,” he said. “We need to remain ever vigilant so that it will never happen again.”

Campuswide safety is the key to help eliminate oppression, Stewart said.

“If we don’t feel [safety] in our community, we cannot do all the great things individually or collectively that we are capable of,” he said.