Correction appended. 

In the wake of Donald Trump’s election, students — especially people of color and members of the LGBTQ community — need a place to heal, but they won’t be healing quietly, a group of student protesters emphasized on Friday.

“We’ve done quiet healing, and we want to do loud healing now,” Miranda Hurtado-Ramos ’19 told a crowd of more than 45 students, who gathered at the top of Rabb steps on Friday morning. “We need to make our voices heard.”

The walkout drew inspiration from the East L.A. walkouts in 1968, during which Chicano students protested unequal treatment in public schools, according to a Facebook event for the protest. The event was held in conjunction with a walkout organized by activist groups at Cornell University, who protested the hate speech and crimes that resulted from the election.

Hurtado-Ramos told the crowd that she has heard many say that Trump supporters are just coming from a place of fear, which could help protesters better understand where they are coming from. “We may both be coming from places of fear, but my fear is rooted in just trying to live, just trying to be a human and exist, and their fear is rooted in trying to make sure I don’t exist anymore,” she said.

“If you want to try to reason with them or whatever, you’re welcome, I guess, but don’t try to make me reason with them,” she added. “Especially don’t make other people of color try to do that. Don’t make queer people try to do that. It is not our responsibility, and none of us want to have to do that.”

But the injustices aren’t limited to the outside world, Brandis Whitfield ’19 explained, touching on some of the injustices that students of color face on campus. “I just think that there’s this culture among white liberals at Brandeis, where a lot of you tend to police people of color on their anger and tell them how they should feel,” Whitfield said, describing times when others have told her how she should react to things she finds racist or offensive.

“For some reason, when someone says something racist to me, I’m supposed to treat them with the utmost respect and baby them,” she added. “I find it, frankly, ridiculous that you put your black students at a scene where they’re supposed to be disrespected but, at the same time, have to respect the person who has no regard for their feelings.”

Whitfield urged students to respect how people of color react to racism and injustices, adding that white people should not rely on people of color to educate them about racism.

“A big part of it is educating your people,” Hurtado-Ramos agreed. “A lot of you say, ‘Well, I’m a white liberal, and I don’t do that.’ I don’t care if you don’t do that. You for sure know people who do that, because I know people who do that. … Call people out. Don’t be afraid.”

Other students addressed the crowd, sharing their reflections and personal experiences regarding the election.

One student, an immigrant with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status, spoke about the support she felt when she attended an anti-Trump protest in Boston earlier this week. “I remember saying … ‘I don’t feel fear anymore,’” she said. “I’m done feeling sorry for myself, and I’m done living in the shadows.”

Others emphasized the importance of support for the American Civil Liberties Union — which has vowed to bring unconstitutional Trump policies to court — and organizations like Planned Parenthood, which provides reproductive services.

Aly Thomas ’18 urged cisgender women and people with uteri to consider going to their doctors and getting birth control or medicines with hormones in them to give to trans women, in case their access to hormones is cut off. Thomas’ words hit upon many trans people’s fears that anti-LGBT legislation under a Trump presidency will block access to hormone therapy, though it is against federal law to give prescription drugs to others.

Eve Litvak B.A. '16 M.A. '17 spoke about the Nov. 9 anniversary of Kristallnacht, which saw mass hate crimes against the Jewish community in Germany in 1938. She emphasized that the weight of the Holocaust was magnified because marginalized groups were left to fend for themselves, without much support from allies.

“Each of us have our own fears for ourselves, but here, it’s important that we’re also afraid for our friends and people that we don’t know,” she said. “This is the wake up call for us to stick up for each other.”

An earlier version of this article referred to Eve Litvak B.A. '16 M.A. '17 as "a student," because she could not be identified by press time. The remarks she made at the protest are now attributed to her.