“It’s a ‘boardie’… rustlin’ my jimmies again.”
While I had no idea what a jimmy was, the word that immediately caught my attention was “boardie”. 
Boardie? I mean, I understand that negative stereotypes exist about skateboarders, but do they really merit derogatory slurs? 
Skateboarders at LSU have been pressuring school officials for years now to put in place provisions for greater safety on campus; provisions which have been largely absent or ignored by higher ups at the university. 
We had the opportunity to speak to some skateboarders to get a greater sense of the dangers they face and why their pleas for assistance seem to be largely ignored by the university.  
“I’ve definitely had a few close calls”, says Kelcee, a Petrochemical Art major, as she showed us her scraped up hand. Kelcee says that unsafe road conditions like potholes, large cracks, and the lack of space for skaters creates a highly dangerous situation. “We should be safe on campus and this is campus!”
Just how do skateboarders think LSU can help improve skateboarder safety? Ideas like skateboard lanes on roads and sidewalks, repaving concrete surfaces in the quad, and widening walkways to give longboarders the space their crazy boards require are just a few of the suggestions made to LSU. However, all of these proposals have either been shot down or ignored by the university. 
We had a hard time understanding as to why there seemed to be this widespread discrimination against skateboarders throughout the LSU community. That was until we spoke to one skateboarder’s horrifying, shocking story. 
“He ran the red light just to try and hit me.” Reginald, an LSU skatespert, says that he faces discrimination and prejudice every single day that he’s on his board. One such moment turned out to be one of the scariest in his life as he was crossing a campus intersection. “There was no way he didn’t see me; he headed right for me. I knew he was trying to kill me,” he explained. 
Who could harbor so much hate towards skateboarders as to potentially maim and kill them? What kind of person does it take to be so cruel? As we continued to speak to people on the LSU campus, we finally started to get an understanding of the deep-rooted hatred towards skateboarders. That’s also when we met Jared. 
“I’ll be having a good day and all of a sudden, there they are,” says Jared. Jared is a Theology major with a minor in Gender Fluidity studies and a proud 5th generation bicyclist on the LSU campus. He proudly told us the story about how his family has fought long and hard for generations to secure rights for bicyclists. “They think they can just come here and take that away from us? I don’t think so.”
Jared’s frustration with the skateboarders echoed that of many students who commute to school. Though despite this apparent hatred, we came to the realization that all of these commuters, whether they be bikers, drivers, or Razor scooterers, all have the same goal in mind: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 
Jared isn’t a bad guy. In fact, it seems to us that he has more in common with the skateboarders that he may think. Anyone who rides a self-propelled vehicle can tell you that there’s simply nothing like the wind caressing your face as you gently ride through LSU among its stately oaks and broad magnolias. The freedom one feels when there’s nothing but a set of wheels between you and Mother Earth is pure ecstasy. So while it may be true that skateboarders can sometimes be annoying, take up space, and constantly attempt tricks they know they can’t do, do they not breathe like us; bleed like us? Are our skating friends not worthy of the same rights and protections as the rest of us? It is clearly time that LSU take a look into the safety of its proud class of skateboarders and do the right thing to save their lives.