By
Nick Zeckets
University campuses are, supposedly, havens for First Amendment freedoms and uninhibited expression. Sometimes, these ideas are bound to be hateful and non-factually based. A new film by Media Arts Senior Robert Luna on the stabbing of gay UA student, Zach Hansen, is expressing some of the realities of living in our melting pot environment. However, no matter what our peers say, UA students need to listen -listen and respond as necessary.
When one feels the pressures of mother nature, a trip to a UA restroom may be essential. In between those dulled silver stall doors resonates the spirit of the silent racist posse that walks among us on campus. Nearly every commode is decorated with "call for a good time" lines and "Billy Bob was here" signs.
In the mix, unfortunately, come phrases like those found in the men's bathroom in the Memorial Student Union. One reactionary, after reading a call for "gay/bi athletic men," purportedly got in touch with the wanting suitor. The response was, "He's a 5'2" nigger with a 1/2" prick who won't swallow or take it in his shit hole." How pleasant. Another batch of graffiti indicated that someone, whose name will remain anonymous, "likes Korean dong."
Statements like these are defamatory and infuriating, but the kids who wrote them don't understand why. Nearly a century and a half removed from slavery and 40 years after a fairly successful civil rights movement, people still feel animosity towards races different from their own. Is it logical? No, and those sentiments only fester when repressed.
College campuses are squashing their students' First Amendment rights. It seemed like a good idea in that it would protect our peers of one or more minority groups. Despite the good intentions, things have only gotten worse.
Universities nationwide, including the UA, have put chokers on their faculty and, in effect, on their students. English professors here at UA wouldn't comment on the P.C. policy here in fear of losing their jobs. Imagine that! The teachers who are leading us into the "real world" can't even talk about reality.
Although UA teachers remain quiet in hopes of reaching tenure, there are more vocal teachers at other schools. Daphne Patai, professor of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, in a review of a conference on academic freedom, said that, "Academic freedom protects those faculty members whose thinking challenges orthodoxy. The question now is: Which ideas have acquired the status of orthodoxy in today's academy, and where are the challenges coming from? It seems to me that the recent conference in Albany provided a clear answer: The current attacks on academic freedom are launched by what used to be called the Left."
Larry W. Colter, professor of philosophy and Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Evansville, provided the "Left" view when he said that "lamentable as it is, the language of federal law effectively defines harassment as behavior that anyone finds offensive or intimidating. This language is not a contribution of the academic left, as Patai charges, and institutions must implement policies and procedures compatible with that language. Patai should go after the folks in Washington if she wants to lay blame on someone's doorstep."
Professors and administrators like Colter are the problem, not Capitol Hill. Instituting practices that quiet any ideas will only contribute to the growth in intensity of such ideas. When hatred intensifies, it turns to aggression. Hatred needs to be aired and reformed by council and consul.
Politically correct dogma does no good. In fact, arguments have been made by civil rights organizations that there are more hate crimes perpetrated today than in the 1970s and 1980s. Few can forget what happened to Matthew Sheppard or even on our own campus when Hansen was stabbed on Fourth Avenue.
Hate crimes like these are not borne out of thin air, but rather from feelings and thoughts that root themselves in a false quagmire. How can these hatreds be dispelled? Through open dialogue. With open minds, hearts, and lines of communication, racism could one day meet its end.
