What happened when Black student protesters blocked traffic last semester as they sought to call eyes and ears to the deaths of fellow Black citizens slain in the streets of our hometowns? Confusion, fear — What’s going on? Why are “they” so angry? — or the ugly, cold shoulder of apathy. And what happened when the name of the racist presidential candidate was chalked around campus in a way that left little room for dialogue and response? Some protested, many balked. Still others — some from outside our campus — heaped on ridicule.
The stakes are high. We must all do better.
How can we? We can take more opportunities to step outside the lines. We can, and should, break more laws, especially when they disturb our moral consciences. I am speaking of conscientious civil disobedience. In the face of so much misunderstanding and misinterpretation of campus protest — willful or otherwise — I will continue to stand up for what my conscience tells me is just.
I raise my voice in the interest of a stranger, more questioning, freer Emory. I stand with all others who possess the courage to speak — those protesting white supremacy, imperial occupation in Palestine, homophobia, the patriarchy, anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-semitism, transphobia, capitalism and classism, militarism, 21st century colonialism and the list, unfortunately, goes on.
These structures manifest themselves in the smallest orders of my daily life, and I have the right — no, the responsibility — to question their authority, to question the pundits who write and imply that we should keep quiet, to question the faculty who hope I distill my societal and cultural critiques with positive sentiments, to question even the signs that say to stay off the grass.
What are we afraid of? Strange looks? My ability to look squarely back at myself matters more. To lose friends? Camaraderie within myself will last me a lifetime. To neglect our studies? Humankind is our study. To miss out on a career path, an eventual payoff for staying in line? I find no spiritual satisfaction in punching a clock. Are we afraid we will not get laid if we have too many opinions? Well, I have a lot of those and seem to be doing alright (thank you very much, Clay Travis). I believe our fears and doubts can be overcome with a dose of courage.
So that is why I step into public spaces with a megaphone in my hand and poems on my tongue. To me, poetry itself is not the protest — it is Art —but the act of public Art can be disruptive. It reminds us to imagine alternatives to life as it is. I am the first to admit what I can do is only a small act of breaking social laws, but I feel left with few other options in a place that tolerates so little aberrance. Besides, if one can no longer read poetry out loud on a college campus, what is the point of a college campus?
Only a semester ago, I studied in two Latin American countries — Nicaragua and Cuba — where student power played a crucial role in the reshaping of entire social orders. We, the students of North America, can rise to the same occasion. I call especially on all artists — poets, dancers, singers, visual artists, playwrights, novelists and musicians — to join me in filling public spaces with possibilities for a different future.
Just for a moment, picture 14,000 university students on Emory’s Quad, fists and voices raised in unison. They could ask for whatever they wanted — a change in direction for a new generation, a change of direction only we can dream of. How about 7,000? 2,000? But really, we don’t need the University to empower us, although it is always to our mutual benefit when it does. Student power is already ours; we have only to lose it or underuse it.
Stay in line, be this way, queue up. That is the strong undercurrent of our culture here at Emory and beyond. Too strong. My attitude? I doth protest.
Peter Witzig is a College senior from Duluth, MN
“those protesting white supremacy, imperial occupation in Palestine, homophobia, the patriarchy, anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-semitism, transphobia, capitalism and classism, militarism, 21st century colonialism and the list, unfortunately, goes on.”
WOW, are you a bigot.
How about those who oppose the bigoted groups like the Black Pather’s and Black Lives Matters and Illegal Immigration? You are right, I have the right to question their motives and prejudices, without recourse, just like you. You seem to think your opinion is the only one that matters, and the right one. You are very wrong. Judging from this article the last thing you have is a moral compass. You are a true example of what a bigot really is.
What makes you think you are above everyone else? You opinion matter’s more than anyone else? Bigoted much? You think you have more of a social conscience than I do? You don’t. I see things differently than you, and I think you are wrong, wrong, wrong. I find you to be extremely bigoted, closed minded and completely uninformed, based on your poorly written article. Go ahead and have your protests,(no one listens to you libatards on the campuses anymore, we all know how useless you actually are) stick your little thumb in your pansy mouth to shut it up. You are nothing but a bigoted, politically correct idiot who truly has no understanding of the world what so ever.
He’s a student at Emory. He’s doesn’t have the intellectual capacity to understand how bigoted he is. If we’ve learned anything about Emory these past few days it’s that the student body there is not very deep in terms of people any employer would want to consider. Unfortunately I don’t see Emory alumni or other students doing very much to try and salvage the reputation of their university which is now a global laughingstock so I can only assume that they are much like this guy and the Trump 2016 “victims”.
Check out this.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/03/25/emory-student-calling-campaign-slogans-hate-speech-is-a-threat-to-our-democracy/
Dear ITHriana,
Thank you for sharing this. The author and I lived in the same first-year residence hall and I have a lot of personal respect for her.
Peter
Dear Banff1967,
Thank you for reading. It is interesting that you bring up employment after Emory as, statistically, only a relatively small percentage of our graduating classes are unemployed or not continuing education within a year of grauation. From my point of view, it seems employers have consisitently found Emory students to be competent and valuable employees.
Peter
Your obsession with grievances is pathological. Try coming up for air. If all the things you protest in favor of came true, there would be no Emory to serve as your comfy platform from which to complain. Like it or not, Emory was founded by virtue of what you now rail against.
Dear quotidian,
It may have been, but I do not accept the premise that it has to continue that way.
Peter
You know what would be really great? If you would direct even a fraction of your efforts to helping your own community. DeKalb County government is well-known as a corrupt cesspool (a sheriff assassinated his rival in 2000, for example), and that corruption disproportionately affects the least fortunate; you and Emory are also harmed by this lousy government since you live in DeKalb. It great to protest “white supremacy, imperial occupation in Palestine, homophobia, the patriarchy, anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-semitism, transphobia, capitalism and classism, militarism, 21st century colonialism”, but it takes a lot of privilege to do while ignoring the pain and suffering of people in your own backyard.
That would actually mean doing something for society. People who write garbage like this don’t actually care, they just want to be heard. They will yell about the topic dejour at the top of their lungs, but actually do something meaningful? That is beyond someone like this.
Better yet, he can take his self-righteous self down to the Georgia Capitol to protest the “religious liberty” bill that will do more, if the Governor signs it, to disadvantage gay men and women than anything any “chalker” or Emory administrator could do. But that might require putting down his phone to see how many “likes” his most recent Tweet of outrage has garnered.
Dear Dr. Six Shooter,
I really appreciate this comment. I know Emory can do better at connecting with its surrounding communities. That is something I noticed upon arrival four years ago, and it hasn’t left the forefront of my mind since.
I will say, having spent two of my years here volunteering with a DeKalb Country non-profit called Men Stopping Violence, that there are those who try. In fact, one of the protesters has spent a great deal of energy in that particular “corrupt cesspool,” as you put it, through a partnership with Emory. However, I am well aware that many of Emory’s service attempts ending up looking like charity rather than community involvement. I think we can – and will – do better in the years to come.
You are right – there is a lot of pain and suffering in DeKalb and the greater Atlanta area. In fact, I was just reading an interview about some of these same issues in which the interviewee concludes, “We’ve got a great deal of work to do…These issues are where I live. This is important stuff. To get out of the radical bullsh– and ideological stuff and career making; it’s time to get serious about what makes sense and how to talk about it.” While I obviously am still in the ideologically developing stage of my life, I think his – and your – point is well taken. Thanks again.
Peter
Spoken like a petulant child with no grasp of reality which, based on the chalking incident, is what we should expect from an Emory student. Good luck finding a job. Good luck functioning in the real world. You have one of two choices: either grow up and act like an adult, which based on your current view of the world would likely be considered (by you) as “selling out”, or spend the rest of your life with green tinted hair shaved on one side and a ring through your nose making lattes at some coffee shop somewhere while living in a cockroach infested basement suite. If I had to bet money I’d bet on the latter although I’ll admit that I could have the hairstyle wrong.
Dear Banff1967,
Thanks again for your comment. I do worry often about selling out – as did another Emory student in his senior year who I admire – Chris McCandless. While I do not look as you describe, even if I did, I think my voice and thoughts have value regardless of my external appearance or home address.
Peter
Yep, a trophy for showing up.
Donald Trump is running for president, so is Bernie Sanders. Those of us who went through the Cold War have a hard time accepting Sanders, but we don’t wring our hands, cry to a nannying authority to fix it for us, and demand he cease politicking or his supporters stop. We simply move forward. These actions, pretending to an affront, over a candidate for office are infantile. Move on children, or lose yourself forever in asking for someone else to make you happy.
Dear Arizona Miner,
Thank you for reading and commenting. I would like to point out that, at least in this article, my solution only could indirectly involve the authority of the university. Instead, I am taking responsibility as a student, and also supporting other students who are leading the way – specifically Black, Latinx, and multiracial students.
Peter
Except what you’re protesting about is that someone wrote “TRUMP 2016” on a sidewalk in chalk. All the flowery words and high-minded statements pale and fall away when faced with that fact.
Dear ThirteenthLetter,
The situation in the Middle East is so mired and I personally find myself so far-removed, that it is hard to know how to come down on the side of humanity. However, I do think it is possible to be against Israel’s political occupation and also against anti-Semitism – the general scapegoating of a religious and ethnic group. I try my absolute best to not think of people’s value in terms of a hierarchy, but in terms of equality.
Peter
“However, I do think it is possible to be against Israel’s political occupation and also against anti-Semitism – the general scapegoating of a religious and ethnic group.”
It’s theoretically possible, yes, but in the real world the people opposing Israel’s political occupation always end up joined at the hip with BDS types and violent radicals.
People who treat Islam as revealed truth – and treat kafir accordingly – are the greatest force for evil against kafir on earth this century. So if you’re not a Muslim…
Why I laugh…..
Dear Jeff,
Thanks for reading and for your input!
Peter
Good luck in the real world next year!
This is certainly a grad school kind of guy. He wont do any real work for a long long time.
Dear Jeff,
Thank you for this comment. I would be incredibly lucky and privileged to be accepted into a graduate school. I am considering pursuing a Masters of Fine Arts in poetry writing. The concept of “real” work is something I think about all the time. I am always trying to reconcile the jobs I have done in my past: hotel housekeeping, lawn mowing, delivering newspapers, bagel shop, janitor, lifeguard, construction laborer and errand boy for a private contractor – to the jobs that a degree from Emory may allow me to pursue – most importantly, poet or writer. I wonder what would happen if we all expanded our idea of real work – professors and poets and publishers truly valued carpenters and cooks and cleaners and vice versa?
Peter
Dear Jack,
Thanks for reading and your well wishes.
Peter
Nice Essay. However it misrepresents truth. A better title for this should be ‘Why I refuse to let opinions other than my own be voiced’. Please rewrite in truth.
Dear uncleturtle,
Thank you for your feedback. I wrote as close to the truth about myself and the world as I could get. I am sorry you feel it misrepresents.
Peter
It’s time to admit Emory has failed. They have failed to nurture children and turn them into functioning adults. It has failed to teach even the most basic lessons in civics. It has failed to prepare young people, who pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for an education, for the real world.
I honestly have no idea how these protesters are going to function when they leave the bubble. What skills do they have besides complaining? Who wants to be their co-worker or friend when they act like this? They demand everything, yet offer nothing to anyone. They are worse than childish; they are literally infantile in their selfishness and utter inability to see things from a perspective not their own. I’m honestly sort of worried for the future of our youth.
Dear Nat Alee,
I agree that Emory has failed to teach me the most basic lessons in civics, as I learned those while becoming an Eagle Scout. I am also critical of many school’s high cost of tuition, but given my family’s financial circumstances, I have received nearly full tuition coverage at Emory. In fact, I am an example of how Emory has sought to diversify its bubble – to bring students from out of state and from beyond elite, wealthy zip codes. I am sorry that I come off as selfish. However, I would say that my own decision to support protest has come from four years of seeking to understand perspectives that are not my own – perspectives and experiences of non-white, non-male, non-Midwestern, – and the list goes on – students.
Peter
Ah, the scholarship kid….that’s even a bigger waste than if it was your parent’s money. What a disappointment.
I didn’t say you have failed, I said Emory has failed you. Specifically it has failed by allowing Social Justice Warriors to outlaw different points of view on campus. And your president has failed, by bowing to the very worst students and allowing them to make the rules. When you grow up one day, you’ll find out the world actually is diverse, unlike the thought police who run at Emory.
Emory has failed because it didn’t teach you this basic lesson. And it failed by becoming a national laughing stock last week. This is how normal people view your school now.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/a-letter-to-emory-please-stop-fueling-trumpism/475356/
Employers of college grads, if you aren’t already just tossing all resumes from Emory students in the trash at least make a note of this guy’s name.
Dear Banff1967,
Thanks for adding your thoughts. I do think that as we continue to see demographics in the United States shift, – as non-white and multiracial people make up a more significant portion of the population and workforce – that employers will actually seek out students who have experience with multicultural environments, and the experience of weathering a controversy regarding civility and cultural sensitivity will be an asset.
Peter
Don’t hold your breath Petey. Sure, you’re right that employers will seek out students with more diverse, multicultural experience. But they will want those that also come with a marketable skill, a degree in engineering for example. “Multiculturalism” is not a field in itself. But yes, your multicultural experience will indeed help at McDonalds.
The student protest against another student’s right to voice their support for a political candidate is absurd and shows how the protestors don’t really support democracy and free speech. Of course the protestor who studied in Cuba could always go there to get a job when he graduates. Try voicing a opinion in a Communist country that the party line doesn’t agree with and you’ll soon find out what Mao meant when he said “democracy comes from the barrel of a gun.”
Dear Not impressive,
Thank you again for your comments. I would love to work in Cuba if given the opportunity! Given the President’s recent visit, and the thawing of relations, that could be a real possibility in the years to come. I do have concerns about freedom of expression in Cuba but I am more concerned at the moment about the possibility of my own fellow students meeting violence for protesting, right here in the United States.
Peter
Protesting is fine, even against the Trump chalkers. But the ridiculous thing was students demanding that the administration send out emails validating their point of view. You have freedom of speech. Write an article on one of the student papers. Using words like “fear” or “safe” when asked to describe how you feel makes them come across as whiny and oversensitive.
Dear CrazyTerry,
Thank you for adding your thoughts. I thought writing an editorial was one way I could respond as well. I understand how students are coming across, but the reality is that Trump has openly condoned his supporter’s use of violence against protesters. I think, with that in mind, it is difficult not to think twice about one’s own safety.
Peter
“Nicaragua and Cuba — where student power played a crucial role in the reshaping of entire social orders. We, the students of North America, can rise to the same occasion. I call especially on all artists — poets, dancers, singers, visual artists, playwrights, novelists and musicians — to join me in filling public spaces with possibilities for a different future. ”
Let me translate the true meaning: I’m a Marxists and I want a Marxist society despite the fact that the only thing Marxism has ever flourished at is Killing, Stealing and Destroying.
Dear Burt,
You are right – I am sympathetic to Marxism. However, I do not consider myself a Marxist or somebody calling for a Marxist society, having seen and studied (mostly independent of Emory, for the record) how it as a theory has played out over the last century – oftentimes in the ways you described. Anytime human life is lost in the name of an idea is tragic to me.
Nowhere was I closer to these realities in Nicaragua and Cuba. While I cited these nations as examples of student power, Nicaragua, in particular – for complicated reasons, some of which involved illegal actions by the United States government – struggled in the years after the 1979 revolution to uphold freedom of speech and expression. It is a difficult balance – to create a society that is fair – but also free – for all.
Peter
I recommend that employers everywhere toss out all resumes that show education at Emory University. The students there have no appreciation of freedom of speech. I suspect anyone running a business has “capitalist tendencies,” but this senior clearly shows the rampant anti-capitalist leanings of the students at this college. Hiring one of these people will only be big trouble, because they are likely to hate you simply for your working hard, obeying laws and regulations and still somehow making a profit.
Dear Rob,
Thank you for reading and commenting. It is interesting to me that you portray the Emory student body as anti-capitalist. I often feel alone or in the minority in my political views on campus. We have one of the most respected undergraduate business schools in the nation, which certainly influences campus culture to be in favor of capitalism. Further, most of Emory’s students are pre-professionally oriented – aspriring doctors, lawyers, nurses, public health officials, researchers, and more. Most, in my experience, lean decidedly pro-capitalist.
Peter
What do you think you, Pereza, et al are doing for their job prospects?
Dear Peter,
I will change my view if Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson were “allowed” to speak at any college in the U.S. without interruption or smei-violent protest. Conservative, pro-business speakers have been banned from so many campuses by radical left students and their professors, I’ve lost count. Condoleeza Rice an accomplished black woman who grew up in poverty has been “dis-invited” from commencements and has been shouted down on many occasions. A lot of Americans who pay taxes are fed up with leftist administrators and professors who brook no deviation from their views. So, I suppose this incident at Emory, “hit a nerve” with a lot of us. We’re tired of students demanding their views be heard, but refusing to allow opposing views to be heard. Sorry, but that’s an example of the “real world” reflected in many of the comments to the “Trump Chalk Incident,” the response by university administrators (including a proposal that suggests that if found the perpetrators will be punished), the lack of response to a “Black Lives Matters chalking” at Emory and all the other leftist nonsense going on at so many colleges across the U.S. Emory is being thrown in with all the other colleges.
This article has no objective merit. What is your point, exactly? That you have a loud mouth, so the rest of us are obligated to placate your narcissism? No thanks.
Dear Red Ghost,
Thank you again for your comments. I agree – if this were an article, it would have no objective merit. Seeing as it is my subjective opinion expressed in an editorial I believe my voice does have objective merit, since I am a human being.
Peter
“……since I am a human being.”
You got a trophy just for showing up didn’t you?
My parents were stationed in Communist China during the time that I went to Emory and I was fortunate to be part of the Chinese Democracy Movement from 1986-1988. A year after I graduated from Emory, the PRC exterminated all of my friends at Tienamien Square with less dignity than a stray dog gets put down at a animal shelter. And and the PRC sold what undamaged body parts of theirs on the black market.
Perhaps this “protestor” could take his leftist education and get a job in the PRC and see how far his weakling opinion would travel in a truly leftist country.
Not impressive,
Thanks for continuing to add your voice to the conversation. I wish I knew more about who you were because I would love to reach out and hear more about your stories. This seems like fascinating and valuable world experience. I am deeply sorry to hear about your friends’ death – that pain must have been overwhelming.
Peter
Talk about incoherent. Tell you what, Petey Snowflake. I’ll come visit you at your place of work next year, and see if your grandiose notions of nothingness keep you from getting me a burger and fries.
He’s an English Major; you’re absolutely right.
Dear Fawn,
You are right. It is harder and harder to find work with an English degree, but reading and writing is what I love, what I have always loved, and what I feel so grateful to be doing every day, regardless of my career.
Peter
As long as you go in with your eyes open and take responsibility for yourself / don’t blame others, more power to you.
Dear Atomic Chico,
It’s kind of cute (to me) that you referred to me as Petey because that is a name that only people in my life who deeply love me use – my mother, for example – or people whom I deeply love use – for example, some dear friends who I studied abroad with. And Snowflake is fitting to me too, because I am white, and come from a particularly white and snowy-cold part of the United States (upwards of 90%, according to the census, regularly below 0 degrees Fahrenheit in January). I actually rather like it, so thank you.
While currently employed for the near future, I would be happy to be working at a burger joint. That is respectable work.
Peter
That may be respectable work but it won’t pay off your student loans. If your parents paid for that education, I doubt that’s what they had in mind for their little “Petey”. Grow the f up. Your responses here indicate you’re in dire need of maturity.
“Fawn” (a pseudonym)
Typo at beginning of third graph – did you mean ‘stranger’ or stronger?
Dear Kyle,
Thank you for reading so closely. It is not a typo. As a poet, I believe in strangeness of mind more than I believe in demonstrations of strength.
Peter
OMG.
Dear Fawn,
Thank you for reading and adding your voice into the discussion. I at times feel like calling out to God in this situation as well.
Peter
And you are censoring Emory Alumni opinions in a true Stalinist application. Where is the post I put here two hours ago? You deliberately censored it, which is totally wrong on a huge number of levels unless you are a fascist or a communist. So sick of the mediocrity of current day education.
Dear Not impressive,
Thank you again for your comment. I am sorry you are feeling censored. The comment section is something the newspaper manages and they seek certain levels of decorum that have nothing to do with fascism or communism but everything to do with democracy. I would reach out to their editorial board with concerns.
Peter
Bunch of babies
Dear ed,
Thank you for reading and commenting. I do not know how else to reply except to point out the factual inaccuracy of your comment. Most of the undergraduate students here are between 18-23 years of age.
Peter
Ed meant figuratively you are babies.
“We must all do better.”
There’s no “we” about it. Instead, try to act as an adult and not as a spoiled six year old. Someone chalking “Trump 2016” isn’t going to kill you. This is more silly cultural Marxism at work.
As a sidenote I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be a student who hates Trump and seeks to cause problems over a non-issue.
Dear Sertorius,
Thank you for reading so closely as to consider my use of a pronoun. You are right, by using “we” I was being all-inclusive and I stand by that. In addition, I should be clear that I am in particular appealing to the national media, to white America, and to white students and faculty – who are the predominant audience of the Wheel.
You are right – I am so deeply thankful that there are no bodies directly involved in this situation – and that no action on campus has been intended to kill anyone. Given the events of the past months in the South, – the Charleston shooting, bomb threats on historic Ebeneezer Baptist church, and others – America’s long and dark history with racially motivated violence, and the past years on campus – it seems to not be too unreasonable to consider one’s own safety. Any direct harm coming to fellow students is my worst nightmare, because I have come to love them.
Finally, I hope it is never revealed who did the chalkings. Rather, I hope we continue with the conversation that has once again been revealed on this campus – one of racial tension and divide, of students of color not left to study in peace.
Peter
Dear Peter,
I agree, I hope the culprit is never found. If the person is a Trump supporter the individual can look forward to the modern day version of Mao’s Red Guards Cultural Revolution insanity from what passes as the healty collective of student good thinkers at Emory.
Of course there is always this possibility that one of the good thinkers of the student body did the chalking to have something to whine about. The bulk of these complaints stem from folks who not only go about looking for things to be offended over but do the deed themselves.
I am trying to see this incident with the clarity that comes with a couple of days of thought and sleep. As an alumnus I was angered and embarrassed by what happened at my alma mater earlier in the week. I feel that my Emory diploma takes a hit when its students are portrayed in such a manner in the international media. I àm trying to convince myself of two points. First, let us remember these are children we are talking about. I know they are becoming young adults but many have lived very sheltered lives. I have children their ages and I know they don’t always say the most sensible things.
Secondly, these students want to feel important. They look back on the civil rights movement and they want to be a part of something they feel is significant. That is something I see nationwide with people this age. They are searching for something to be a part of so they find anything, even miniscule……even invented…..that they can “protest.” Perhaps we can better guide them because, after all, civil action is something we should encourage.
Finally, I actually do admire these students for noticing what is going on in the world (or not). While I was at Emory I felt all I did 18 hours a day was read, study and write papers.
the students don’t have to read, study, or write papers anymore. That’s old racist white stuff. Now they sit around and talk about the “micro-aggressions” they experience.
Dear Red Ghost,
Thank you for adding your voice to this conversation. I have to respectfully disagree with your point regarding light student work load. On the contrary, I am grateful to have had four years of nearly-nonstop reading, studying, and writing and I think that is the experience of many students here – an experience we are lucky to have. Even in my case, as a second semester senior who has completed most of their coursework towards graduation, I am, for example, presenting a research paper at a conference this week. I see many students at Emory taking their opportunity to study seriously, though, of course, not all do so.
You are right – in addition to my studies I often discuss campus culture because that discussion about culture seems to be needed for any group of people living and working in close proximity to each other. Even close to graduation, when I could be partying or checked-out, I am committed to leaving my community better than how I found it.
Peter
Dear gordon7,
Thank you so much for your comment and for adding your thoughtful perspective as an alumnus. It is true – many of us are young and still learning – and it is true – many of us have lived sheltered lives. Thank you for being so compassionate as to think of us through the lens of your own children.
We do feel as if we are living in important times, but at the same time, I want to be wary of grandiose ideas of self-importance. However, there is a trend since Ferguson and MizzU of growing campus action and organization specifically led by Black students. Thank you for encouraging this civil action.
Your final comment made me smile, as I know many students can still relate.
Peter
You know, Peter….you’re okay. It is admirable that you would respond to everyone’s comments. I’ll join you for a beer any day. Speaking of beer, when I was a student at Emory the legal age to drink in Georgia was 18. It was quite common for people of various backgrounds and philosophies to meet at a pizza joint in The Village to discuss our diverse opinions over a few beers. I learned quite a bit and was never pained or felt unsafe. My, how times have changed.
“Are we afraid we will not get laid if we have too many opinions? Well, I have a lot of those and seem to be doing alright.” This has become a south park sketch. #PCbro
Dear Max,
Thank you so much for reading and commenting. I can definitely admit to being a bit “bro” at times. Thanks for helping me to laugh at myself.
Peter
Appreciate your humility. I will admit that stylistically this was a great article (no more comment on the substance….). Especially dug the closer(I doth protest)
One of my favorite professors when I went to Emory was a very genteel, very gay, southern gentleman named Dr George Preddy Cutinoe. He was impeccably educated at Emory, Harvard and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. Because his French was so good and his character so strong he was recruited by the OSS to parachute into Normandy and fight the Nazis a year before the D-Day invasion.
Dr Cuttinoe would have scoffed at the Trump candidacy and he would have scoffed at the petulant children students who think their fellow students don’t have the right to support any candidate they like. It doesn’t matter if it’s Donald Trump or Donald Duck running for president, the simple fact is the reason that millions of Americans like Dr Cuttinoe risked their lives in WWII is so that any citizen of our country can vote for anyone they see fit. It’s called Democracy, don’t they teach that at Emory anymore?
Dear Not impressive,
Thank you, once again, for your comment. I am glad to hear about your positive experience with Emory faculty. I don’t believe any of the controversy is over a right to vote. Yes, the political science department is offering a class next semester called “Foundations of American Democracy.”
Peter
Having been at Emory with you, may I say, that Dr. G.P. Cutinoe was impressive, as opposed to the snowflakes who now seem to occupy our former spaces.
Cuttinoe 2016!
http://radiotvtalk.blog.ajc.com/2016/03/25/larry-wilmore-skewers-emory-students-offended-by-trump-chalkings/
Dear Not impressive,
Thank you for sharing. It seems to me that Larry Wilmore means to suggest that students are only making things up to evade schoolwork. While there are plenty of things to evade in my life and at Emory, it is curious to me this shift in viewpoint regarding campus activism. I believe it is possible to view it as essential rather than periphery to a student’s experience.
Peter
Peter,
You’re free to heap scorn on the whole of society but only if you do it within the law and on your own dime.
I do not wish to find you on the dole or interfering with my ‘pursuit of happiness’, blocking a highway, breaking windows, defacing property, or using your megaphone at o-dark-thirty outside the windows of the ‘old folks home’.
Dear Zeb,
Thank you for chiming in. I am sorry you felt I was being scornful. I mean to provoke, challenge, and critique rather than scorn. It may reassure you to know that my education is not on the taxpayer’s dime. While I am supported financially by Emory, the university is not a public institution.
Thank you for your considerate recommendation. I do not plan to protest at odd hours, or near nursing homes, but I do plan on making reading poetry aloud on campus a standing protest activity until I graduate.
Peter
Peter,
I’ve read your responses to the ‘commenters’ and I’m left with a sense of your innate decency. What you expect from the rest of us…all of us on the planet… however, is not achievable. We are born imperfect. People my age recognize that life, itself, has its own default positions…ignorance; poverty; and conflict/war. The struggle, for all of us, is to rise above all three.
Your words display a certain vulnerability. Life is an equal opportunity ass-kicker. Your good intentions won’t change that elemental truth.
You’re from Duluth. I’m up on ‘da Range’. If you want to have a beer with an old fart, give me a call. I’m in the phone book.
I’m attending Emory next year, and honestly, this has just become down right embarassing. Please stop lol
Dear Oleeve,
I am excited to see how your incoming class shapes Emory! Best of luck to you.
Peter
Thank you Peter. As I’ve said before on some of these threads, I am a liberal and I agree with most, not all, of the issues you listed above. And although emotions are often hard to control, I feel that once we experience them we must address them rationally, or else people become suddenly incredulous of us. I don’t want my opinion to be scorned simply because it silenced someone else’s.
Everyone already is incredulous of Peter, Oleeve.
Perhaps, but I don’t believe this represents the majority of students at Emory, and it is frustrating to see all of these people claiming that now they’ll “throw an Emory resume into the trash”? That’s about as ignorant as some of these protesters. My point is that, again, I don’t think the majority of liberals embody this “self-entitlement” attitude. Coming from someone who grew up in a family full of Republicans in a smaller town located in a conservative threshold, I can certainly listen to even what I consider to be the most backwards of opinions without throwing some ridiculous sort of tantrum over it. And I’m so sick and tired of being judged as some sort of naïve, millennial liberal because a handful of these are too close minded to consider the long term consequences of their actions and/or be able to empathize with those who have different, more conservative backgrounds than their own.
I agree with you, Oleeve.
I live in a bastion of liberalism.
Your point about self-entitled liberal college students being a subset is well-taken and necessary.
Virtue-signaling is rampant at Emory University, indeed at every college campus in 2016. College students are only recently removed from childhood, and are often trying to “find themselves”. In case this term isn’t familiar: Virtue signaling is the popular modern habit of indicating that one has virtue merely by expressing disgust or favor for certain political ideas, cultural happenings, or even the weather. When a liberal goes on a tirade about how dumb and dangerous Senator and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump or Ted Cruz is—a tirade usually devoid of specific examples —that person is actually signaling to others that he or she is virtuous. It has very little to do with Trump’s or Cruz’s actual record.
Being offensive and disrespectful towards and about Trump or Cruz is okay to them because the payoff of “being liked” or “agreed with” in the ideological bubble of their like-minded peers is more important to them than basic civility and enlightened discussion or debate.
The problem, Oleeve, is your ” handful of these are too close minded to consider the long term consequences of their actions” ARE succeeding in swaying policy on campus’s across the country. It’s ridiculous that a small number of protesting millennials are doing what they are and sucking that air out of any conversation by screaming down the opposition.
THAT’S why I would be suspect as an HR manager of you Emery CV.
Then be skeptical, but that just means you should take the iniative to learn the character of that applicant that much more. Of course this wasn’t paid as much attention to, but a greater deal of the Emory students thought that the response to the chalkings were absurd. You can’t discount an entire university who’s students are more studious, hard working, and brighter than most because of the actions of a few. Not to mention, you said yourself this is happening at many universities, not just Emory, and I believe it’s a bigger issue of the media and society being so sensitive to what is racist, and what is unfair, and what is backwards, etc., that many universities become torn in trying to prepare their students for the real world while still trying to fulfill the expectations that society and many of the radical liberals who run academia have set for them. Here, I believe Emory gave in wrongly to the latter, but that does not mean that I don’t want to go here now or get a refund or whatever other crazy thing. The pros still definitely out weight the cons, and I’m very proud of my school and of the fact that I will be attending in the fall.
“I don’t want my opinion to be scorned simply because it silenced someone else’s.”
???
How is this confusing? I am a progressive and dislike Donald Trump for what I think should be obvious reasons. However, when other progressives who share the same view as me stifle our opponents’ opinion, people generalize all of us and view us all as “whinny communists” when in reality that again is not the majority of us. When I say my opinion, I mean the opinion that is shared by liberal students and myself at Emory, and that it was not in the right to silence the conservative one.
You should look into a refund.
I feel your pain, but can only advise you to avoid Mizzou as well. The school is having financial losses, like 1500 registrations down from last semester. The reason? You guess it. Those protesters stupidity. So now Mizzou not only won’t be able to comply with its “promises” to the protesters of “increasing faculty diversity”, but will have to let go some on the current ones.
Lol. The down side on unintended consequences.
Don’t go, figure out something else.
I graduated from Emory in 1963 and it is down right embarrassing. Do you have any other options?
we’ll be setting up a kiosk in the quad… get yours while they last
Jeff,
The following comment about insurance for your kiosk is tongue in cheek — dripping with sarcasm, and directed at the anti-free speech crowd at Emory and so many other college campuses across the U.S. These are the students and their socialist / communist professors ones who would protest and shout down even a Medal of Honor soldier if he / she spoke on campus with the slightest right of center subject matter such as “smaller government is better than big government.”
I hope you get property and liability insurance before you set up your kiosk. The lunatic protesters who have never had a real job in their lives will either take an ax to it or douse it with gasoline and set it on fire. The more important coverage by far is liability. These same loons will get some left wing plaintiff attorney to sue you for “mental anguish,” and “hate speech.”
Blocking traffic and keeping a mom from picking up her kids from daycare or the student from their tuition-paying part time job is not brave. It is not productive and it alienates those who would listen to you under other circumstances. People equate you with Trump – loud, abusive, and without answers. Use the ballot box to make changes, do not obstruct the hardworking people who are trying to live their lives.
Trump is not racist You owe him an apology.
Isn’t it great to live in a country that provides you with a constitutional right to speak freely? Even better, isn’t it great to live in the country that provided you with a megaphone tool, the Internet, that allows you to write all this crap without fears of consequences?
I believe this YouTube video pretty much explains Peter Witzig and those like him on my college campus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9mPo6goz-8
Very sentimental sentences, but sorry I’m too pragmatic to buy into it. Behind all these rhetorical claims, you failed to examine and address one of the most important aspects of a protest – what exactly are you trying to accomplish by doing this? You might have started with a good intention, but you didn’t take the time to think for a second about the possible outcome of your actions. Here’s something for you to ponder on before you raise that megaphone again next time: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/a-letter-to-emory-please-stop-fueling-trumpism/475356/
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/maher-blasts-emory-students-triggered-by-trump-i-want-to-dropkick-these-kids/
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/03/25/debate-grows-over-pro-trump-chalkings-emory
Peter,
Can we talk? You’re full of callow hubris, and I could help you with that 🙂
Will you be protesting the killing in Hephzibah, Georgia and the actions in that community (I use that term loosely)?
Your opinion piece is certainly thought provoking. The following portions of your opinion raise the following questions in my mind, and perhaps in the minds of other readers:
“We can take more opportunities to step outside the lines. We can, and should, break more laws, especially when they disturb our moral consciences. I am speaking of conscientious civil disobedience.”
1. Question-any limitation on laws that can justifiably be broken? – Are there any laws that you believe should not be broken as part of “conscientious civil disobedience”? If so, what criteria do you believe should be used to distinguish between (X) laws that should be broken and (Y) those laws that should not be broken?
“… what I can do is only a small act of breaking social laws…”
2. Question-distinction between social laws & other laws? – What criteria are you using to draw a distinction between (X) the “social laws”, that you are willing to break in the interest of civil disobedience, and (Y) other laws that you do not consider to be “social laws”, that you will not break in the interest of civil disobedience?
“…reshaping of entire social orders. We, the students of North America, can rise to the same occasion.”
3. Question – description of desired new social order? – Where can one go to find a description of the “entire social order” that you and “the students of North America” want to reshape the current social order into, so that readers can know and understand the specifics of exactly where you and the other students of North America want the changes want the new society to end up being like, without using broad ambiguous political generalities?
Otherwise, in the absence of answers to these specific questions, the reader is left unclear as to the needed specifics of:
(X) what the detailed specifics are of your new proposed society; and
(Y) whether there are any laws that you and the other students who agree with you do not believe can justifiably be broken in the interest of civil disobedience and, if so, what criteria distinguishes the specific laws that you believe can justifiably be broken for such disobedience, and which laws you believe cannot justifiably be broken.
While you have not provided answers to these questions in your opinion piece, it would be most helpful if either (A) you could provide answers to these questions in response to this comment, or (B) you could provide a citation or hyperlink where I, and readers like me, would be able to go to find, read, and consider such answers.
Otherwise, a reader of your opinion piece, such as me, may not see rational or practical justification for what you are advocating.
WOW, this writer is quite a bigot, caught in a fairytale story of made up racism and meanies out there. Get some reality in your life will you?
You brain power is obviously at question after reading this article. You are right the stakes have never been higher than to keep useless idiots like yourself out of the gene pool. You are a true me-me-me-linum.
I have the right, no, the responsibilities to question such racist groups like Black Lives Matters and the Black Panthers (or is it pink panthers, I always confuse the 2) and their racist motivations and criminal behavior.
“I call especially on all artists — poets, dancers, singers, visual artists, playwrights, novelists and musicians — to join me in filling public spaces with possibilities for a different future. ” IE: no intellects need show up.
By focusing your protests on Trump you are serving the interests of classism and imperialism. Trump has said he would be neutral in negotiations between Israel and Palestine. The greatest capitalists, imperialists, and militarists are opposing Trump and trying to torpedo his candidacy. The crassest classists in the country are mocking Trump’s supporters as working class losers.
Trump represents a credible opposition that scares the establishment far more than Bernie. But your actions serve the interests of Hillary and Cruz.
Do you recognize the moral right of those who oppose your positions to violate the law if their consciences demand it? Do you not see that when everyone sees things that way anarchy results?