Gesundheit

The other day I read an article by an enraged alumnus, Robbie Majzner, criticizing the lack of student response to intolerant professors. He was upset that people didn’t criticize their professors often enough, challenge their authority, and letting them get away with intolerant actions and statements. Why don’t people step forward with responses to intolerance?

For one, it seems to be fruitless. There were many sentiments this year against intolerance: all of the opinions roused up by the David Project issue; the controversy surrounding the swastikas in the library—these are all issues of the past semester, events which have caused students to rise up against alleged intolerance and subsequently crush it. It is our duty, after all, as the morally superior Columbians that we claim to be. We say, “We are Columbians, and we are better than that.”

But are we?

I arrived back on campus, and within only a few days was approached by a fellow student who promised me a story. I was instructed to go into one of the Carman elevators and look at the words etched into the doors. On them, I found the words, “I H8 NIGGA”

Shocked, I didn’t even know what to think. People had risen against a professor who had allegedly made anti-Semitic statements and had allegedly discriminated based on ethnicity and religion. The swastikas that had been found on the bathroom stalls in Butler library caused those bathrooms to be closed until they were removed. Both had provoked huge responses. Yet here was a clear case, an indisputably hate-centered phrase cut permanently into the elevator doors of a freshman dormitory. And I had heard nothing about it. Now, several weeks into school, there has been nothing said about this inscription, and I still see it every time I hop into the elevator.

We make such big to-dos about these acts of intolerance that have been occurring on campus, but it all seem to be in vain—because the acts continue.

So why do people not step up and respond to intolerance? Well, for one, it seems to keep happening regardless of how much we rise against it. But also, anyone who steps up and says anything becomes vulnerable to the inevitable onslaught of criticism.

In this age of rapid response and criticism I feel like people are afraid to say anything—even if it’s the right thing to say. Sponge-Bob was recently in a video with several other animated figures, promoting tolerance of all ethnicities, and sexual orientations. He was assaulted for being “pro-homosexual,” and some Christian groups wanted his video to be withheld from sale. In an age when even a speech for tolerance is attacked, how are people supposed to be comfortable expounding controversial opinions?

Perhaps this explains the lack of response that alumnus Robbie Majzner spoke about: you put yourself out there—but for what? Are any of us actually going to make a difference?

Well, maybe not. But there are some things that you just do. Like in my anthropology class. My professor will be in the middle of his lecture, in the middle of a sentence even, but if someone sneezes, you can count on his immediate “God bless you.” It’s kind of refreshing, actually. It’s this reminder I get several times a class that you have to do what’s right, right when you’re thinking about it. You just have to. As natural as it is to say “God bless you” when a sneeze is observed, that’s how natural it needs to be to respond to an intolerance observed. It’s not going to stop that person from sneezing—for that, only some serious Ny-Quil or Sudafed can help—but it can bring attention to it, and sometimes that’s all we can do.

You sneezed?