My Old School, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

November 13, 2015 Victor El-Khouri 3 Comments

When I was in college, I was pretty much an asshole.  That informs my understanding of what took place in Missouri this week.

Specifically, I’m going to talk about the professor who tried to shoo away reporters covering the demonstrations against racism taking place on the University of Missouri campus.  She later apologized.

First of all, let me get this out of the way:  I believe in the First Amendment, in freedom of speech and freedom of the press.  To the extent that the protesting students were out in public, they surrendered any claim to privacy.

However, I have a few non-legal qualms.  These qualms relate to how much of an asshole I was when I was in college.

It was a different time.  There was a war on, and a draft.  I was militantly anti-war, and a radical feminist, and I would accept no disagreements, nor would I concede that anyone was more rigorously anti-war than I was.  I believed that monogamy was a tool of the patriarchy (which I actually still believe, but stopped saying so much when my kid could hear me).  I thought the CIA might have killed JFK.  I thought soldiers enjoyed killing babies.

What happened to me, and what I think is an important part of the college experience, is that I met people from different backgrounds and different perspectives.  Some of them were more radical than me.  Some were more conservative.  Some thought other issues were more important than the ones on which I focused.  Thankfully, I was in college for years, and it took me a long time, but I learned (eventually) how to let in new information and new people telling me their truth.

I’m really glad there were no television journalists interviewing me then so that millions of people could see how inane I sounded.  I’m ecstatic that there was no Internet, so that if you want to see what a ninny I was, you have to dig pretty deep.

In my patronizing and condescending way, I project these same feelings on the student protesters.  The academic who tried to get rid of the reporters thought she was protecting a “safe space” where the students could talk freely among themselves.

As I said above, there is no legal right to a “safe space” out in public.  That’s why you see so many photographs of celebrities waiting to get their cars at a restaurant, or getting off an airplane.  Journalists have a right to report on things that happen in public.

As a mom, though, I want to give the protesters a place where they can talk among themselves.  It may be that there are places on campus that have doors for this purpose, but when I was a student, I would have assumed that the quad was mine by right.  (Note:  I would have been wrong, but I was as entitled as any college student.  Plus ca change, etc.)

We’re pretty outraged at the professor for her transgression, when we should be angry about the on-going racism that sparked the protests in the first place.  For example (and I quote), “Then one day, Ms. Gray said, she found a picture tacked to her door of what appeared to be a black woman being lynched. …(H)er roommate said a friend had done it as a joke …)

I don’t know in what universe that would be considered funny.  It’s certainly one I would protest.  I’m really encouraged that college students are protesting about these issues around the country.  I thank them for their service.

On a different but related note, I have a complaint about the media.  (You’re shocked.  I know.)  Too often, we hear that “You can’t say ‘Merry Christmas’ any more.”  And you know what?  You totally can!

What you can’t do is say it and expect that no one will contradict you in some way.  Even then, no one who complains will have authority from the government to arrest you.  There might be a person who rants that you are an insensitive clod for ignoring other religious beliefs besides Christianity.  There might be a person who shares a story about how hurt he felt when he was excluded from Christmas celebrations as a child.  Still another person might respond by thanking you and wishing you a most happy Winter Solstice.  And your boss might warn you to stop saying it because any of those previous people might be customers who won’t want to come back and spend money at your place of business.

The media, in an attempt to trump up a ratings-winning fight, lumps all these responses together and says you “can’t” say Merry Christmas.

Here’s another example:  Time Magazine recently ran a cover story about what they called “The War on Delicious.”  I read the article (isn’t this what doctors’ waiting rooms are for?), wondering when I was going to learn about the militant vegans who were trying to ban bacon.  Instead, I got a rehash of the news about the recent studies that suggest that red meats, especially those that are processed in some ways, might increase the risk of certain cancers.

No one is waging a war on bacon.  At most, some are suggesting that informational data about these foods should be part of their packaging.  If there is any warfare going on, it’s the bacon that is attacking us.

Which is what I think Santa is doing, actually.

Martha Thomases,Media Godess, has been listening to a lot of Steely Dan lately.