On April 11th of 2016, Emma Deering wrote an article on the “offended college student,” and how she was “sick and tired” of university students constantly feeling “threatened” or offended by opposing views and ultimately disregarding them instead of engaging with them, specifically with chalked walls and benches that read, ” Trump 2016.”
Find her article here: http://theodysseyonline.com/kentucky/an-open-letter-to-the-college-student/396527
While I agreed with about 6% of this article, the rest was complete bullshit written by someone too privileged to empathize or even acknowledge the experiences of marginalized students and their valid fears and concerns regarding the hate speech in their community.
Here are the top 3 reasons Emma Deering’s article was completely wrong in almost every single way:
1. Her disregard for the experiences of undocumented students and minority communities
Deering’s article seemed to suggest that these signs weren’t “threatening” in any way, but just someone’s opinion. However, if you are undocumented, and the leading republican presidential candidate is literally THREATENING to deport you and your family, how are you not supposed to feel threatened? It’s much easier to dismiss these acts of hate when you’re not the one being targeted.
2. Her ignorance of the true meaning of “Trump 2016”
Deering downplays this act as merely an opposing political view, but it stands for much more than that. The simple act of writing “Trump 2016” has so much hatred rooted into it. It implies the criminalization of all Latinos,as well as the scapegoating of all Muslims. Imagine being in the communities that Trump threatens and having to read that every day in your own community. What would that do to your self-worth? To your state of mind? How scared would you be that someone will take those words and act upon them? Words have power, and Deering completely ignores that.
3. When she says “Wake up college students! We are talking about the probable Republican presidential nominee, not Hitler.” (This one is my absolute favorite!)
This is by far the most ridiculous sentence in the entire piece. In case you didn’t know Emma, Hitler didn’t begin his acts of genocide by instantly putting Jewish individuals in concentration camps, he started by slandering and defaming them first; using hate speech to scapegoat them and eventually turning society against them in an attempt to render them obsolete. How dare you try and devalue someone who fears that this is happening all over again.
While Deering tries to encourage everyone to engage in dialogue and conversations, she forgets that that in itself is her form of privilege. If you are undocumented, how are you supposed to engage in conversations without fear that they will call immigration services? If you are Muslim how are you supposed to engage in opposing conversation when you constantly fear being attacked in a hate crime? And when someone writes on a college campus “Trump 2016,” that is saying more than “I support a political candidate,” that is telling an entire group of people that they do not belong.
I am sick and tired too Emma, sick and tired of people like you not trying to see something from a different perspective. I am sick and tired of everyone calling millennials too sensitive simply because we want to create a world where people shouldn’t have to live in fear.
If people are allowed to preach hate, then we are allowed to preach inclusiveness, and you can keep being annoyed at everyone getting offended, but it is because you will never understand what it is like to be oppressed, marginalized, and fighting every day for some god damn acceptance.
