Last week in America has left thousands baffled. Two campuses are protesting and causing an uproar that has led to national media coverage and new movements on other campuses to form. "What's strange about this?" you might ask yourself. Well, one of said protests formed because an email was sent out to Yale students asking them to not be hyper-offended by Halloween costumes, and the other caused by someone drawing a poop swastika on a bathroom wall. This isn't a joke. People have gone on hunger strikes, administrators have lost their jobs, and death threats have been made.
I don't know what's stranger: the causes of these outcries, or the people supporting them. If we looked back just a decade, these people would have been lucky to make the 10:00 p.m. local news. But considering we don't live in a rational America anymore, the protestors of Mizzou used their public whining and national media coverage to have their president resign from his office. Not because he committed any of the actions that led to the protests, but because they didn't like the manner he responded. So here's a recap of what these protests are based on: there was a report of a driver off-campus who shouted a racial slur at a black student, another on campus instance of a racial slur, and the poop swastika.
One of these actions took place off campus by an unknown person, and the other was a drawing made of feces written on a bathroom wall. What exactly could the president of the university do, and how could he have acted any different? If this was any other nation, people would be laughing. That's not the case here. Instead we have a innocent man lose his job. These protestors had to one to blame and frantically had to find a figure to direct their anger to. All of this happened just because they had a brush with the inherent nature of our existence: we aren't all like-minded, and sometimes, there isn't anything you can do. Oh, but this isn't acceptable to the mighty social justice warriors and do-gooders of today. Instead, they are going to protest against people who are innocent and could not have done anything to stop these unfortunate instances, because when it comes to social justice, someone is going to have to bleed.
Many of us as a young and pampered generation have collectively turned ourselves into a massive group of overgrown children who have adapted and learned to use our social media and the Internet to throw almost mindless tantrums to find a reward that we think we are deserving of. Nothing is a joke anymore. Freedom of speech only applies if you have more people whining with you. Worst of all, these young adults are out and about trying to avoid contact with anything they don't agree or believe in. I'm sure at the heart of these protests and movements, there are nothing but good intentions, but they aren't really helping anyone. Like it was said in one of the recent premiers of South Park, "Life isn't one big liberal arts college campus." There's no such thing as a safe space for an adult human. People can be MEAN. You're going to hear and see things you disagree with, and unfortunately for you, complaining to the administration is not going to get them to remove whatever is offending you. In other words, not everyone cares. Pretending like we can make a new world that shelters everyone from the parts of society we don't like only creates a disservice to ourselves.
Discomfort is just something we have to live with. But in the spirit of modernity and equality to the protesters, this can't stand any longer. They demand that everyone take eight hours of diversity training, no white men should hold public office, they shouldn't have to look at anything uncomfortable, and I'll be damned, if they do, someone has to burn. Because they are special gifts from God, and no misfortune should ever reach them. If someone disagrees with one of them, silence the oppressors all at once.
Our protected freedom of speech is in mortal danger in our sheltered society as well. The video of the Mizzou journalism professor openly try to silence a student journalist from reporting at the scene, shows how little regard we are holding this right in our society. The people who are out to teach the freedom of the press are trying to silence the people who aren't agreeing with their moral conquest. Evidently we have recently been granted the right to pick and choose when this freedom is applicable.
Such is the the culture we've taught our kids we live in. Making them believe they are elevated beings from the heavens themselves, and that only their opinions matter. It's only going to keep getting worse until someone finally says that enough is enough. Unfortunately, there are going to be more protests over anything and everything in the near future. What we need to counteract these pointless movements, is people with the courage to say "no" to their irrational demands, and help them figure out that no one really cares about their feelings. As unfortunate as it may be, this is the way our world works. If this pattern continues, we will never be able to get anything done because we will be constantly terrified of hurting someone else's feelings and subsequently being fired. If we lived in a perfect world, maybe this could be our reality, but that just isn't possible.
So the next time you see or hear something that challenges what you believe or feel, don't target those who are innocent because you got your feelings hurt. There are better, and more organized ways to push beneficial change wherever you go.
