Yesterday, Saturday, September 25th, I heard that Wesleyan students were asking that their school newspaper be defunded because a student of theirs wrote an opinion piece disagreeing with the Black Lives Matter Movement. He came to the conclusion that Black Lives Matter has backfired. His conclusion is that at “some point Black Lives Matter is going to be confronted with an uncomfortable question, if they haven’t already begun asking it: Is this all worth it? Is it worth another riot that destroys a downtown district? Another death, another massacre? At what point will Black Lives Matter go back to the drawing table and rethink how they are approaching the problem?” The article gives an interesting point of view to the current racial tension in the country. However, the article is not my concern; my concern is the response.
In response to the article, I have heard that many Wesleyan students are harassing the writer, and that they are making a point that they want the whole newspaper defunded because of one piece. I find the response comical in the sense that in a country where people are now so “liberal” or “democratic” and there is a resistance to free speech. The thinking that is now dominating America is one in which everyone that says something disagreeable is wrong. A country that advocates for acceptance but is not accepting itself.
For Wesleyan students to ask for their newspaper to be defunded shows just how much free speech is under attack in this country. It shows how much freedom of the press is under attack. Let me once again reiterate that I am not concerned at this point with what the student wrote. I do not care if he was right or wrong, I think that is beside the point. The real point is that he was allowed to make his feelings known. The point is that he should be able to put in his two cents on the Black Lives Matter movement. Instead of there being an attack, there should be a discussion. The point of disagreement is to have discussions and not war. No one should have to agree with what the majority thinks. The writer of the article does not have to agree with the Black Lives Matter movement, just like many Christians do not have to agree with the Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage. We don’t have to agree with each other but we have a responsibility as human beings to respect one another. We have responsibility to lovingly disagree with each other. It is not right to disgrace each other or silence each other because we disagree. If we continue to do that, this world will become worse than it is. The reason we have ISIS is because there is this mindset to silence disagreements, a mindset to discredit those who have different values than us. It shouldn’t be. Not in our generation, not ever.
As a Christian, I am called to love everyone. I am not called to agree or accept what others do. That being said, I am also not called to disgrace someone because of his or her choices and I think this world needs to learn the difference. I think world needs to learn how to truly love others.
