Katie Shewfelt ’20 and Daniel Osofsky ’20 posted a film of student reactions to the election of the presidential candidate who I will refuse to name, in the tactical vein of Michelle Obama. The video features students commenting on the very disturbing realities that the most marginalized in this country are experiencing in the current moment. Give it a watch:
(Visited 16 times, 1 visits today)
I came to Wesleying because I was curious about current students’ reception on politics based on this NYTimes article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/opinion/my-liberal-university-cemented-my-vote-for-trump.html ; Unfortunately, I was disappointed by the most response.
I was a dying-heart liberal when I first came onto the Wesleyan campus but by the time I left in 2008 after shaking Barack Obama’s hands, I’ve become a full-fledged conservative.
For students/faculty who voted for Trump, I just want to say that there are plenty of us out there, who have a critical, open and respectful attitude about politics and other citizens. We don’t speak up mostly because it is smart not to in an environment where freedom of expression and critical thinking are censored.
Am I a white athlete or fraternity brother? No, I’m a minority who was disheartened by both the white and minority social justice warriors. As an Resident Advisor, I saw the “diversity facilitators” come to freshman orientation to talk passionately about oppression, and earnest people responding “so what I can really do?” I realized by the end of that year when traditional social cliques were formed, sad that some residents dropping out, happy that some people hitting their strides; the so-called diversity facilitators never facilitate anything, they are in fact human beings who are concerned about their own problems, projected themselves onto the “social issues” and were never seen again on my hall. Standing up for social justice is dishonest to our fellow man when we all pay lip service to feel good about ourselves but revert right back to baser human instincts of self-preservation in the critical situations of real economic, social and sexual competitions and ladder-climbing. In this sense, the racists and bigots are more honest and moral people than some of the double-handed SJWs I encountered at Wes.
Am I a bitter person, an unenlightened person in the cycle of oppression or the history of the American Civil Rights movements, not a Wesleyan weirdo … but a self-centered Math-Econ or a pre-med major? No, I have taken FGSS classes on Betty Friedan/Simon Bolivar, AFAM lit classes and CoL classes on Focault/Chomsky. I was horrified that professors who openly espoused their personal liberal views without giving the environment to support the voicing of their conservative counterparts. The conservative opinions that I would at the time disagree with too, but I was disheartened that minority opinions – no matter how heinous and unpopular they may be were not critically analyzed and dismissed by mere labeling them as being “unprogressive” – just as equally close-minded as my conservative Christian youth group in high school that disregarded progressive values with groupthink. Wesleyan community at large is not open-minded but is a conformist culture of the Left Coast counterculture, of students and faculty who say one thing on one hand, but on the other hand participates in the same rat race/ladder climbing of “OB/GYN doctor/human rights lawyers/GreenTech Investment Banker/Tenure-Track professor/Social Entrepreneur” as the “mainstream yuppie corporate sell-outs” they criticize and get tuition checks from.
I had a great time at Wesleyan and after 8 years, and still have friends from school whom I get together with. No doubt I will be labeled as a bitter, cynical and close-minded person – I don’t expect to change any minds.
But regardless of where you are politically, see clearly who your true friends are, follow your guts, take care of yourself and treat your real friends well; and heed your gut feelings about bad people – just as there are con-man’s on the right selling “Prosperity Gospel” and “Rightwing Identity Politics,” there are con-man on the left who don’t really care about you and your identity, but fancy themselves as the high left priests of moral indignation and identity politics, don’t let them swindle your precious energy and enthusiasm.