Rutgers University, my beloved alma mater, pre-dates the Declaration of Independence. Yes, dear old Queens College (as it was called then) was founded in 1766, making it the 8th oldest university in America.
Over the last 250+ years, Rutgers has grown into a world-class modern research university while also maintaining numerous traditions that connect us to our colonial past. One of these traditions is our alma mater, "On the Banks of the Old Raritan". If you have never heard it performed before, please enjoy the video below from our world-renowned Rutgers University Glee Club.
First written in 1873, our alma mater has held consistent for decades, only changing the very slightest in 1989 (from "my boys" to "my friends") to reflect the admittance of women in 1972.
However, several years ago, new rumblings began over the alma mater's first two lines, which read:
My father sent me to old Rutgers/
And resolv'd that I should be a man;
These first two lines, some argued, did not reflect the modern times of who attends college and who sends students away. Mothers, families, grandparents, gay couples, and more send not just men, but also women to college. It is no question the alma mater should be updated, some argued.
When this latest debate appeared in 2010, I wrote a Letter to the Editor of our student newspaper, the Daily Targum, calling on the student body to preserve the remaining traditions at our university. Much of the letter involves Rutgers nuance which may be hidden to unaffiliated people, but I feel it made good points overall.
A more refined point for our present could be stated as such - we're not talking about a symbol that holds racist or discriminatory stature. We're speaking of a song whose only crime, if it should be even called such, is mere anachronism. Additionally, why only the focus on the lyrics "father" and "man"; did you not pick up on "since the time of the flood", a clear Biblical reference? Certainly that does not reflect our diverse student body, many of whom are not practicing Christians in any way.
After much debate, the official lyrics were indeed changed in 2013; they now read:
From far and near we came to Rutgers/
And resolved to learn all that we can;
Curiously, the Biblical flood reference still remains... I still proudly sing the original lyrics (the flow is much better anyway).
Of course, this is far from the silliest act of political correctness my dear university has attempted. Just this past spring the student government passed a resolution to "diversify our Scarlet Knight mascot".
In the words of John Oliver, "this is true":
The Rutgers University Student Assembly recently passed a bill intended to support ethnic and gender diversity by adding multiple Scarlet Knights that could be black, Latino, Asian, female or third gender in addition to the existing Caucasian Scarlet Knight, said Emmet Brennan, student assembly parliamentarian.
“What we were thinking — the way the bill’s laid out — it’s not defined that we need an Asian knight, a black knight, a Latino knight,” said Brennan, a School of Environmental and Biological Sciences first-year student. “That we would really leave it up to the different student organizations ... and basically the student body as a whole to determine how many knights they’d like and what these knights would represent.”
Brennan said he founded the idea behind the bill working as a press box server at a football game, where he noticed the mascot had blue eyes and light skin.
“This does not seem right,” Brennan said. “Our mascot does not represent how diverse we are as a school.”
BTW, for those of you unfamiliar, the Scarlet Knight looks like this:
As you may expect, this proposal was ridiculed by the local media. It defined Rutgers students as way too out of touch and politically correct. The Scarlet Knight mascot is not some metaphysical representative of the student body, it's a freaking life-size puppet that cheers on our athletics teams.
This brings me to central theme of this diary. My generation - the Millennial generation - is the most open-minded, socially progressive generation in the history of America. Yet ironically, we're also the most restrictive when it comes to speech, not to mention fraught with an inability to accept failure without having an existential meltdown and/or blaming some third party; they don't call us the "Trophy Kid Generation" for nothing.
Follow below the digital fold for a look at how we're in peak "outrage culture", with Millennials leading the way.
If you watched "Real Time with Bill Maher" this past Friday, August 7th, then you know where I got the inspiration for this diary. Bill's guest, journalist Caitlin Flanagan, spoke of her current piece in The Atlantic on how colleges are policing and sanitizing comedy acts performed on their campuses.
The cliff notes version of the article, which is reflected in the below video clip, is that the student leaders and administrators who book acts for their home universities are delicately tip-toeing with regard to content. The funniest acts are often the edgiest, and even though they receive ruckus laughter and standing ovations from the crowd, they receive few bookings. The article also cites quotes from legendary comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock, both of whom refuse to perform at colleges anymore, citing political correctness. Rock even called colleges "too conservative", which is quite remarkable yet bears truth with regard to comedy.
Later in the episode (not shown in the clip), Bill speaks of a politically correct handbook which informs us that we can no longer even call someone "rich"; we must instead say "person of affluent means".
I find comedy policing most egregious, particularly because while we attack certain edgy comedians, like Maher, Daniel Tosh, and others, we celebrate equally edgy comedians, like Amy Schumer and Louis C.K., either because of their stature or their demographic empowerment. Schumer has done fierce and politically biting acts, including ones on rape and football culture, yet she is celebrated without fear of retribution.
Obviously, I find Amy Schumer incredibly funny as well as culturally biting, but I also find Maher and Tosh funny (Maher more so). Yet Schumer is celebrated while Maher and Tosh are hammered. It's an example of stunning hypocrisy.
I believe it stems from "Outrage Culture", which is often illuminated right here at Daily Kos. Just yesterday we had a diary on the Recommended List that chastised Hillary Clinton for telling people to tweet Emojis that reflect their feelings about student debt. As I commented in the diary, I cannot be more direct - that type of opinion (and others highlighted in this diary) are why people cannot stand liberals.
Another way Outrage Culture seeps into our society is through what's known as "microaggressions". Another article in this month's The Atlantic tackles this growing phenomenon. A cited example of a microaggression is:
For example, by some campus guidelines, it is a microaggression to ask an Asian American or Latino American “Where were you born?
The article also speaks of trigger warnings, which I definitely think are real but are overused in college settings as an excuse to avoid certain texts or discussion topics; this is mentioned midway in the article:
It’s hard to imagine how novels illustrating classism and privilege could provoke or reactivate the kind of terror that is typically implicated in PTSD. Rather, trigger warnings are sometimes demanded for a long list of ideas and attitudes that some students find politically offensive, in the name of preventing other students from being harmed.
This current movement is much more than about removing hate speech, it's about ensuring emotional well-being at all costs, even if that means censoring fertile classroom discussions about the very issues we
need to discuss to grow as a society. This isn't about empowering a troll student who disrupts real learning, this is about slapping "trigger warning" labels on "Heart of Darkness" or "Beloved" because they happen to graphically detail violence.
I'd wager most of us are against "zero tolerance" policies in schools as it pertains to drugs. This is reflected in the vigorous community support for the Snodgrasses and their son's entrapment in a California school district. So, then, why would most of us support zero tolerance policies for words? Again, this is not about defending a teen's right to call someone a direct slur. But getting lectured for asking "are you from this country?" How did this protectionism develop?
The article delves into several reasons, and this diary is already lengthy, so I won't expand much here. I will say that social media makes it extremely easy to engage in online crusades and outrage culture. Another aspect is coursework and professor embrace of these terms, which make their way into assignments. Similar to Upton Sinclair's famous quote "it is difficult to to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on not understanding it", a revised version for college classes could read "it's hard to challenge entrenched professor values and beliefs when your grade is on the line."
The psychiatrist Sarah Roff pointed this out last year in an online article for The Chronicle of Higher Education. “One of my biggest concerns about trigger warnings,” Roff wrote, “is that they will apply not just to those who have experienced trauma, but to all students, creating an atmosphere in which they are encouraged to believe that there is something dangerous or damaging about discussing difficult aspects of our history.”
So where do we go from here? These terms and these beliefs have burst into the mainstream, and they seem to dominate our current discourse. They are pervasive throughout college campuses. And they make progressives look foolish and elitist for focusing on the most minute and over-exaggerated items in place of real substantive societal failures.
We must challenge ourselves to remain open for discussion and discourse, even when it makes us feel uncomfortable. For the third time, that does not mean to accept nor tolerate direct racial, sexist, and discriminatory hostility. What this does mean, however, is not to tar and feather anyone who may say edgy things, or write lower case the word "indigenous" (that's also in the Atlantic article). Stay vigilant against comedy policing and the trophy kid mentality.
As a final statement, I must admit to my own censoring. Last year I strongly disagreed to Rutgers University inviting Condoleeza Rice to give the 2014 commencement address. After relentless criticism, she eventually withdrew from speaking. Even though I still think she is a reprehensible person, I was wrong to suggest she should be prevented from giving the address.
This was long, so thanks for reading.