From dooming “sinners” to hell to making extremely racist remarks, picketers and protesters at ASU have abused the right to freedom of speech for far too long, and far too frequently. As the semester wraps up, and we can have some time to evaluate positive changes we can make to our campus, regulating this hate speech should be one of our priorities.
If I can be notified of bees swarming a campus trash can on Lemon Street, I think it’s fair to be notified when a middle-aged man and his posse are going to doom me to hell because of my religion or appearance. While anyone at first glance would initially have either two reactions — ignore it or confront them — I want to do neither. I do not want to possibly put myself at danger and confront these people or any of their supporters, nor do I want to sit idly by as I’m being told that I’m not welcome in this country on my way to class. Frankly, I pay way too much tuition to deal with that.
So many times, I’ve avoided my typical route to class because a friend texts me about picketers at the MU with signs saying, “Islam is the religion of blood and murder.” These signs create an environment in which it's all right to say bigoted things.
What is perhaps the most bothersome aspect of this is that it hurts the students. It’s irritating; it makes us upset and angry. We come to campus for opportunities to better our future.
Those who attend ASU tend to disagree with these bigots, and many feel so offended that they engage in fights with them. So many people post online and tell others that we should ignore them, and while I whole-heartedly agree that we should not give in to bigotry, that is not a practical solution.
Inevitably, there will be people who get personally offended and rightly so. I am not someone who enjoys confrontation or fighting, (don’t ask my friends, just take my word), but even I have said something back to a protester. One man was mocking Muslim women and looked directly at me in the middle of a crowd, I felt so humiliated that I walked up to him and told him to get a real job.
A student came up to me after and said, “I’m so sorry that he is saying those things to you, just go to class and don’t talk to him, I will take care of him.” That student sat on a bench next to the protester, and went up to each individual who seemed hurt by it and said kind words to them. This moved me so deeply, but it made me so disappointed that a student had to take time out of his day, and perhaps even miss class just to comfort those who were unnecessarily offended by a bigot’s words.
While I am aware that our campus is a public place, I don't think it should be the host of such bigotry and hate speech. Feeling unsafe at a university should not be such a common occurrence.
Related links:
Panel discusses freedom of speech on campus
No offense, it's still an offense
Reach the columnist at anshakoo@asu.edu or follow @ashak21 on Twitter.
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Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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