By Screaming hatred and condemning all those within earshot, a “preacher” compelled a sizeable crowd of students to yell at, argue with and mock him this week.
This scene brought me deep embarrassment as I watched it transpire.
It was not the bigoted, misogynistic rhetoric of this peddler of intolerance that flushed my cheeks with shame. Instead, it was the immature and naive reaction of the students he antagonized.
As someone who frequents the free speech lawn often, I can say I have seen many constructive interactions. This was just the opposite.
That fool who stands atop his petty box of judgement won this week.
Congratulations, you handed him the victory.
You gave him exactly what he wanted, a crowd of wild “whores” and cowardly “boys” dripping in “unrighteousness.”
If you think for just one second that you showed him up with your admissions of sexual liberty and frequent drug use, you are wrong. When he listens from his perch to confessions of open legs and “chronic masturbation,” he is secretly stroking his self-righteousness and feeling reassured that his asinine behavior is well-founded.
If that is not enough to make you second guess entertaining his next poisonous rant, consider the effect you have on his followers. Those young men and women holding signs and infiltrating the crowd are just like us, passionate and impressionable.
When you fall for his trap and flaunt your “sin,” they are further convinced that their message is true and righteous. With your behavior as motivation, they will one day be standing on their own box looking down at a new generation of students that are in need of some condemnation.
Still not persuaded to act like an adult?
Fine, then let me shed some more light on the consequences of such scenes.
Consider the young woman passing by who has recently begun to explore her sexuality or the young man who finally mustered the courage to wear his favorite dress to school. Individuals like these, common targets of the bigotry, can be cut deep by those searing words.
Your behavior only serves as encouragement for these speakers to come back and continue damaging the emotional well-being of our peers.
Freedom of speech is a mighty tool in the arena of social progress, but the most absurd and abhorrent speech is not worthy of engagement. It deserves to be ignored. There is nothing more discouraging to a confused radical than having his message of intolerance fall on deaf and disapproving ears.
I commend those that stood confidently as they held signs of support and offered words of encouragement to those targeted by the man. These students understand engaging these bigots is pointless. It is the student body that needs to hear the counter-message.
I hope the next time Pastor Hate stands on his box of lunacy that he sees a crowd of mature adults expressing their messages but refusing to engage. If just once he screamed for six hours and no one reacted, maybe he would never come back.
I’ll sit here and wait on your piece condemning the “bigoted, misogynistic rhetoric of this peddler of intolerance”.
It’s pretty astounding that you dedicated over 500 words to the people that “encourage” this behavior but only dedicated less than 10 to the man preaching not only intolerance, but discrimination.
You also claim that if “no one reacted, maybe he would never come back”. Yeah, no. That isn’t how this works. Have you seen the current state of affairs in the United States. People have BEEN quiet and ignoring bigotry and we are STILL having to deal with it. Let us stop pretending that ignoring bigotry and discrimination will get rid of it; ignoring it, ignites it.
My goodness…the exact thoughts that came across my mind for the past two day. As a student at this institution, we are indeed better than that. We can act in a manner which would not be demeaning to anyone who presents their ideas, no matter how hurtful or outrageous. Most of us have gone through at least 10+ years of academics. This should at least merit the ability to be able to have a civil discussion on any topic with any type of person. We should not put out fires with more fire, but we should also not just ignore the fire.
I disagree with not engaging with radical individuals. I do believe that as a Cal State Long Beach community we are capable of so much more than ignoring his outrageous tactics. As a scholar, I think that if we are firm in our stances, then we should engage. We should learn from their stand points. Sure it may be the wrong stance, but we definitely do learn as to why they act this way. All people need is someone to listen to them, and they are not going to stop until they do so. When we choose to engage and give our own opinion, it shows that the something-thousand dollars we are paying for school is not just a product of just us reciting what we learn in text books. Instead, us analyzing what we learned, and writing papers that later people can quote us on for their papers. Scholars back in the day did not just yell something, then run away. They had discussions, and wrote articles. I do not come here to sway anyone into my particular standards, I’m mess up quite a bit. All I’m saying is, let’s make people more aware of whats going on instead of being exposed to something for only 10 seconds, then jumping to all these conclusions.
Let’s hear each other out CSULB, we ‘re capable of that.