By Abi Smith
Though imagining yourself in someone else’s shoes is an insightful way to understand another’s viewpoint, more than a few on the political right have made a habit of abandoning this Golden Rule protocol. But since the “Conservative Students vs. Everyone Else”situation has officially reached maudlin pitch, this unfortunate trend seems to be taking an ironic turn.
Some of my GOP friends have long had a less-than-stellar record of responding when their fellow men and women were in need of a little fairness. (That’s why it’s so hard to faint when those “affirmative action = reverse discrimination” charges start to fly, guys.) If a woman hits the glass ceiling and complains, well, she must be one of those whining feminists. If a black person is followed in a store by a suspicious clerk, that’s okay, too, “’cause blacks do commit more crimes than whites, ya know.” If other racial or ethnic minorities talk about feeling slighted in similar public or private situations, the ubiquitous “you’re playing the race card” label is hurled at them. And let’s not talk about social endeavors that aim to be inclusive; “That’s so PC.”
But, oh, how the tides have turned.
Conservative students who feel that they’ve been marginalized by liberal professors don’t want anyoneto tell them that they’re being paranoid when they complain about perceived bias. They don’t want to be told that they’re whining the second they open their mouths to express how they’ve been slighted. They don’t want to hear that they’re “just expecting too much” when they complain that a classroom discussion should never sidetrack into a sarcastic criticism of their views and concerns. And they don’t want to hear that they’re “exploiting the system” when they take their cases to the appropriate university authorities. They just want instant justice. But so does everyone else.
The truth of the matter is this: no one wants to be mistreated or made to feel invisible. Most importantly, people don’t want to see valid arguments and perspectives negated simply because someone is sick of hearing what “people like them” have to say.
The mother who has to bury her son just wants to know whether her offspring deserved to get shot by the police; she can deal with the truth. The black man who can’t get a cab in downtown just wants reasonable reactions to his skin tone. And the same reason that conservatives don’t want dogma slammed down their throats is the same reason that left-leaning professors don’t want to be painted “unfair” with a broad stroke. Saying that a “liberal” instructor is being political simply because he or she wants students to support their arguments is about as sensible as assuming that conservative students are merely out for blood just because George W. Bush won re-election. Quite simply, both stances are woefully over-simplified.
At the end of the day, sympathy begets sympathy. And each of us would be all the better for remembering this.
