Merit aid at Smith (and a few general questions)

laureldj
Tue, 02 Aug 2005 18:08:00 +0000

I’m going to be a student at Smith this fall and I have to admit to a slight apprehension about the “PC” atmosphere, mostly because I’m ignorant of a lot of things (aren’t we all at times?) I wouldn’t want
to say or do something to offend anyone but don’t want to guard what I say all the time either. But the apprehension is only slight and more than offset by my excitement. I honestly don’t think it will be a problem for me.

But my apprehension has made me think a lot about what is “PC” and what constitutes tolerance.

An example of being PC in some people’s eyes is getting rid of sport team names such as the Indians and the Redskins. But most people seem to think that’s taking political correctness to a silly extreme. Personally, it never bothered me that people went to Indian games with their faces covered in war paint and did the tomahawkchop. I didn’t even think about it until someone pointed out that we would never tolerate the Washington Redskins being called the Washington N-word and people coming to games with their faces painted black and shaking spears. I can’t bring myself to type the N-word let alone ever say it. Yet, many Native Americans find Redskin to be an equally derogatory term. Are they just such a small minority that nobody cares?

It’s certainly ok to be intolerant of the expression of some beliefs. For instance, if one were to express the belief that they are a member of a supreme race and intend to spend their lives trying to find a way to eradicate the members of all other races, they would probably be met with a pretty strong expression of intolerance by most people, and rightly so. But in general, you would think that most liberally minded people would be extremely tolerant of others expressing their beliefs, even very conservative beliefs.

So why does it seem that a fair percentage of the Smith student body seems intolerant of the expression of conservative beliefs? You have to consider, I think, that many of the students are racial, religious, or cultural minorities, and a fairly large percentage of students are gay.

People do tend to be a bit intolerant if they hear, “You aren’t ok, you’re unnatural and immoral.” “You’re not entitled to the same rights as other American citizens,” or even, “You’re going to burn for eternity if you don’t accept my religious beliefs.” Often, I think those are some of the messages heard by many who are outside of the cultural and sexual societal “norms,” correctly or not, from most social conservatives and from many evangelical Christians. I think most people are intolerant of intolerance, especially when it is directed at them. :-)