Offensive? So what?
I’m offended! I’m offended! It’s the rallying cry of the whiny set.
Two news stories of note today.
First, Virginia Tech has “banned” the “Stick it, stick it in” chant that Hokie fans cheer when the team is approaching a touchdown. (I put “banned” in quotes because it’s unclear how you can ban 66,000 people from yelling something.)
Why the ban? Some people found it — wait for it — offensive.
Second, the Cavalier Daily, student newspaper at the Univ. of Virginia, apologized for daring to run a cartoon that some people found — you gussed it — offensive.
From the Daily Progress:
The comic in question, “Quirksmith,” was drawn and written by Grant Woolard, one of the Cavalier Daily’s two graphics editors. Captioned “Ethiopian Food Fight,” the comic depicted nine emaciated black men dressed primitively and fighting each other with stools, chairs and other objects.
Was it crass and insensitive? Yep, absolutely. But to jump from “X is offensive” or “X is insensitive” to “X shouldn’t be shown” is a poor leap of logic.
It’s offensive. It’s mean. It pokes fun at something that shouldn’t be made fun of. So what? So someone said or did something you didn’t like. Live with it. Write a letter. Combat speech you don’t like with more speech.
Demanding that the newspapers your read or the radio you listen to never, ever offends anyone is pathetic and embarrassing.
And the fact that too many media outlets give this kind of whining the power it has is the reason so much mainstream media is bland, dull, boring, and all the similar adjectives.
Right-wing extremists like Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, and the staff at Fox News know this. They’ve made their mark by ignoring that kind of political correctness in favor of strong statements — stupid, often; offensive, maybe. But strong. And people like that.
Meanwhile, the left is so busy desperately trying not to offend anyone that it has sucked the life out of whatever news it has. Anything written by the AP is drier than kindling — gods forbid there be an ounce of attitude.
So the right prefers to get its “news” from Fox, and the left prefers to get its “news” from Jon Stewart, and people in media wonder what they’re doing wrong.
So to the people who found Virginia Tech’s chant offensive, or the cartoon in the Cavalier offensive: Grow up.
Do you really think you’re going to live in a world in which no one says or does anything that will ever offend you? Do you want to?
lionemom says:
When I was a freshman in HS, my school banned pep rallies thereafter because some freshmen went home and cried to their mommies because the traditional chants of the Seniors agains the Freshmen (”Seniors Suck” and “Freshmen Suck”) made them upset. By the way, the Freshmen WON, which means our class president got to throw a (whipped cream) pie in the Senior president’s face (our class was larger by almost 100 kids.) But the fact that we won didn’t make a hill of beans. They literally banned pep rallies so the sensitive kids wouldn’t be offended or scared by the upperclassmen.
Jeesh! That was the beginning of my HS career. It only got worse from there.