College Entertainment Vacuum

I'm a fan of entertainment. Well...that might be the understatement of the year. I'm a huge fan of it. Whether it's books, music, television, fashion, and especially film; it's what I live for.

That's been an interesting little problem in the college setting though. No, with my wireless internet, there's obviously not exactly a shortage of ways to get my media on campus.

But the bigger problem is that even though I'm one of its most ardent fans, I find it difficult to see everything, and in some days or weeks, anything. I'm not alone in that fact. I probably work hardest to get my weekly fix of that drug I care about most, but it becomes frustrating when no one else has. People have papers, tests, reading, and extracurricular to worry about; all of which are perfectly valid, not many have time to see the latest new movie every week, or read that fascinating article for leisure.

So when some piece of arcane pop culture arrives in the face of college students they rush to it like a fledgling calf to the teet. When a movie like "The Hangover" or a something like TV's "Glee" or a song like "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz hit the college vacuum it lingers for what seems like, to this purveyor of those things new and fresh, like old news. I can't force everyone to read up on what's going on, so I guess I have to suck it up and just accept it.

Ahh the frustration.

Interviewing and Trying not to Sound Like A Racist

While I was interviewing this story on the decision of SAGE to change their Read-a-thon book from "Huck Finn" to "Catch-22," I found an interesting little trend beginning to take shape. With each interview, at one point or another, the interviewee wanted to clarify their language or began to become more thoughtful with their speech.

Now as a pretty veteran interviewer when it comes to the college campus, when the interview subject becoming more thoughtful or careful when they speak is nothing new. But in this case, when discussing race, there's a certain caution approached as to make sure that the comments, no matter how valid, aren't misconstrued as "racist" or "misinformed."

Now in a journalist's ideal world, people would be free to speak and say whatever they wanted and I'd get the best quotes possible. But...unfortunately we don't. Even when they're defending their choice and speaking out against potentially damaging material like "Huck Finn"'s uses of the n-word. There's a serious block when it comes to discussing things that aren't as PC as we want. I cherish a day when we can discern the difference between the vitriol of hate speech and the discussing the potentially sticky elements of a work of literature and not have to quaver in our boots about it.

(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go

Photo from google.com

"GSA Float Burned on Eve of Homecoming Parade"

"Explicit lyrics put Post-It performance in the spotlight"

"Senate combats Campus Speech after reports of racist language"

These are headlines that over the course of the last three years have graced the front page of The Torch, Wittenberg's student-run newspaper. Exhaustive research, countless interviews, and campus reaction both good and bad have went into these pieces. What I thought then as both the writer and/or editor in all of those aforementioned cases and as I look back in reflection is that these little newspaper stories portray a fairly accurate picture of where this campus stands in terms of relations to minorities as well as tolerance for those who are different than them.

In every one of those cases though, the uproar or direct action that I assumed would follow their release to public was met with mottled resentment from the Wittenberg community for trying to institute real social change in their behavior and actions, and an apathy from an administration that conveyed either a "we don't care about this problem" attitude or an out-of-touch one that clearly shows "We don't really know what you're talking about."

So after the deplorable and continually upsetting news of the now-infamous piece of paper that graced the front message board of a student's dorm room on Martin Luther King Day, I assumed we'd get the same banally pathetic attempts to make sure we know the administration cares about the problems of minorities and suspect classes. And what a shock, we did. The president wrote an earnest if not particularly beige letter explaining his dismay at the fact that campus still isn't any better...

But what came next was even more surprising and ultimately tons more depressing. The campus collectively organized a protest/prayer service thing during Thursday's chapel hour that allowed the campus to grieve for the loss of their once pristine image. Everybody was invited, urged, and even commanded in some cases to come together, link arms, and basically sing "We Shall Overcome."

I ultimately looked at the event and said, to put it bluntly, What a crock of shit! It's as if the campus is McDonald's and they woke up, looked outside, and exclaimed "Oh my God!!! There's all these other places selling burgers. What are we going to do!!!" It was in such an effort to market itself as the way to fix these problems; a way for campus to finally change its bigoted ways.

Yes, I think it was, from what I heard, incredibly moving that those who were most affected, angry, and frustrated by the the goings-ons did what they could and were actually given a forum to express their distaste, but why is this the first time? Why didn't we come together and show how much we didn't tolerate all of those other past indiscretions that have addled this campus for years. I find it so ironic that every person that sent me an email urging me to go to the prayer service is a person or a group of people that at every opportunity during those past events/debacles turned a blind eye refusing to denounce the problem directly.

They are the same people that applauded the actions of student senate members who sat idly by and watched as a student got up on stage and rapped a song about black women with excruciating detail. These are the people that helped write that pathetic and despicable email containing the most comical catch-phrase since "Where's the beef": "We Are Above"

This "HOLY CRAP WE FIGURED IT OUT SUMMIT" is not a final solution as it's already being treated in some circles of my friends and fellow students; it's a first step. In a week or two the whole event is no better than a silly poster campaign or a campus-wide email unless change is actually happening or pushed forward. The first step to dealing with a problem is acknowledging the existence of said problem. Thank my deity of choice, we at leastdid that. Otherwise the whole thing's another coat of pretty white primer to hide the dirty things written on bathroom stalls; you can still see the wounds they're just not as apparent to the naked eye. Let's hope this works, or else who wants to even fathom how bad this could really get.

Hugs for Drugs?

Wittenberg, one of the self-proclaimed Ivy League school of the Midwest, has a dirty little secret that is as well kept as our famous secret societies. We party, and when we want to we party pretty hard.
Now I know that it's not exactly earth-shattering news; college students party, drink, and give into their baser animal instincts, but it comes to drugs (you know those little pills, plants, and powders Nancy Reagan told you to "Just Say No" to, there is seemingly a different mentality. Well at least, not all drugs. Pot has become such a generational thing. Most of my colleagues and cohorts have at least tried it, or do it quite often. But the act of smoking it is not looked at any differently compared to someone grabbing a cigarette. I know more people that are seemingly bothered by a habitual tobacco smoker compared to the occasional bong hit. It's such a funny thing though. If our parents, who smoked enough grass to compare with the heights of Haight Ashbury, but now in their middle-aged normalcy, knew what we did, we'd get the standard, "Drugs are bad don't do them" speech.
When it comes to anything harder: pharmaceuticals, coke, heroin etc, there seems to be a stigma attached. Now I've been told by so many people that so many students are big fans of the nose candy, but I haven't really encountered so many of them myself. That doesn't mean those drugs are floating around the party circuit being popped like Jujubes, but people seem to be less willing to own up to it. Maybe it's their perceived danger comparatively to marijuana, or maybe the admittance that they're willing to spend a ton more money on a gram of coke instead of an ounce of pot. Who knows.