Perhaps the simplest way to begin our account of the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) at The University of Kansas is with the following Associated Press wire story, variants of which appeared in newspapers such as USA Today, The Seattle Times, The Boston Globe, etc.
SEPTEMBER 24, 1998
Anti-Abortion Signs Anger Students
LAWRENCE, KAN. (AP) -- Anti-abortion billboards [displaying photos] comparing aborted fetuses to the corpses of Holocaust victims sickened and angered students at the University of Kansas during this week’s Jewish holidays.
* * *
One student was so angry that he [accompanied by a female companion] drove his car into the display, nearly hitting a young woman with the group, university police Sgt. Troy Mailen said Wednesday. The student was arrested. [The University Daily Kansan reported that ‘Greg Lewis, Norfolk, Va., sophomore, was charged with aggravated assault for driving his automobile through the anti-abortion display, running over a sign and nearly striking an anti-abortion advocate, the KU Public Safety Office said. Lewis was freed on a $2,500 bond yesterday after spending Sunday night in jail.’]
On Tuesday, a student attempted to knock one of the signs over and ended up punching the man holding it, Mailen said.
Simone Fischer, 20, a student from San Antonio, said her first impulse was to tear down the signs when she saw the swastika and a photo of Holocaust victims headlined "Religious Choice" next to abortion photos headlined "Reproductive Choice."
‘Being the Jewish new year, one of the most sacred days, and I see abortion being compared to Jewish graves and the Holocaust, I did not feel welcome on my own campus,’ Fischer said. ‘My feeling was shock and then anger. I felt violated.’
The man who organized the week-long display said he would make no apologies for the Holocaust comparison.
* * *
‘Abortion is genocide. That’s the whole point,’ said Gregg Cunningham, director of the Los Angeles-based Center for Bio-Ethical Reform [CBR].
The account failed to note that several women also attacked the photo murals with kicks, punches, spit and thrown food and drink. At least one angrily disclosed her own abortion. Onlookers were left to ponder an important question: If abortion doesn’t leave painful scars, how could mere pictures provoke such rage?
National Public Radio’s Lawrence, Kansas affiliate broadcast a similar five minute story on their Morning Edition program.
Thus, on Sunday, September 20, began CBR’s second exhibit of the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) on a college campus. What kind of place is the University of Kansas? To better understand the "cultural milieu" in which we conducted our week-long exhibit, consider some of the stories appearing in local newspapers around the time of our visit, beginning with an excerpt from a letter to the editor of The University Daily Kansan, decrying political correctness:
Finally, there is First Nation [a Native American or American Indian rights organization], who recently expressed its anger at various sports mascots such as the Redskins and the Chiefs. Well, while we’re at it, we better get rid of the Boston Celtics and Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish. Nobody thinks that little leprechaun-looking guy bouncing around with his dukes up is stereotyping?
Then there was the following report from the Monday, September 21 issue of the Kansan:
Dr. Drew Pinsky and Adam Carolla, the hosts of MTV’s Loveline, fielded questions about sex, drugs and relationships from a near-sellout crowd [2,000 seats] Friday night at the Lied Center.
* * *
Amy Duffer, Lawrence freshman, said she doubted that the crowd would have been a near sellout if the speaker were a political or authoritative figure.
‘If we bring informative speakers, yea, they’ll teach us something, but they’ll bore us,’ Duffer said. ‘I wouldn’t come if it were an authoritative figure speaking ....’
* * *
‘I never went to college,’ [MTV’s] Carolla said. ‘I see you out there -- you’re drunk, you’re stoned and you’re having sex -- I’m envious.’
Here is a sample of the advice students received for Messrs. Pinsky & Carolla’s $20,000 speaking fee:
[Student]: ‘I’m 18, and I’m having inhibitions about losing my virginity. Is it because it’s fed into our minds that sex before marriage is bad, or is it just me?’
Dr. Drew [Pinsky]: ‘You’re trying to make a value decision in your life. Foremost, you need to concentrate on your commitment to the other person. The stronger a bond you form, the more intimate an experience it is.’
Adam [Carolla]: ‘Just do it.!’
Explaining how Messrs. Pinsky and Carolla could presume to offer answers to such important questions, asked by people they have only just met, the paper further reported:
Dr. Drew and Carolla said they found patterns in the questions that young people ask that allowed him [sic] to assess their situation in a matter of minutes.
‘People are animals, like any other animal on the planet,’ Carolla said. ‘If you want to know the traits of polar bears, you study about a hundred of them. You see how they mate and migrate. If you want to study humans, you just need a certain percentage of them. Everyone likes to think they’re individual, but we all operate under the same rules emotionally.’
Mr. Carolla’s advocacy of this widely-taught anthropological theory may help explain why undergrads sometimes fight boredom by acting like, well, "animals." The Tuesday, September 22 issue of The University Daily Kansan reported that
Two KU students and a Free State High School student were arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior Wednesday morning after they entered Perkins Restaurant naked and handed out candy.
* * *
The two KU students, a 21-year-old male and a 22-year-old male and the high school student, a 17-year-old female were issued notices to appear in municipal court on Sept. 30 at 8 a.m., Lawrence police said.
The suspects told the police that their motivation for the incident was that they were bored.
Were they merely responding to Mr. Carolla’s urging that they "go for it?" Or might the inspiration for this exposé have come from an advertisement which appeared in the Friday, September 25, 1998 issue of the student paper. The ad was headlined "Juicers Showgirls, Wearing Nothing But A Smile, Wednesdays are STUDENT NIGHTS, $3 Admission With Student ID?" It’s an old story; sex sells suds. But it poses a dilemma for campus feminists. "It’s only about sex" (about which they must appear "progressive") but it’s about sex which degrades women (about which they must appear scornful -- unless a liberal President is dispensing the degradation).
|
