There’s something funny going on around campus, and no, I’m nottalking about the construction projects that never end, or even theresidence hall fire alarms that never seem to stop going off.
That’sfunny, but I’ll save it for later.
Right now, though, I’m talking about a certain phenomenon I’lljust call “verbal poverty.” That is, the inability to tactfully oraccurately express oneself in words. I’m not talking about being badat writing, because being bad at writing (and I’m sure you’re betterthan you think) isn’t the same as having poor taste in what you’retrying to say. So let’s just say there are some folks around herebarely making it on a few verbal food stamps (It’s the povertyanalogy, get it?).
This, too, is funny, until you have to deal with it. Case inpoint: renaming Aztec Center. We’re supposed to think it’s OK tochuck the “Aztec” for “Chavez/King.”
Why? So we can honor these two fellows for their contributions tocivil rights, or for making grapes more expensive.
Well, that’s fine if your point is to praise the fact that a blackman can now get foolishly drunk alongside a white man in the outdoorsection of Louie’s Pub, thanks to Dr. King. But seriously, it’s a bitpatronizing to say that, unless your school names one of itsbuildings after two (why not five? Ten?) famous men, it “hasn’tproperly recognized civil rights.”
You can see where the argument leads; soon the Associated Studentswill be honoring everything in history until we run out of buildings,sidewalks, benches and manhole covers to name after people. Besides,the very name “Chavez/King Center” is unwieldy, unlike the veryportable “Aztec Center.” A name should slide off the tongue, and beeasy to carry. But C/K is a name straight out of the ideologue’storture chamber: heavy, unwieldy and shamelessly proselytizing, meantto beat its significance into the head of everyone condemned to utterit. It is perfectly Soviet; after all, the Soviets had the taste toname one of their islands “October Revolution Island.” Let’s one-upthem!
Second case: There were posters being put up by the MuslimStudents Association that contained an interesting quote, “First theycame for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t aCommunist. Then they came for the Jews, but I didn’t speak up becauseI wasn’t a Jew … Then they came for me, but by that time, there wasno one left to speak up.” It comes from the German pastor MartinNiemoeller, who describes the tightening grip of Nazi persecution.
But the poster goes on to say, “This time, they are coming for theArab, Muslim and South Asian immigrants first.” Now, this should takea gold medal for pure verbal idiocy. It’s true that certainIslamic/Arab groups think the United States is trying to put them inconcentration camps. Their evidence? The arrest of severalMuslims/Arabs in what they are pleased to call “witch hunts,” exceptthat evidence from our efforts to root out terrorists has shown thatthe witches are real.
The point is, using the Holocaust to describe your own cause iswrong. It’s dirty and mean. Saying that a holocaust is happeningbecause a few of your homies are getting arrested distorts historyand trivializes the suffering of those who really did experience theHolocaust. So what the MSA is doing, whether it sees this or not, issaying that the deliberate murder of 6 million Jews is the same thingas the questioning or imprisonment of a few Muslims for lawviolations.
But this is what happens when you give verbal pre-teens the chanceto make moral equivalence arguments. It’s like giving a kid a fastcar and a beer.
If I sound annoyed, it’s because I am.
It’s not fair to the rest of us when a few kids try to be cleverby using the Holocaust as an attention-getter. The Holocaust isn’tfunny, and it’s not for children. So, I suppose this is the reason weall should spend our time finding stuff on campus to name afterfamous guys.
–Benjamin Abel is a social science senior and the senior opinionwriter for The Daily Aztec.
–This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of TheDaily Aztec. Send e-mail to letters@thedailyaztec.com.Anonymous letters will not be printed — include your full name,major and year in school.
