I would like to clarify a few things for Anda Greeney (“Motives for free speech?” 4/20/04), Martin Benjamin (’57 “Letter to Goldstein” 4/20/04), and other readers:
1. I would like to point out that Zach never used a pronoun self-referentially, in “Open Letter to Prezzie Pie.” I question Greeney’s motives for assigning Zach male pronouns.
2. The official stance of the Argus is that the newspaper reserves the right to edit “for spelling, grammar, and length,” but not content. I’m guessing the Argus published Zach’s Wespeak because it was submitted for publication.
3. It was not Bennet, but the person driving by in a car whose proposition (“I’ll lick your asshole for a dollar”) Zach was trying to accept in the April 16 Wespeak. I know this because I was one of the four people arguing over who the aforementioned person was referring to by the term “fucking bitch.” I cannot speak to the question of whether or not Zach has accepted such a proposition from Bennet.
4. Metaphor (implicit comparison) is not libel (false publication intended to damage a person’s reputation). Two examples of metaphor are included in Zach’s question of whether Bennet is “too busy rocking [his] own cock in [his] office all day to notice how shitty our campus has gotten.” By my interpretation, rocking his cock is a metaphor for the masturbatory ego strokes Bennet achieves by asserting his power over others on this campus. Also shitty is not meant to imply that the school is covered with fecal matter; instead it is metaphor for the unpleasantness and waste of the changes Bennet has introduced to Wesleyan.
Libel is more along the lines of Greeney’s suggestion that Zach Goldstein gives good rim jobs (though that is not necessarily defamatory, malicious, or untrue.) Doug Bennet, Midge Bennet, the trustees, and Alan Dachs are all public figures and therefore not legally subject to libel, anyway.
5. Despite your indignant tone, Greeney, I think you actually do understand some of Zach’s motives for submitting the Wespeak. Zach does seem to use it as a substitution for the ability to chalk “Next time you want to fuck me, Doug, just ask” in front of North College without sanction. Bennet has agreed not to ban or impose speech codes on Wespeaks, posters, or other campus media he deems legitimate and civil; one of Zach’s possible motives is to challenge the association of chalk with the uncivil and typesetting with the civil.
The importance of chalking as an outlet for the frustrations of community members becomes clear when a student is identified and threatened with expulsion for invoking literary devices to express opinions and highlight realities of the oh-so-civil “Wesleyan experience.” Personally, I admire Zach for the courage it takes to speak out non-anonymously against the administrative fucking [over] that students, particularly queer, trans, and genderqueer, and other marginalized students at Wesleyan deal with daily.
However, it is not only courage Zach and others must possess to take such action, but some measure of privilege not all students at Wesleyan share. Why end the ban on chalking? So that Zach and other community members can express dissent without being erased, silenced, threatened, or targeted for violence.
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