I was pretty sickened reading the latest installment in Martin Benjamin’s condescending, bigoted series of wespeaks. For those not familiar with Mr. Benjamin’s views on current affairs at Wes, I offer up some quotes from his past writings. In the April 24, 2001 issue of the Argus, he writes: “And thanks to your newly created Queer Studies position…queers will be applying to Wes in greater and greater numbers to work toward a homophobe-free campus. You should know that homophobes, queerly defined here, are any and all students less than willing to get into bed with the queers.” In response to a lecture given by professor of African-American Studies Ann DuCille where she mentioned that at a fabric store she was assumed to be a purse snatcher because she is black, Benjamin wrote in the April 2nd, 2002 Argus: “A while back, black actor Ozzie [sic] Davis complained that Manhattan cabbies were spurning him solely because of his race. Harlem-born Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell took the occasion to mention receipt of treatment much the same. But Sowell…had better things to do than sit on the curb and sip a cup of victimhood.”
Should I get so pissed off at this man for writing things like this in the Argus, slanderous narrow-minded crap that, if the deluge of angry responses to Benjamin’s published editorials is any indication, is clearly rejected by the Wes student body, past and present? Probably not. He’s not worth it, really. But I’m not satisfied just brushing off his hateful garbage this time.
I’ll reprint Benjamin’s editorial here, since this time it was brief: “Dear Mr. Goldstein: There are those who believe that homosexuality wallows in squalor. I dare say your barely coherent April 16 ”Open letter to Prezzie-Pie,“ beginning…to end…does little to disabuse them of that view.” I can’t speak for Zach Goldstein, but what I can say with some certainty is he is not trying to justify homosexuality to any old alumnus, or anyone else. And Benjamin’s implication that homosexuality should be justified by presenting it in a desexualized, “clean”, “civil” manner makes me want to vomit. What is Benjamin trying to say here? I think it goes something like this: because you have not presented homosexual acts/desires in such a way that is a direct reaction to the generalizations of homophobes everywhere, that is not tailored to mollify those that hate you and will probably never fully accept you for who you are [these would be the folks “who believe that homosexuality wallows in squalor”] you are clearly contributing to the problem of homophobia by giving homophobes a reason to hate gays. Jesus, if you weren’t so goddamn disgusting all the time with your anal sex and your outward proclamation of desire, (which of course heterosexuals can get away with) people wouldn’t hate you so much. It’s your own fault. You need to show that you are just as moral, clean, and respectable as the sexual majority in this country to get respect.
No individual or group should have to sidestep stereotypes created by those who hate said individual or group so that they will be more “accepted,” so that they can change their image or change minds. I refuse to fight for freedom by acting the way my detractors think I should act to be good and acceptable, anyway. And no one individual’s words should be positioned in such a way that they are made to speak for their entire group. That is otherizing; that is oppression.
If I chose to write a wespeak proclaiming that I’m fed up with this goddamn liberal education, think it’s a crock of shit, and am ready to abandon all altruistic intent for a career as an investment banker so that I can make a load of money and buy large amounts of real estate, that would be my own choice, my own desires. I certainly wouldn’t be accountable to some asshole who tells me that I am doing nothing to change the opinions of those who believe that Jews are simply money grubbing and greedy. How demeaning to demand that I should improve “my group’s” image based on the standards of someone who would burn a cross on my lawn if given the chance.
Privilege means being considered normal, not being made accountable to your ethnic, religious, sexual, etc. group because of your individual actions or perspectives. Martin Benjamin, I won’t let you hold me or anyone else to your standard of accountability.
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