On Sept. 26 my towel was stolen. Upset by the incident, I wrote a Wespeak about it. But my Wespeak wasn’t published in that Friday’s edition. I learned through the grapevine that “technically” there wasn’t enough space for it. But in reality they were trying to censor me. They ended up publishing it in Thursday’s edition, but only after splitting it up so that they could delete a whole paragraph. They deleted that phony paragraph on the grounds that it was “irrelevant” to the Wesleyan community. But it wasn’t “irrelevant.” In those lost lines I was warning whomever stole my towel and the Wesleyan community at large that they might get really sick from using my large, blue towel. I think it’s important for the Wesleyan community to know about the dangers of using a stolen towel.
The Argus claimed those few lines were irrelevant, but they omitted them because they were afraid of them. They thought they were obscene and might offend some poor soul. It’s interesting that I’m not allowed to warn you about the dangers of venereal diseases, menstruation or cold viruses, but the ampersand can tell you all about masturbation.
The Argus’s new policy is a guise for censorship. They are succumbing to the diseases of the mass media at large. Simply put, they are afraid of disrupting the status quo. The students are losing their voice: chalking ban, edited/denied Wespeaks. I ask you, the Wesleyan community, as a concerned member, what good is an education and intelligence if we do not question and provoke the status quo? Intelligence is nothing if it is not challenged.
Leave a Reply