Bea Lake, on Feb. 7 in “WSA should be worthwhile,” you reaffirmed your right to complain about things. Now you are complaining that the Argus should not have printed Evan Carp’s “Question Islamic radicals” Wespeak. Why? Because you view it as hate speech rather than an opinion with some valid points and some misguided points. If I decided not to publish Carp’s Wespeak, I would have blocked his opinion from publicly reaching the Wesleyan community, and consequently blocked the varying responses to his opinion. No one would learn anything from that. Perhaps you think a lack of dialogue about a sensitive subject would be best for the community, but I certainly do not feel this way.
The way I understand it, according to you, the WSA does nothing but e-mail “politically incorrect” jokes that reinforce “sexist black hypermasculinity” and “the exploitation of women in sex work,” and the Argus publishes opinions that you disagree with and thus condones “hate speech” against Muslims. Maybe your solution to make Wesleyan better would be to get rid of Wespeaks, frats, and the WSA.
Anyway, after reading a very large number of Wespeaks, I will give my own personal feelings on the cartoons and the Muslim world. First of all, there is no excuse for the violent reactions by some Muslims to the Mohammed cartoons. The violence is counter-productive for them in so many ways. Not only does it confirm stereotypes in the minds of some people, but it also gives cartoonists something else to satirize, and it causes millions of people who would not have otherwise seen the cartoons to see them.
The newspapers that have published the cartoons should not be accused of wrongdoing. Freedom of speech should exist. Censorship should not. As a Christian, I have seen plenty of published cartoons depicting my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in very negative ways. I certainly do not agree with the messages or stereotypes in these cartoons, they may directly violate laws in my religion, and they may offend me, but I do not believe they should be censored. Nor would I ever get a bunch of fellow Christians together to violently protest the cartoons.
Most Muslims do not feel that violence is the answer either. In fact, nearly every Muslim I have personally known has been friendly and easy to get along with, despite our religious differences. It is unfortunate that there are radical groups of Muslims who believe their religion calls them to kill people and blow things up, but other religions have similar radical groups.
Within the last century, some people who called themselves Christians joined the KKK and killed African Americans. In the first century A.D., radical groups of Jews murdered many Christians. These are just two of many examples.
Something else I want to clear up while I have the chance is the fact that writers of articles and Wespeaks often do not come up with the headlines. For instance, I came up with the headline for Carp’s Wespeak because the original one did not fit. I believe and hope that Carp does not hate Muslims, but rather that he is angry with the Muslims who have acted violently at various times throughout history, and the political and religious beliefs of these radical Muslims should undoubtedly be questioned.
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