Latoya at Racialicious has a roundup of recent incidents of blatant racism on college campuses -- particularly op-eds written in college newspapers. And here at Feministing, we've written about some pretty appallingly sexist commentary in the campus press. (People send us links to craptacular college op-eds all the time.)
One thing these articles and incidents have in common is that they often purport to be satire -- as in, "who would believe that I really want to declare war on all Asian Americans?" To be sure, there's a fine line between satirizing racism/sexism and perpetuating it. But these columns weren't printed in a known satirical publication (like the Onion). They were printed alongside straightforward opinions and reported news. And majority of these writers don't even walk that thin line between satire and hate. It's so far over the line as to make the "it was satire!" excuse completely ridiculous. The language is often incredibly violent. And it is invariably directed at poor people, people of color, women, disabled people, etc. (Huh. Wonder why that is??)
I think there are a number of reasons why college campus media provide such awful examples of straight-up racism/sexism thinly cloaked in "humor." The writers and editors are (relatively speaking) inexperienced. The audience is (perceived to be) rather small. And, chiefly, there is this idea of the Op-Ed section of the paper as a free-for-all zone. I know it was when I worked at the campus paper, and chatting with some college newspaper editors at a journalism school recently, I don't think much has changed. Most newspapers take pains to hire columnists with a "range of views," and those columnists are given free reign to write whatever they want and offend whomever they choose. (Heck, that's practically the point of the op-ed pages, isn't it?! -- kidding, folks.) And some editors seem to believe that opinions can't be held to the same standard of "fact" as news articles are. Just read what the editors of the CU Campus Press, which published a hate-filled screed about Asian people, said about the incident:
Max Karson's Monday opinion, "If it's war the Asians want…," has clearly upset a large segment of our readership, and for that, we owe it to those who were offended by the article to maintain the highest level of journalistic integrity and sincerely apologize to anyone who was hurt by this article.Karson's opinion is satire and is a commentary on racism at CU published in our opinion section, not presented as fact or incitement, and not published to intentionally incite controversy. We apologize for any ambiguity of the satire that may have been misconstrued.
(Emphasis mine.) But the thing is, people don't read statements of fact on opinion pages any differently than they read statements of fact in the news section. The writer wrote, "I know that Asians are not just 'a product of their environment,' and their rudeness is not a 'cultural misunderstanding.' They hate us all." That is a statement of fact if I've ever seen one. (A false statement, but nevertheless presented as fact.) While there's been some effort to hold the writers of pieces like this one accountable, I think it's important to also focus on the editors of campus op-ed pages. They're the gatekeepers here. And given the statement by the Campus Press editors above, many clearly don't realize the nature of their responsibility.
So what's the answer? Maybe a checklist that would help campus newspaper editors remember to step back and evaluate whether a "satire" was actually just hate speech by another name? Maybe, if the column or op-ed in question is about members of a specific group of people, some of those people should be asked to read it (before publication) and give their thoughts? And maybe it's prudent to check and see whether the writer has written hateful things in the past? Just because college newspaper editors still learning about journalism doesn't mean they get a pass for publishing this crap.
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I wrote this for my college paper this week. And I readily admit that I did much of my learning in my sociology and women's studies classes, but the biggest influence has been Jessica's Full Frontal Feminism. And no, the comments from 'J. Lo' (a guy from here on campus who stalks every opinion piece I post in the paper and internet) were not surprising, especially where they made it all about him.
Ack, link didn't go in the post. Here:
http://media.www.thewestgeorgian.com/media/storage/paper523/news/2008/04/23/Opinion/That-Dirty.FWord.Feminism-3344111.shtml
I read some of these "satires," and they're all pretty awful. However, as someone who has written many satires for my college paper, I have a problem with some of the blanket statements you make. For instance:
"But these columns weren't printed in a known satirical publication (like the Onion). They were printed alongside straightforward opinions and reported news."
No kidding they weren't printed in The Onion. We're just college students! My school - Eastern Michigan University - does not have a publication for satires... And for those who hope to someday write satires, it would help to have some clips.
Besides, even beyond college publications satires can be published alongside serious pieces. Take Art Hoppe, one of my favorite satirical writers, of the SF Chronicle for example.
"And it is invariably directed at poor people, people of color, women, disabled people, etc. (Huh. Wonder why that is??)"
Well... it certainly can be, and that doesn't make it sexist or racist. I am a proud feminist, but my columns often take "stabs" at feminism. But they aren't really stabs at feminism - they're stabs at the people who think that feminists are a bunch of mean, ugly, man-hating women. My very first satire, which caused a bit of a stir, cited an actual incident in Ann Arbor, Mich., in which a woman was told to stop breastfeeding at a YMCA. I called the woman who was breastfeeding her baby a crazed radical - she sent me an e-mail thanking me because she understood that I was drawing attention to how ludicrous the situation she found herself in was.
"Maybe, if the column or op-ed in question is about members of a specific group of people, some of those people should be asked to read it (before publication) and give their thoughts?"
It isn't appropriate to preview stories to people outside of the publication. I understand that it is a problem when "satires" are truly spouting hate at a particular group, but it is a problem that needs to be fixed within the editorial board, and the solution is not previewing stories.
Jpettibo, I understand the editorial policy of not previewing articles with members of the public, but perhaps that's where the problem lies - that there aren't any people of the particular group being satirized on the editorial staff.
In my experience, when I hear of one of these nasty, not-quite-satirical pieces published in a college paper, the article is targeting people of color, the poor or other "others" who are seen as outside the college experience and establishment. Wouldn't proper satire work to turn on the establishment, rather than parroting the old-school attitudes of the establishment?
It isn't appropriate to preview stories to people outside of the publication. I understand that it is a problem when "satires" are truly spouting hate at a particular group, but it is a problem that needs to be fixed within the editorial board, and the solution is not previewing stories.
Gee, maybe think that the solution would therefore be to make sure there is diversity on editorial boards? Ann never actually said to distribute unpublished articles outside of the editorial board -- you seem to be making the automatic assumption that minority groups that "satirical" pieces might be about will not be on editorial boards. And that says a lot. In any case, writers constantly show drafts of unpublished articles to trusted friends while in the editing process. It's hardly a radical concept.
I just have to share my horrified amusement-- I followed Cass' link (I really liked your definition of feminism, btw) and BEHOLD, there on at the top of the page...a Weight Watchers ad.
Great post!
I didn't name check the Onion in that I'd expect the piece to be of that caliber. I was pointing out that publishing satire surrounded by straightforward pieces is tricky business. Why not start a campus satirical publication if you want to hone your satire-writing skills?
I think that professional publications are typically more successful at running satire alongside straight pieces. Take, for example, the great piece in the NYT today by Colson Whitehead. But it's really hard to get it right.
Well, editors don't have to open up the piece for comment from everyone on campus before it's published. That's not what I was suggesting. But when it's extremely questionable material -- which is a generous way of putting it when it comes to pieces like the "Asians hate us" piece -- I think a "spot check" with members of the group being targeted by the op-ed is a good way of gauging whether your readers are going to read the piece as satire or hate-filled screed. Also, I'll echo what Cara said. More diversity on campus papers would go a long way. (Campus Progress has pointed out that college publications are pretty awful on this front.)
Amen. The reason these alleged satires don't work is because they're don't fit the definition of satire!
The Colbert Report works as satire. That copy-cat version of The Daily Show on Fox News didn't work because it consisted of the powerful mocking the marginalized. Not funny.
Claiming "It's satire!" whenever you're called on your bigotry fails the sniff test when your writing is clearly earnest.
Cara,
"Gee, maybe think that the solution would therefore be to make sure there is diversity on editorial boards? "
Gee... brilliant idea. Funny you mention that. At my paper, I am one of only three female section editors on the editorial board. One of the other female section editor was pushed BY ME to apply. As opinions editor, I only have two female writers who will only write every other week (as opposed to every week, like most writers). As opinions editor, I've had only one black writer ever write for me - and I pushed her to write for me as well, and she didn't stick with it. And that isn't to imply that that has anything to do with her being black or being a woman - other people quit, too, but my point is I only had one article published by someone who was black at a school that (I think) is more than 15% African American. I can only do so much. People don't get onto the editorial board without working as a writer, photographer, designer or copy editor first.
This was actually an issue I was discussing with our director of student media not two days ago. I would love for our editorial board to be more diverse, but the fact of the matter is there is a MUCH bigger social issue at play here than white male college journalists discriminating against minorities. There is, plain and simple, a general lack of interest at my school from minorities and it has nothing to do with an unwelcoming attitude (everyone still goes on and on about how talented and brilliant a female editor-in-chief we had a year ago was).
I know that when it comes to there being fewer female columnists that is an issue that extends beyond my college publication, and again, it is simply a lack of interest. You can't blame everything on the publication.
and Whitmore,
I agree with you about what you think "proper satire" should accomplish. And I do think that the "satires" Ann posted were pretty awful. But as someone who has been called both that "writer who is so sexist [against women]" and that "man-hater" I do know that there is a thin line a satirist walks, and I just don't like seeing such generalized criticism of college satires simply on the basis of how serious the articles they were published next to were or what minorities saw them before they went to print.
Those satires are terrible. And I think that's the problem. Because satire is such a delicate form that can be easily misconstrued, they're not typically judged on a "good" or "bad" scale, but rather a "good" or "offensive" one. As they should be. But I reject the notion that it's never okay to mention marginalized groups in satire.
If you go way back to the beginning (arguably) of satire as an art form, Johnathan Swift suggested in A Modest Proposal that the Irish eat their own children, in part, he declared, because it would solve a number of economic problems the Irish faced.
By targeting a marginalized group for satirized violence, he was actually satirizing the ridiculous public policy solutions that were popular in British society at the time, whereby the rich (i.e. the establishment, the powerful) offered obnoxious and insulting ways to solve the problems of the working class.
Sometimes satire uses otherwise offensive suggestions of treatment of marginalized groups to point out the offensive attitudes of the dominant culture (e.g. "Look how obnoxious the Brits are; they'd actually support a measure to encourage the Irish to eat their children.")
That said, these satires posted by Ann are in no way Swiftian. (I can't tell if he's trying to say "those crazy Asians!" or "Can you believe some of us white folks feel this way about Asian Americans!?" -- which is why this piece fails.) But I think it might be a mistake to throw the baby out with the bathwater by declaring any mention of marginalized groups off-limits in satire. Because, really, if done well and not written by someone who clearly sympathizes with some of the ideas he attempts to satire, could "Let's declare war against Asians" be just as valid as "Let's eat Irish kids"?
As a former campus paper editor and op-ed writer, I have to agree that the sweeping generalizations about satirical pieces makes me twinge a bit. I am by no means defending the large collection of hateful op-eds found in college papers. I agree that there should be diversity on college boards and article screening, and pieces like this should be thrown out before the necessity for reprimand arises.
Still, I got so much flack for criticizing the school board and campus policy, both satirically and in my news pieces that I'm more inclined to defend the first amendment. Nothing like these pieces were ever posted in my paper while I was in charge (and hasn't since to my knowledge).
But I also think in some twisted way the fact that these pieces get into papers- even if they are "amateur" -speaks more to our societal problems as a whole: It's our inability to celebrate, or even tolerate diversity. I think raising awareness is possibly the best course of action- in blogs and websites like this one. These papers should not have published these pieces, but then we get into the should war. And when it comes to prejudice, should never gets very far.
Something nearly identical happened at my university this fall, when a column that was intended to be satire and humor was taken straight by some groups who were outraged by the sentiments there.
I had the benefit of being close friends with the writer, so knew from the beginning that it was completely satire. It was just done badly. But this explanation that it was humor didn't stop people from being upset, and I can hardly blame them for that.
It seems, to me as a writer anyway, that if you're going to say outrageous things for the sake of satire or comedy, you need to make sure you're talented enough to make that clear to people. I think part of the reason behind this trend of offensive columns is the rise of Stephen Colbert-like humor, where satire and the like is played completely straight. Problem is, the folks writing these satires don't quite know what they're getting into and aren't very good at it.
Here's the original column in question: http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/Articles/Opinion/2007/09/07/21054/
SarahMC: I was going to say the EXACT same thing!
What angers me the most are the almost inevitable “apologies� that follow these incidents. Claiming that those words were satire is nothing but a poor excuse. Regardless of what their intentions were, their words were hurtful to other members of their community. Anyone who’s had an argument knows that the worst thing the other person can do is say, “I’m sorry you’re upset.� It’s disingenuous, and even worse, it insults the person by implying that they are irrational, thin skinned, etc. Until Hallmark comes out with a “Sorry I wore blackface� card, people are just gonna have to learn to actually apologize (on the inside it could have a guy shrugging as if to say "Whoops!"). A genuine apology means taking responsibility for your actions, not trying to shift the blame, and (I think most importantly) understanding why your actions were hurtful. If people actually made an effort to understand why what they did was hurtful, instead of going into a defensive crouch, maybe we could actually make some progress. Instead, the whole cycle just repeats itself, leaving a lot of hurt feelings, resentment, and anger in its wake. Fun!
Crystalee, I'm not so sure the geniuses who write horribly offensive "satires" in their college papers are as intellectually rigorous or as critical of culture as Jonathan Swift.
To compare these brats to him is giving them a lot of undue credit.
(I understand you don't think they're on the same level, I'm just sayin'.)
The link below is a homophobic editorial that was NOT meant to be satirical. It was printed last fall and caused a huge protest.
http://media.www.lsureveille.com/media/storage/paper868/news/2007/09/12/Opinion/America.Needs.To.Stand.Against.Homosexuality-2963050.shtml
*sighs* Yup, totally spot on. The engineering student paper at my (Canadian) school actually lost its funding this year after publishing a "humorous" sex-advice column basically advocating anal rape. The cherry on top was the Cyanide and Happiness comic (I refuse to link to the site, though it's easy enough to find) reprinted on the back, making fun of people with disabilities. Luckily, we've got a lot of active student advocacy groups on campus who immediately decided to take on the paper and bring the article to the attention of the faculty and the outside community. Still, it was bad times.
The fact that this sort of thing is wide-spread makes me wonder if there shouldn't be a mandatory "Ridiculing marginalized groups =/= satire" class for anyone planning on writing an op-ed in a university paper. Every time I see sh*t like this I want to smack everyone involved repeatedly with a copy of the paper until they understand why it is NOT APPROPRIATE. >:(
I'm with SarahMC- many of these satires fail because the writers don't have a clear understanding of what satire does. Well, that, and some of them are just attrociously written.
If you go way back to the beginning (arguably) of satire as an art form, Johnathan Swift suggested in A Modest Proposal that the Irish eat their own children, in part, he declared, because it would solve a number of economic problems the Irish faced.
By targeting a marginalized group for satirized violence, he was actually satirizing the ridiculous public policy solutions that were popular in British society at the time, whereby the rich (i.e. the establishment, the powerful) offered obnoxious and insulting ways to solve the problems of the working class.
I think that there's a difference between targeting and mentioning. Swift mentions the Irish, obviously, and "advocates" for extreme violence against them, but the Irish aren't the target of the satire, as you note when you point out that he was really satirizing the ridiculous public policies that were being pushed against the Irish. He wasn't insulting the Irish, he was insulting the people who were marginalizing them. Too often, these sorts of hack pieces just throw out a bunch of nasty stereotypes about a group, as though that's satire.
It's not.
Still, I got so much flack for criticizing the school board and campus policy, both satirically and in my news pieces that I'm more inclined to defend the first amendment.
Let's not pretend that anyone here has called for censorship yet, okay? Criticizing these kinds of articles, and pointing out that they're not really satire isn't the same as calling for a federal ban on them.
(Jpettibo: Glad to see an EMUer! I know some of ther writers for the Echo, and actually used to do a little bit of writing for it when I was at EMU.)
To be a bit philosophical, it is hard to encourage sophomores to write opinion without getting sophomoric pieces from time to time.
Of course, the proper category is "sophomores and people who just never matured".
Part of the problem here is that these pieces are published right alongside non-satire pieces. Clearly publishing them in a humor section wouldn't rehabilitate all the pieces, but it would help to separate the genuine failed satires from the satire-as-post-facto-excuse cases.
Now, if your college paper doesn't have a humor page, that's a bigger problem. My undergraduate institution's paper used the back page (of 4-6) for that, and that's where comics went along with stories that were Onion-esque. Any general-interest college paper that can't take a tiny designated slice out of its layout for humor needs to get over itself.
RoymacIII- Let's not pretend I was accusing anyone on here of calling for censorship, ok?
It is trite to rehash that hate groups (anti-choicers come to mind) get plenty of freedom of press, and even though I think it's outrageous, I wouldn't "censor" them either. I stated clearly that I'm all for exposing and exploring prejudice through action and writing. Action that can eventually eradicate such sentiments, or at least make them less prevalent and acceptable.
I think that's already being done- on Feministing for example. Of course, there's always more work to be done.
Wow. In my four years as a student at Louisiana State University, I have occasionally been offended by sexist, racist, and many other ist columns in our newspaper, The Daily Reveille, but these are as bad as the worst of them.
This might be of interest to some of you: the recently elected president of the LSU College Republicans could lose his job because he is backing the Democratic Congressional candidate, rather than instead of Republican candidate Woody Jenkins, a known anti-Semite.
The full article is here:
http://dccc.org/blog/archives/la_06_lsu_gop_head_supports_democrat_could_lose_job/