This past semester several items were removed, as soon they appeared, from the student union at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Among them: antiwar flyers labeling President Bush a “bully,” depicting Lady Liberty impaling a dove by its rectum on a sword, and having the U.S. flag being produced in the exhaust fumes of B-1 bombers; magazines containing a photograph of men engaging in anal sex; a large sign advertising “The Vagina Monologues” calling for all [offensive slang for vaginas] to “Unite!”; and flyers in support of the war in Iraq.
Actually, only the last one was removed. The rest were allowed to stand.
Also deemed too offensive for UNCW this year was the song “Cotton Eye Joe” as performed by the group Rednex. The song used to be on the play list for UNCW basketball games, but it was pulled in February when a trustee complained. The nature of its offense is not the Rednex version, however, but rather its roots as an old minstrel tune. As the trustee, Linda Upperman Smith, explained to the Wilmington Morning Star, “There are some very derogatory lyrics in the oldest version of the song that make reference to the ownership of a black man.”
Not too offensive for UNCW, however, were the profanity-dependent lyrics of rapper Ludacris, who once sang that he hates it “when it’s too many n———, not enough hoes.” UNCW shelled out $120,000 (half through ticket sales, but the other half through student fees) to bring him for a concert March 29.
What’s behind this bizarre, apparent double-standard for offensiveness? How is it that pro-war flyers, which if nothing else reflected the sentiments of a large majority of North Carolinians and Americans, and a sanitized song with admittedly shady roots were treated as more offensive than a photograph of anal sex, references to women as slang for their vaginas, descriptions of women as b—es or “hoes” and boasts of violence to them, and desecrations of American symbols? If censorship had to be used, and if the basis for that censorship was that some would be offended by the speech in question, as it was here, then why were only the former censored and not the latter?
Do those items that escaped censorship have anything in common? In fact, they do. They are all items of interest to the “protected” groups on campus: homosexuals, feminists, black activists (who politicize rap and hip-hop as forms of political dissent), and leftists in general.
What does that have to do with anything? Well, UNCW is very, very serious about ensuring “diversity” on campus. UNCW has a “Chancellor’s Task Force for Diversity” tasked with “improving overall campus diversity” that on April 15 released its final report of recommendations (available online at www.uncw.edu/dpscs/diversitytaskforce).
Naturally the task force was told to place “special emphasis on racial/ethnic diversity.” That’s well in keeping with their peers across academe, where diversity is only skin deep and intellectual diversity is dangerous and probably offensive to somebody who’s “diverse.”
The campus idea of diversity generally resembles a bag of Peanut M&M’s™: different colors on the outside, same nutty interior.
Perhaps that’s why UNCW students had to pay to give Ludacris a forum on campus, but students who voluntarily devised, photocopied (at their own expense) and posted pro-war posters on campus found out the next day that they had no forum after all.