Please, please don't misunderstand me! I don't hate Long Island. Really, I've never even been there. I'm just using it to get a laugh. Please don't charge me with geographism.
I didn't mean it. I swear, I will let someone from Long Island read all my columns before I turn them in so that any potentially offensive comments to that truly unique, special and individualistic community of Dartmouth students will be removed and my writings will roam free of the stench of prejudice. I mean, I would hate to offend anyone. No, really, I would.
But from now on, no one can tell any Irish jokes about drinking. Or make any reference to potatoes, unless speaking about Idaho (is that offensive to Idahoans? I'm not sure). Because if you diss Ireland, you're discriminating against my heritage. While we're at it, let's just get rid of Polish jokes. I know some really smart Poles (Justin Duda '00), and I think that it is offensive that you would demean him like that. And hell, my hair is kind of blond, so no more blond jokes either please. And tell you what, I'm Catholic, so if we could cut the Pope out of all jokes, I would appreciate that as well. Oh, and my mom works in D.C. for the current administration, so I don't want to hear any more political jokes out of anyone (just for the record, he did it, that slick stud). If you guys could please just observe these few guidelines I've set forth, I think I will grow to appreciate myself more and feel more a part of this worldly culture we live in.
And go ahead and blitz me the stuff you would like me to not make fun of about you. That way, I will condition out of me all traces of personal opinion that I have about anything so as not to offend you. That's really the best way I suppose. Nobody offends anyone and we all live in peace and harmony together as one people of many cultures.
Oh wait, that's wrong! We won't live in any greater harmony because we don't offend each other. We'll just be really boring. What is asked of white American males in this society is to be as inconspicuous as possible and as inoffensive to anyone as we can, while everyone else gets to diss us all they want. I don't get to have any fun. I can't make fun of anything funny or interesting, so I have to resort to Long Island. I can't even talk about anything because someone will misunderstand me and think I'm a sexist or a racist or a baby-killer or an anti-Semite or some other thing which anyone who knows me would hopefully say that I clearly am not.
The guy next door to me is Jewish. He also happens to be the treasurer of my fraternity. I make fun of him for not giving me any money, and he makes fun of me because I'm fat and Irish. We get along great. He knows I'm not an anti-Semite, and I know that he doesn't hate fat people. We understand each other. We've never misconstrued a word we've said to be malevolent.
In order for anyone to learn anything, we've got to seek to understand the people with whom we are dealing. In high school, our school was mostly black and white students. Here, there are very few black students and many more members of other races. It was very weird for me to be in such a different community than I was used to, because I didn't want to be offensive, or I just plain didn't know anything about their culture and felt dumb imposing my attitudes on them. But then I got to know many of these people and realized they were all cool in different ways. I can generally make jokes with them, and they can and definitely do make fun of me. And we all get along. We can make fun of other people too. And I'm sure other people can and do make fun of me or whatever culture I am part of. It's only when someone comes out in public and does it that anyone gets offended.
I am an individual with individual opinions about many, many things. I'm very, very smart. As I know all of you are. Yet a certain self-righteousness pervades this campus and demands that everyone be aware of every possible cause of offense. Well guess what? I AM aware. I won't offend you. I'm very intelligent, as is everyone else, and I'm way too busy trying to figure out my own life to worry about offending yours. Before you lump me into the Eskimo-hating, anti-lesbian, white supremacist crowd, just understand that if my personal beliefs and attitudes offend you, that doesn't mean you're right, and I'm just another example of the insensitive white male. I just have a different opinion than you. We're all very smart. Maybe before we go off bashing each other in public, we could be a little more attentive to the inherent and intractable differences in our cultures without judging which are correct.
