I'm not evil. Really, I'm not. Ask anyone who knows me. I look like I'm 14 (15 if you're generous), I'm 5'7" when I'm having an honest day, and God knows I couldn't hurt a fly. Yet, after only a few short weeks at the College on the Hill, I have become deathly afraid of revealing my political identity. Deathly may be overstating it a little bit -- I've also learned that people here are, for the most part, pretty friendly -- but, though I am not ashamed at all to believe what I believe, I have already figured out I need to keep my political orientation under raps if I want to avoid hostility.
Let me come right out and say it: I'm a conservative. I can hear the collective gasp echoing around campus. I am by no means one of those extreme-KKK-NRA types around which the conservative image all too frequently revolves, but I always have found my ideas to be more aligned with Republicans than Democrats. I do not intend to make this a forum for a vicious ideological debate; there will be plenty of time for that in the months leading up to the presidential primaries. I do intend, however, to reveal one sort of discrimination that is invariably overlooked.
This is a college campus; it can't help but be liberal (and no, I've never heard of Princeton). Sure, fine, students for the most part are liberals, and I don't have that big a problem with finding myself in the minority, especially considering I'm (gasp again) a Jewish conservative. That is, I don't have a problem until I find myself the victim of the sort of casual discrimination that no one ever acknowledges. Funny, don't you think, that in this age of political correctness, of always taking into account the feelings of the minority before making a decision, of making sure a compromise can be reached that hurts all parties involved as little as possible, that the very people advocating the political correctness are the ones inflicting the invisible discrimination?
I'm sure a number of you will relate to some of the experiences that I've already had, whether you were the victim or the instigator. I man the CUAD table at the activities fair with gaping jaws coming at me everywhere I look, even from friends. I don't think I'm paranoid -- that's an article for another day. I put a Bush bumper sticker up inside my room, my roommate being nice enough to let it slide, and a hallmate casually comes in and marks a big black X through it. My roommate and I even have a deal whereby the Bush sign in the window gets taken down when (notice I say when, not if) the first rock comes crashing through it.
Meanwhile, I hear people all over cheering Bill Bradley. This may represent something you've overheard: "Hey, isn't Bill Bradley cool?" "Yeah he is!" "Hey I love Bill Bradley too!" And a public celebration ensues with no one thinking twice. People publicly proclaim their love for Bradley and they become instant superstars; meanwhile, I fear putting a Bush sticker on my door -- I cower inside my room, avoiding the sneers. Is anything wrong with this picture? If you're a liberal, which I can only assume you are, you're probably saying, "No, you're a moron and I guess I'll have to show you the right way to think," even though that would be about as hard to do as changing my skin color if I were black and wanted to avoid racism. You must see that, like race, like religion, like sex, like ethnicity, political affiliation is another factor making an individual who he or she is, and, like any of those characteristics, it too is something not to be mocked, not to make people feel uncomfortable, but to be accepted and appreciated. You don't have to be a conservative; I'm not going to go out and suddenly become a woman or an Italian or a Catholic. We are who we are.
I look forward to the day when I don't have to fear hate mail, when I can say that I'm going to vote for Bush and not have looks of horror coming back at me. I know there are more Republicans out there; it's time you felt comfortable coming out of the proverbial closet. Anyone suppressing us is nothing more than a hypocrite, fanatically supporting acceptance until it threatens his or her own sense of political well-being. I've barely been here a month and I'm already sick of being unable to reveal my beliefs or debate a topic without fear of public chastisement. I see Bradley paraphernalia everywhere, Bradley celebrations all over campus and a CUAD meeting relegated to the backwoods of Collis. Can I put up my Bush bumper sticker yet?
