The Evolution of Microaggressions and Trigger Warnings
How do you feel about the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution? If you’re like a lot of Americans, you believe that the rights of free speech, religion, and press are the centerpieces of our everyday lives. But, what if I told you that these rights are declining? In college campuses across the nation, students’ opinions are being silenced because they are deemed “Offensive” or “Triggering”. The decline of free speech is also advancing into high schools, and students are feeling targeted for what they say. Liberal students and staff control the rhetoric and language of their peers. Right wing students are disgusted of this suppression of free speech. This is our chance, the right of the people, to stand up against oppression before it is too late.
The right to free speech initiated with our founding fathers and the drafting of our constitution. Colonists in America got tired of the repression of many rights that are now granted to us. They stood up against the English oppression of many different liberties during the Revolutionary War. Ensuing the revolution, the First Amendment was created to ensure that our rights and freedoms would no longer be controlled by andy kind of supervision. These rights are viewed as the foundation of American society. Truly, it is what makes America the freest country on the face of the earth. According to USA Today, about three quarters of Americans say that the right to our freedoms is not taken too far. Furthermore, a survey by Newseum Institute’s First Amendment Center showed that only 10% of citizens think that free speech is too substantial and should be limited so that we can “protect people from hearing things that offend them.” Taking these statistics into mind, I conclude that a majority of Americans support our First Amendment freedoms. They won’t let free speech be suppressed by the administration and their peers. Citizens are fed up with whiny college kids who won’t stop complaining. As Dr. Everett Piper wrote, “This is not a daycare, It’s a university!” Based on the evidence, my belief is that a wide range of the U.S. population agrees.
The problem of the suppression of speech is getting out of hand in our country. Students are feeling that there might be repercussions for saying something even as meaningless as the word, “Man”. Even a lifelong Liberal, Kirsten Powers, agrees with my points in her book, The Silencing: How the Left Is Killing Free Speech, by writing about “the fall of free speech and the rise of the new intolerants on the left”. Inversely, at CSU Fullerton, words such as “Secretary” and “Mankind” are banned from vocabulary. The administration encourages people to suggest words that they do not want to hear on campus. At an event in Northridge, CSU students were invited to play in a ball pit and explain in a video why some words are too offensive to use in everyday vocabulary. These types of comforting events are available at college campuses nationwide. The University of Wisconsin even went to the extent of banning the phrase “Political Correctness”. The college hung posters and passed out fliers warning that words aren’t just words, they have a deeper meaning behind them. And perhaps the worst of all, students at the University of Michigan complained that the results of the recent election were too traumatizing to study, take exams, or even go to class. The solution? To comfort the students and strengthen their whiny liberal views. The administration at UMich gave students a room full of bubbles and playdough to cope with the upset loss of Hillary Clinton by the now President-Elect, Donald Trump.
Furthermore, the terrible so called transphobia and bigotry of “misgendering” is escalating to new heights. People that fall into the false rhetoric of gender fluidity are very careful about pronouns. But any sane person that understands there are only two genders is considered transphobic when they identify people by their chromosomes. People who live in this fantasy world will sometimes say there is an excess of 63 genders, and the list grows frequently. According to the American Psychological Association, “many transgender people tend to suffer with anxiety, depression or related disorders at higher rates than nontransgender persons”. This proves that gender dysphoria is a huge problem that causes many mental illnesses. People who try to speak up against mental disorders are now shunned. These gender ideas are protected under the freedom of expression, but so is the right of intelligent citizens to identify these people and get them help. However, universities do not want to assist their students with their problems, but rather encourage the behavior. The goal of the silencing is to create a more gender fluid environment so students don’t get misgendered or offended, but the only offense that is taking place is directed toward conservatives. Millennials and the administration let these Social Justice Warriors practice free speech, but hypocritically try to silence the opposers. Instead of “He” or “She”, Universities would rather students and staff use pronouns like “you” or “They”. This is all in an effort to let people live in an alternate reality, and students will not be prepared for the real world. Colleges are setting everyone up for failure by encouraging fantasy worlds and discouraging the realist views of the world.
Max Handler explained the reasoning for the silencing of the first amendment in a piece for the Washington University Political Review, “So why do liberals hate free speech? The central reason is that liberals don’t wish to have their views challenged. Not having one’s views challenged creates the impression that one’s views are unassailable; it is obviously preferable to think that one’s views are impervious to criticism than to actually have to face that criticism. Suppressing free speech prevents views from being challenged in two ways. First, it can oftentimes prevent opposing views from ever being uttered, either through intimidation or outright banning. But the second and even more insidious way in which liberals do this is by labeling all opposing views as “problematic.” Thus, even if the speech is not banned, it is still labeled as troublesome in some way. Perhaps it is racist, or sexist, or classist, or some other -ist.” This logic matches my opinion exactly. All these college liberals want is the silence of their opposers. Maybe because their opposers are right.
How do we, the people, fix this takeover of Universities across the nation? The solutions are simple, parents in the U.S. need to instill good values in their children. Instead of babying students, the administration needs to hold them accountable for their actions. Our teachers and professors need to focus on teaching the real hardships of our world, and how to actually fix them. We need to focus on teaching the constitution and civil liberties throughout elementary and high school. Science should be a centerpiece of education, to show students the facts. Society cannot let the media take over and train our citizens to be sheeps who can be swayed for voting and support. And lastly, teachers and educators should under no circumstances be able to push their ideological views. In order to prepare our generation, these things have to change.
This is perhaps our last chance to stand up against the suppression of free speech. America’s democracy will not work if we do not allow everyone to have a say. We need to stand up for what our founding fathers had in mind when they proposed the First Amendment. Trigger warnings and microaggressions will ruin our society if we do not stop them. We cannot live in a fantasy world where everyone is nice to each other. This is the real world, so let’s face reality, People say mean things, not because they are racist, not because they are sexist, but because they are human. My message to whiny liberal college students: They are just words, get over it!
