Who is really silenced on campus?

When I first came to Duke, I was aware that the academic and political climate was very different from what I had been used to growing up in white, middle-to-upper-class, Protestant, American suburbia. When I took a freshman seminar that focused on the politics of everyday language and the language of contemporary politics, I was a bit taken aback by the voices of those who were not represented in the curriculum. Liberal and progressive ideas were presented almost as fact, and I struggled to find works that represented conservative modes of thought. Something felt amiss to me. In an institution of higher education, why would certain viewpoints be promoted at the expense of others? Why couldn’t there truly be an arena of discussion where all ideological camps were represented?

For members of my community and family as I was growing up, political affiliation was akin to culture and identity. To speak badly of a party was to speak badly about people registered to vote in that party. And while there was always a sort of reforming and reconvening political ideas that the previous generation had given to the next, political ideologies were largely passed down through narratives and anecdotes; they were an inheritance of sorts. While I was surrounded by the American idea of “be-who-you-want-to-be” self-determination, I also felt that it was a faux pas for someone to go against the political leanings of the communities that raised them.

However, as I learned and grew during my time in undergrad, as I had many hard conversations with people of diverse backgrounds and as I learned more about the social and economic disparities that correspond to social factors such as race, ethnicity, gender performance and identity, sexuality, ability, nationality, religion and so on, I had to shift around things that I had previously prioritized and make room for what I now learned to be true. I began to deconstruct the linguistic labels that political ideologies take, such as “conservative,” and I began to question, what exactly was I trying to conserve?

If my country of citizenship is built on the genocide and displacement of indigenous people as well as the mass enslavement and forced labor of black people, then how could I support “conserving” such a social order with a clean conscience? If conservative candidates like Donald Trump support deporting 11 to 12 million undocumented Americans with no questions asked, if Ben Carson would not accept a Muslim American as president and if Mike Huckabee uses a transgender celebrity’s coming out story to delegitimize people’s gender identities, then it seems that the social order that the right wing aims to conserve continues to be based on the exclusion of people who do not fit the model of normative identity.

Much of my political education intersects with my background in linguistics. Contemporary linguists are interested in how language functions in the real world, period. They are not interested in prescribing outdated rules to the masses, because such prescriptions exist in dictionaries and textbooks and are selected by an elite social class. If linguists want to do rigorous, engaging work, they accept that language norms and prescriptions are based on biases and that linguistic differences color our world in beautiful ways. Even conservative grammarians seem to be fine with the fact that we no longer use the pronoun “thou.” Why then, is it so difficult to accept gender pronouns for gender non-binary and genderfluid people, such as “they/them/theirs” and “xe/xem/xyrs?” Shouldn’t we advocate for positive change that will represent and validate all people’s experiences?

I acknowledge the ways that educational and social experience construct different people’s views. Especially if one’s livelihood relies on state institutions, it becomes difficult to question state-sponsored rhetoric. For example, those who seek social mobility in the military would likely be stigmatized if they criticized the state’s rhetoric of militarized heroicism. In this context, to criticize the system would be to belittle the individual’s service and sacrifice, even if it is a system that has serious physical and psychological repercussions for almost everyone involved. Too often, when voices from the left criticize state systems, they are misconstrued as attacking the individuals that make up the system as well.

As well, one must be aware of the nuance that, in post-colonial contexts, liberalism is often associated with the uprooting of tradition at the hands of Western imperialism. For example, in South Korea, much of the opposition to rights for sexual and gender minorities comes from the belief that homosexuality was an import from the western world. While such a belief is incorrect and harms LGBT citizens of South Korea, it is true that the modern LGBT movement in South Korea was modeled after the U.S. movement. Progress the world over should respect indigenous sovereignty and rights, which should not have to be imposed upon by one version of progressivism.

Political discussions can be extremely difficult, especially with people of differing political leanings and educational experiences. However, given what I’ve learned thus far, I believe that the political necessarily intersects with the personal and that it is of vital importance to stand on the side of the oppressed and not remain conveniently neutral. My values envision change for a more just and inclusive nation and world, but I do believe that compromise with the other side is often necessary in order to create change for social minorities. However, I also believe there are also many spaces where it is vital to remain unapologetic about one’s beliefs, values and politics, so that people can express their thoughts and grievances and hopes in their fullest extent. I don’t subscribe to a political party, but I will always be looking forward to what can change for the better instead of idealizing and preserving oppression.