Since my 1302 class this spring is about civility and its possible decline in the past few years, a letter to the Dallas Morning News editor about incivility by SMU football fans caught my attention. The author of the letter, a woman whose daughter attends TCU, wrote that when she, her husband, and their daughter walked to the game through the tailgating, SMU students engaged in rude name-calling toward the daughter, who was so upset she decided not to attend the game with her parents.
Trash-talk is part of sports rivalry. Some trash talk shows school spirit. But name-calling of a personal nature is more like bullying. If your intention is to hurt someone’s feelings, that’s bullying, not school spirit. When you stop thinking about how the other person feels, that’s the beginning of the end of a civil society.
During last year's big snowstorm, SMU students got pretty wild, throwing snowballs. But the fun went too far when they pelted snowballs at girls who were just walking along with umbrellas up, trying to stay dry. I felt a little sick watching a video of this posted on one student’s blog. The victims tried to ignore the taunting and the snowballs that were denting their umbrellas. What was funny insensitivity to others' feelings?
These seem like small incidents, snowballs and name-calling, but my point is, incivility can be like a snowball, and when it gets going, a climate of insensitivity becomes acceptable. The result can be tragic, like the incident at Rutgers this month, where someone’s idea of a funny prank at his roommate's expense ended in the roommate’s suicide.
While the video was streaming, viewers posted comments, but none of them were outraged. Nobody spoke up to ask what kind of cruel person would violate someone's privacy like that. How brave do you have to be to ask somebody quit being insensitive? If people don't speak up, they tacitly approve of incivility.
While the video was streaming, viewers posted comments, but none of them were outraged. Nobody spoke up to ask what kind of cruel person would violate someone's privacy like that. How brave do you have to be to ask somebody quit being insensitive? If people don't speak up, they tacitly approve of incivility.
Some people thought the letter was a fake because the Mom and Dad wouldn't have gone on to the game while the daughter went home (the family does live in Dallas, she said). I still think it's legit, but I do wish she had been more specific about what was so offensive. I noted this morning a Giants fan wrote a letter to the DMN apologizing for the behavior of some fellow SF fans who mobbed and jeered the Rangers' fans' bus last week. I thought it was nice of him to say he was sorry about that.
ReplyDeleteHaving read the letter a few times I still find it hard to believe someone in their late teens or early twenties could still be upset but a little name calling. Yes, the students were wrong for taking it to a personal level, but we are all grownups here. If it was directed towards a small child then that would be a different story but in this case it was just a little fun, taken a lot to harshly. In the case of the Rutgers student the intention of the roommate was to humiliate the student publicly and therefor this is exponentially more serious. The other example of the SMU students pelting a passer-by with snowballs is in a way justified and even a little asked for by the walker in that they could have easily walked around the students instead of right through the middle. Overall this will definitely be an interesting topic to explore next semester.
ReplyDeleteWait a minute-- the girl with the yellow umbrella was walking on the main cement sidewalk, so she had the right to walk there. To walk around the snowball fight, she would have had to go off the paved sidewalk. It's not like she was walking into the middle of the snowball fight. They were picking on her, coming after her.
ReplyDeleteI just want to add here that Forni says, "Sometimes we confuse having fun with being happy." I think the student at Rutgers was having fun, maybe trying to get some attention for himself, but now his life is damaged beyond repair. He had to leave Rutgers but wherever he is, he is regretting that he did not show restraint and respect.
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