surviving the firestorm...

Well, in response to Adam's vehement demand that I update, I shall do so at once. What I'm going to do is give an account of why I haven't been updating much and why I have been so stressed lately. I've been very busy lately, what with attempting not to fail physics and all, but there's something else that's come up that has made life particularly difficult. Also, I must give some recognition to Adam, whose intriguing blog can be found at http://exittheory.blogspot.com

As many of you know, I am the Opinion editor for my campus newspaper; it's a job that I love and I work with a great group of people there as well. However. Back in December, before I had this job and I was still a lowly Associate editor, two students on campus submitted a letter to the editor regarding a professor on campus. I don't know what their intent was, precisely, in submitting the letter, but the result was that many people interpreted as a personal attack on the professor, challenging his competency and personal beliefs regarding diversity and race. We don't publish during J-term, so over the first couple of weeks of the spring semester, the aforementioned professor was working on a response piece to the two students of color, which was initally waaay to long to even think about printing. My editor-in-chief kept telling him it just had to be cut down and cut down until finally he got it to around 1400 words, and he said that was the best he could do. In light of his efforts, we decided to publish the letter as it was. The same week, because of the size of this letter, we had room to print only like one more letter and the one we printed was from a girl who basically seemed to think that diversity isn't nearly as much of an issue as many people make it.
In retrospect, it was probably not the wisest idea to print these two letters together in one issue, but believe me, if I had ANY notion of the fallout that would arise from this, I never, NEVER would have printed them. After the issue came out, we got a flurry of e-mails saying how unfair it was, how terrible it was that we allowed this professor extra space to defend himself, how the issue of the paper was obviously part of institutional racism, etc. Needless to say, as Opinion editor, a few choice words were also thrown my way, either directly to my face in passing or via e-mail. I know that it is important to not take these things personally, because I certainly had no intention whatsoever for this to get so out of control, but it has been hard not to be extremely stressed about not only my own reputation but of course that of the paper as well. People have been upset that we let the prof. respond at all, others because we allotted him more space than the usual 500 words, some because they felt the page/issue of the paper was anti-student of color, etc. etc.
There's been much more anger and hurt surrounding this issue than I had ever even dreamed of, and while I'm sorry that so many people interpret the situation in the ways that they have, I also cannot feel that I did anything wrong in printing what I did. The point of the Opinion section is to provide an open forum for people to express their viewpoints, and I refuse to engage in the practice of only printing what I personally agree with, because I really feel that compromises my journalistic integrity. Some people may scoff at the idea of a college girl feeling seriously concerned about journalistic integrity, but it's a position I take very seriously and I care very deeply about what is printed and what is said about myself and the paper. I spent a few days feeling incredibly stressed about the issue and practically ready to burst into tears at all times from the stress and lack of sleep I was getting because of this issue, but I am calming down and seeing the situation a little differently. Like I said, I really don't believe I did anything wrong.
Generally speaking, most of the opinions printed in the section are very liberal, and I truly feel that it's important not to silence voices on campus, even if (and perhaps precisely BECAUSE) others on campus may see the viewpoint as overly conservative, narrow, limited, or even just wrong. If those voices are silenced, how do we as a community begin to know what issues we need to work on? For all the lip service paid to diversity on this campus, letters like the one I printed (and people's issues with the professor), to me, demonstrate precisely how much work we have left to do, and isn't it important to see that? I am so frustrated with people who seem to believe that the letters printed are the ideas of the Oracle or of me personally, because that is just so incredibly absurd that I don't even know how to respond to it. How could I possibly print letters for AND against, for example, the Military Recruiter Ban initiative on campus and agree with them both? I CAN'T. Hence, it's impossible for the published viewpoints to be reflections of my own. It has just been such an incredibly stressful, crazy, mixed-up last couple of weeks. What I find particularly ironic about the situation is that when the first letter (from the two students was printed), I had NOTHING TO DO WITH it, so I am essentially just dealing with all of the fallout from a situation that I originally had no part in whatsoever. I think that pretty much covers it. That's been sort of the overwhelming issue here, anyway.

I finally passed a quiz in physics today, which is some small cause for celebration. Of course, the passing was with a D+, but I'm going to take whatever the heck I can get in that class. I don't get it. I wasn't that bad at physics in high school, but I just plain SUCK at it now. And it's algebra based, it's supposed to be easy. And I have never, ever in my life felt more stupid in a class. I hate it. I mean, I don't hate the class; lecture is kind of fun and I have a decent lab group, but I just hate feeling so stupid. Yechh. On that note, I go to finish my physics homework.