« Kerry’s So Called Denial | Home | Is Dean Going To Quit? »
Coming Out Of The Political Closet
By Matt Margolis | February 13, 2004
As some of you may know I am a graduate student. I am going for my Masters degree in Architecture (no, I’m not a Poli-Sci major).
So, I have class a couple times a week – politics is never an issue. Why should it be? It’s an architecture school. My classes are always thing related to architecture.
Last semester I had bit of an altercation with a professor who taught a class in the classroom before my class. She was showing her class “Bowling For Columbine” and I made an issue of out it. Once she realized where I was going with that one she called me “Joe McCarthy” and needless to say – she looked at me different for the rest of the semester.
All that aside, I don’t recall what the class was about and why they had to watch that – but that was the first time I really noticed politics in a classroom – which fortunate for the professor, I wasn’t in that class.
This week, I have two stories.
Tuesday, as walked into my first class of the evening, there were assignments written on the whiteboard from what I presume to be the previous class.
I was able to get a picture of the assignments with my cell phone camera:
It says:
2/12: read article
#1
2/17: Zinn, read
thru 181
[written ass’m't handed out]
————
Chomsky sem, 2/13
meet at 1 pm
sign up Thursday
So whatever this class is (as of this blogging, I haven’t found out what the class is) they are reading Howard Zinn, and are going to a Noam Chomsky seminar.
Keep in mind this is an architecture school. Why are they reading Zinn and going to Chomsky seminars?
Can someone answer me?
Wednesday night I had another interesting experience.
I easily stick out in a crowd. More often than not, I’m wearing a Bush/Cheney ‘04 baseball cap and a Bush/Cheney pin on jacket.
This class was on building codes… yes, very boring stuff. Nevertheless, we had a guest speaker talking to us about the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was signed into law in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush. When the guest speaker brought this up, my professor reacted with a disgusted lament and said “Did you have to mention him?” and the guest speaker responded “Why? Because you have student in the corner with a Bush hat on?”
Later when class was dismissed, my professor looked at me and said “So Bush/Cheney huh?”
“You better believe it,” I responded. Then, in a joking manner, he asked me my name and pretended to go into in the class roster as if to flag my name for a bad grade.
Sure, a joke it may have been, but what was thinking about later was that it really is risky to be politically conservative in the belly of the liberal beast called Boston. My professor may have been joking, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t get discriminated against or looked down upon for being an out-of-the-closet conservative.
On the train ride back home, my brother and I were approached two different times on by other conservatives who saw our Bush-gear and their first comments were about how brave we were to be wearing that stuff in Boston. We offered them Bush/Cheney buttons to wear themselves. They each took one.
This was not the first time we heard those kind of remarks.. From liberals and conservatives a like, we get the same line. What does it say about our society when the masses (especially the liberal masses) spend so much energy on racial, cultural, gender, ethnic, and sexual diversity, but not political or ideological diversity? Why does the Left not tolerate the presence of differing political views? Why do I endure stares and occasional looks of disgust on the train, while they guy across the aisle wearing a John Kerry pin just blends in, or the college student wearing a Howard Dean pin is commended for being politically active?
Now, don’t get me wrong, between my brother and I, we’ve given away over 50 Bush/Cheney buttons either on the train or the streets of Boston, and gotten plenty of good responses from people. They generally outnumber the bad responses – but only because a person more likely to say something for supporting us, rather than to express disapproval.
Boston beware! We conservatives are out there. And we will not be afraid, we will not be deterred. I’ll wear my hat and button with pride and do what I can to get my fellow Boston area conservatives out of the closet you’ve tried to push them into.
We’re out there, and we’re going to do whatever we can to help Bush win Massachusetts in November. If there is any year to do it, it’s this year.
Related Posts:
February 14th, 2004 at 6:08 pm
Matt,
I’m proud of you brother. Keep up the good work. I hear the same stuff at work. How can I support Bush, on and on. I’m glad I’m not the only one out there facing libs. Thanks for the website. I’ll be back many times.
February 14th, 2004 at 6:31 pm
http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/
http://www.thefire.org/index.php
both of these websites are important and I hope this gentleman comes back to check comments.
February 14th, 2004 at 7:33 pm
I’m not at all suprised by an assignment like that. There are numerous courses that are taught exactly along those lines–it’s like the prof is preaching to a choir.
I will say though, that my Civil Liberties professor has been absolutely amazing. He doesn’t put his politics into the subject, and he even gave Justice Scalia a fair introduction (which I think is impressive).
February 14th, 2004 at 11:47 pm
Matt
I work in one of those so called tertairy institues, and I have to keep my opinions to myself on a daily basis. Trust me, you have no problems dude. Down here there is so much left wing indoctrinantion ( mostly all govt sanctioned) it is virtually impossible to find a large group of like minded right thinkers around here.
Keep fighting the good fight, and if I can find one down here, I’ll be wearing a Bush/Cheney badge of my own. Should be interesting huh?
February 16th, 2004 at 12:12 pm
Matt, my wife attends Brooklyn College (a public school in New York City) and the Sociology curriculum is very much left leaning - describing the roots of poverty and racial divide in the US. Music and Education teachers were scared to death when Bush got 2000 presidency. They recalled Reagan years knowing that all classes related to arts (and all public school programs, for that matter) would be cut again.
The intolerance of the left, especially in educational settings, comes from the frustration that they cannot deal with the problem. Whenever their taxes are cut, they lose their job. Right wing is all pro-war, but the soldiers’ families live off of charity from the Armed Forces Relief Trust. The leftist educators know that there is no chance in hell of them being treated any better.
I have equal number of leftist and rightist blogs in my blog roll. It is obvious that the same kind of intolerance is present on the conservative side. A co-worker moved here to NY/NJ because she could not stand the intolerance while she worked in the South.
Intolerance is our national problem. We all need to read both Charlton Heston and Howard Zinn. In your school, I would ask that Coulter be added to the curriculum, rather than taking Chomsky out.
February 16th, 2004 at 1:03 pm
Matt– your Architecture “school” is one of many schools on campus, right? Isn’t there a chance that a poli-sci class meets in the architecture building… it happened at my university. Poli Sci 210 meeting Tuesday and Thursday in room 310 of the architecture bldg.
February 16th, 2004 at 1:19 pm
No Cole. My school is a school of architecture and interior design. It is a private insitution and is not part of a University.
February 16th, 2004 at 1:32 pm
Like ITT tech or something like that?
February 16th, 2004 at 2:06 pm
Carnival of the Bush Bloggers
The Carnival of the Bush Bloggers: February 16, 2004 Edition
February 16th, 2004 at 4:06 pm
Sympathy and condolences– it’s no better in New Haven. I’ve often wondered how W’s daughter manages to survive undergraduate life. I will say that my faculty and fellow graduate students were generally accepting of the Republicans among us, but I think that the department (Religious Studies) had something to do with it– people don’t usually go into fields like theology or Judaic Studies unless they have a religious commitment, and it helps to keep them from turning politics into a religion. Just had a thought about your encounters in Boston, though– the next time someone gripes about your Bush/Cheney gear, ask them whether they’d rather see a NY Yankees cap! I have several friends who make pilgrimages to the baseball shrine at the Fenway on a regular basis.
Keep your spirits up!
May 18th, 2006 at 11:23 am
car insurance uk
Ayers withholders woo disapproved purity contrasted dental insurance http://dental-insurance.1more-insurance.com/