On Sept. 18th, David Dennis published a misleading viewpoint about the Tufts Republicans and The Primary Source that was designed to make you hate these groups-not to explain, as he claimed, why we "probably hate you." The examples he used in his viewpoint were absurd and taken completely out of context. This resulted in a gross misrepresentation of the views contained in The Primary Source.
Below is the full paragraph from the article "Do You Diggs It?" which was written by Anthony Giragosian and originally published in November of 2004, following a panel discussion sponsored by the Tufts Republicans.
"Diggs also questioned whether sexual orientation is innate. According to Diggs, 'we only have heterosexual people who have homosexual problems.' Although the media has claimed that there is a 'gay gene' in existence that makes a person a homosexual, this is false. Researchers who have investigated this subject claim that no 'gay gene' exists; therefore, there is no way that gay, lesbian, and transgender feelings can even be traced to genetic origin. It is not a question of who they are, but a question of what they do that is of major concern."
As this clearly shows, Mr. Giragosian quoted an outside source, Dr. John Diggs, when he wrote of "heterosexual people with homosexual problems." This article was a review of a lecture given by the controversial Dr. Diggs, and Mr. Giragosian's opinion was separate. Mr. Dennis includes Dr. Diggs' statement as part of "the hate-speech [in The Primary Source] that attempts to label me as a dumb sex freak."
Here is the context for the second quote Mr. Dennis referenced. It was originally printed in the article "Dr. Rice: Not Black Enough," written by myself and originally printed in December of 2004.
"Organizations exist to promote the rights of minorities, such as the NAACP, and these organizations have a loud voice in today's society. However, these do not tend to span the entire political spectrum to include colored people who hold certain sets of (conservative) beliefs, as is evidenced in Bush's recent cabinet appointments."
Here, the terms "NAACP" and "colored" are both vital, as the latter refers back to the former. The acronym NAACP stands for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Hence, in the article, in the following sentence, the word "colored" refers to members of the NAACP, who purposely adopted the word into the name of their organization.
Mr. Dennis also complained about content from The Primary Source's humor sections. Many Jumbos seem to have trouble with the distinction between serious content pages and humor sections. Every issue of The Primary Source contains 24 pages. 13 of these pages always contain serious content, with the exception of the two political cartoons on pages six and seven. Two pages always contain humorous content. The remaining pages are graphics-oriented and usually contain humorous content. The important point here is that serious content is not the same as humorous content, or at least that was not the intention.
I raise this point because the last reference Mr. Dennis made to an offensive Primary Source feature did in fact appear on one of our humor pages. The quote he provided referred to Tufts "African" students having "inter-tribal squabbles." Once again, Mr. Dennis took this reference out of context, which led to a misinterpretation. This humor section, "Segregated 'Survivor'-Tufts Edition!" is based on the new season of the reality television show. The page featured pictures of four campus buildings with captions corresponding to the group represented by the picture. The most important context of this page is the actual "Survivor" show. The new twist this season is that the 20 castaways are carefully divided into four teams, by race. The four races "represented" are African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Caucasians, and Hispanics.
The point of this special section was to make fun of this development in the "Survivor" show. While the producers of the show, and many Americans,-apparently think racial segregation will help diversify television, many members of the Source believe that this is not the appropriate solution. In an article in last May's issue of The Primary Source, Nicole Balkind emphasized, "It is far easier to point out contradictions and hypocrisy via humor than through a serious piece." The point of the Source's humor section is to show our readers examples of ridiculous incidents on and off campus in a different format from the more serious pages.
Mrs. Balkind also pointed out, "This hypersensitivity and impulse to stifle unpleasant opinions is a dangerous attitude and an unrealistic expectation for life. Once [Tufts students] exit the 'Tufts bubble' no one will be concerned with students' complaints of 'bias.'" Mr. Dennis, as a senior, brace yourself. The real world is coming, and you might be surprised to discover that the issues discussed in The Primary Source actually are "real-world issues."
