Over the past few weeks we’ve been subjected to some supremely ignorant and uninformed opinions by a student who’s naming is not warranted. I too am infuriated that his brazen hate speech is being published in the Carroll News, I too would love to write a response with the purpose of dismantling his weak arguments and making him feel small, but would this not just breathe life into his mission? That is not to say that the responses thus far are invalid, because they are not, they have been very intelligent and meaningful, I only question whether or not addressing him directly is the best approach.

At a certain point we have to realize why he is writing this flaming garbage; he is seeking outrage and controversy because, for whatever strange and sadistic reason, he thinks it is funny. Let’s stop responding and start supporting each other instead, if whats his face wants to write about how his fragile masculinity simply cannot bear the sight of drag queens, we should write about the joy that can be derived from something as inconsequential as a drag show (also, side-note, and I know I said I wasn’t going to be responding to him directly so I suppose this is hypocritical, but come on dude, are you seriously going to let a drag show offend you, grow up, nobody is forcing you to attend). Anyways, as I was saying, flood the op- ed section with positive messages of inclusion, show him that his opinions are unpopular, and wrong, and unimportant, and insignificant, and so on and so forth. Further, let us all show our support for the people on the receiving end of his hateful speech. Let’s show our support for our friends in the LGBTQ+ community, let’s make it known that we support women, that we believe survivors of sexual assault, that we value the lives of all humans regardless of the color of their skin, who they love, or how they identify. So often our political and social discourse can devolve from meaningful and thoughtful discourse into hot partisan rage. I believe that rage is warranted and I understand how tempting it can be to respond to terrible arguments, however we can be better allies to the marginalized by simply letting our support for them be known. What I am not saying, and I want to make this as clear as possible, is that his words should be tolerated, they shouldn’t be, the Carroll News should stop publishing him, it is shameful. To my peers of great privilege, stop tolerating this sort of thing in your social spheres, if someone makes a comment that you know is wrong, tell them it is wrong, these opinions persist not because they are popular, but because people, myself included at times, do not speak up. I’d like to end with a call to action, as I said above flood the op-ed section, he is loud but we are louder.