A great deal of time and energy has been spent by many Guilford students in protesting the war. These protests have been genuine, heartfelt, and serious. At least up until now.
This weekend I was asked to “F*ck War” and party. So were you. Disgusted, I declined the invitation.
I would like to address the people behind the “F*ck War, Let’s Party!” flyers. These people papered our campus with profanity, insulting the legitimate efforts of those pushing for peace and those fighting on the front lines and even more so, insulting themselves. The “F*ck War, Let’s Party” group used this slogan to advertise for the Serendipity “Kick-Off Parade”.
This flyer makes light of the war, and asks students to participate in Serendipity as a form of protest. Isn’t that what “f*ck war” means? Reject it? Give up on it? Stand against it? Maybe I need to work on my basic slang.
Foam parties, “Peace Concerts,” drumming, mud wrestling and binge drinking are all in the name of Protest, at least according to the creators of the flyer. It’s funny because I thought that protest was supposed to be a serious thing. Like Rosa Parks not sitting at the back of the bus. But a foam party?
Perhaps you, creators of the flyer, think you are deserving of such a break. After all, you had to sit through – oh no – a few midterms. But wait, didn’t you just have a Spring Break? Mommy and Daddy flew you home, or maybe to Florida, Europe, or Cancun. No one went to Iraq or Baghdad, did they?
250,000 American troops went to Iraq. But, “F*ck War, Let’s Party!”, right?
Funny, I don’t hear any soldiers saying that. Soldiers who are securing the freedom of the Iraqi people and our country. Soldiers who are fighting for you.
But you are tired. You deserve Serendipity. After all, that 10-hour-a-week Work Study job is hard. And you had to write, like, five papers this week. You are tired, and burnt out. Your feet are freezing. You’ve been walking around barefoot since January in protest of – shoes?
So why not mud wrestle and go to a couple concerts, do a little underage drinking?
That’s not the problem. It is the total lack of respect and simple ignorance that you show by participating in these events under the banner: “F*ck War, Let’s Party!”
First, if you take the war seriously, and your efforts to stop the war, you have just thrown the integrity of your protests out the window. You are making yourselves look undedicated to your own cause, if indeed you mean to protest the war.
Second, you tainted the entire Serendipity weekend, not just the kick-off parade. I imagine that the Serendipity planning committee didn’t approve such a slogan. I certainly hope they didn’t.
There are better ways to get your point across. You are hurting yourselves by using that slogan as an advertisement for campus events. You are also hurting other people. It’s not only your shoeless, irresponsible comrades that see these postings.
Many elderly people, including several war veterans, come from the Friends Home to walk around this campus for exercise. Can you imagine the look on your Grandparent’s face if he or she saw this flyer hanging on your bedroom door? You are slapping Veterans of the Armed Forces directly in the face.
I am completely disgusted by the irresponsible, disrespectful display of profanity across our campus, particularly in the name of something as hedonistic as Serendipity. There are other ways to get your point across. Might I suggest the alternative slogan, “Forget War – Let’s Party”- it’s just as ignorant, but at least you aren’t needlessly slinging obscenities around.
I do want to take a moment to give the creators of the poster some credit for the ingenious prompting on the bottom of the poster to “please refrain from bringing weapons of mass destruction, fireworks, and profanity”, among other items. Some people might see this as a joke. I see it as simple ignorance and further disrespect toward both those fighting for our country, and those working toward peace.
Some people might think I am going a little bit overboard. We all need to have a little fun here and there, right? And I agree. Life does need to go on. Just like it did after our country was attacked at Pearl Harbor, or on 9/11.
Life needs to go on in a respectful way, particularly when we are delighting in the simple pleasures that so many people from our own country have sacrificed to keep such pleasures intact. To flagrantly display that we are enjoying such serendipitous pleasures blindly is disgusting.
It is times like this that I am ashamed to be a part of this generation, and so should you.