What’s Racist, What’s Satire?
A dust-up at Tufts University has stirred the questions of who is allowed to make fun of whom, the limits of political correctness, the value of satire and the potential offensiveness of satire as well.
Alice Pang, a candidate for Community Union Senate, created posters advertising her campaign. “ALICE PANG” is printed across the top and beneath this, “small person. big ideas.” Pang’s picture is below this next to “Hurrah!” in parenthesies, and below that, “2013 senate; vote on thursday.” In an effort to poke fun at the what he percieved as excessive political correctness on campus, In-Goo Kwak, a student from South Korea, made a similar poster featuring his name and photo. He’s not running for Community Union Senate though. His tagline is “squinty eyes. BIG VISION.” Next to his picture is (“Kimchi!”) and on the bottom of the poster is “Prease vote me! I work reary hard!”
Predictably, many Tufts students are upset by Kwak’s poster. A number of organizations signed a letter denoucing Kwak’s action, and the director of the campus Asisan Center called him to complain on behalf of other students. Kwak seems bemused by the whole situation, noting that none of the offended students spoke directly to him (in fact, he attended a meeting on the subject unrecognized so he could hear what students thought of his parody). Kwak said he appologized to Pang, and she graciously accepted. He also finds it odd that many students expect him to be punished for an action he feels is protected by the First Amendment.
For its part, the Tufts administration has been taking a watch-and-wait stance, letting students discuss the situation without interference.
Have you faced issues such as this on your campus? Where’s the line between free speech and hate speech? Is that line a blurry one? How did you (or your administration) handle the situation?
Tags: Ethics, Free Speech, Multiculturalism