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My friend, Jason Nix, writes for the Opelika-Auburn News, a central-Alabama newspaper... He sent me his latest article this morning, with his permission to distribute! Enjoy!
Jeff,
Thought you might enjoy this week's column. Anyone who has lived in Auburn knows exactly what I'm talking about.
Jason
P.S. Feel free to distribute
Frat boys no longer listen to the Grateful Dead
JASON NIX
The Opelika-Auburn News
The first Kerry/Edwards campaign sign I placed in my front lawn was stolen within four days.
In the six days since, I've stopped two additional thefts. In each case, I found a pair of college-aged guys driving expensive trucks parked in front of my home, passenger door open. Seeing me, each pair sped away before completing the theft.
Since I give the Democratic Party a few more dollars each time I get a new sign, these thefts make as much sense as buying French wine to pour into the street.
Yet these students' need to destroy any sign that people might disagree with them overrides their reason.
Those of us who've worked for everything we've ever received have a hard time understanding the motivation and attitude of spoiled college students.
They cruise around Auburn in the $40,000 four-wheel-drive pickups their parents bought them for high school graduation. In order to ensure they'll be accepted into the pack, they pay someone to outfit these trucks with the requisite loud exhaust, lift kit and chrome brush guards.
On the back window, each carefully places his Ducks Unlimited decal on the left side, Browning decal on the right. He sticks the gold Greek letters representing his fraternity in the middle of his truck's window, precisely four to six inches from the bottom.
In the last four months, the black decal with the white "W" has entered the list of required back-window flair. The Widespread Panic sticker remains optional.
Although none of them hold a job, they seem to have an unlimited amount of money to spend on cargo shorts and fleece vests at Abercrombie & Fitch and the GAP. The closest they ever come to individual expression is when they decide what color Croakies to wear.
The problem I have with these students is not their privilege; it's their lack of authenticity. Despite what they might think, they're not rednecks because rednecks actually work for a living. Hunting deer a few times per year with the best equipment money can buy does not a country boy make.
They attend college, but my experience at Auburn leads me to believe that few take seriously the opportunity they have to learn. More often than not, they do the barest minimum for four or five years before graduation. After this, they use their parents' connections to secure a job.
Although they place Bush stickers on their cars and steal signs, they're definitely not political activists. They express only those political views which allow them to secure their place within the dominant social order.
Students who are already wealthy by 18 or 20 have found their hero and representative in George W. Bush: the poster child for privilege, family connection and unearned wealth.
Rather than learn from the challenge posed by opposing political views, they gain all of their identity through inclusion into their peer group. Opposing points of view remind them they're not the center of the universe, even in Alabama.
This is a learned behavior. When I first moved here, several adults wrote me letters saying that, because Auburn is "Republican country, and will stay that way," I was not welcome here. Never mind that this area is not as solidly Republican as many would like to believe; Bush won Alabama by a margin of less than
15 percent in 2000.
It's been my experience that those who try to silence others' political or religious views do so only because they feel very uncomfortable defending their own, and that they're rarely successful in either endeavor.
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