Posted on 05/12/2005 11:00:15 AM PDT by EnigmaticAnomaly
College Park, Md., (CNSNews.com) - Students at the University of Maryland in College Park on Wednesday experienced what some called the graphic realities of discrimination in a display called the Tunnel of Oppression. Others called it vulgar.
The tunnel consists of about a half-dozen often graphic museum-like displays that focus on what organizers consider different forms of oppression. Several universities such as the University of Nevada Las Vegas, Ohio State University and Illinois State University use the Tunnel of Oppression as part of their diversity programs.
The program last appeared at the University of Maryland in 2000. But the "mixed responses from students and campus administrators ... ultimately prevented it from occurring in subsequent years," according to the website operated by the university's associate provost for equity and diversity.
The website stated that the tunnel is "a way to bring the realities of oppression into a full sensory experiential manner." It warns that the display "is often shocking and disturbing to those who have never experienced blatant forms of discrimination and oppression."
Some displays show graphic pictures of the effects of "female circumcision," a practice in some African cultures that is referred to as "female genital mutilation." Others use videos that show fully nude women screaming as they are raped.
Before entering the display, students are encouraged to "keep an open mind throughout the display." They are also informed that trained counselors are waiting on the other side if students are disturbed by their experience.
Gina Garcia, one of the tunnel coordinators, said the shock value is part of the intent of the display. "If you just provide a lot of factual stuff, you're only connecting with people cognitively. This is supposed to be very much of the effect, we're supposed to be getting to people's emotions," she said.
Garcia, a 27-year old graduate student, said the display was intended to promote awareness of oppression. "It's not supposed to be the end all, be all, diversity program," she said. "It's just supposed to create awareness around issues of oppression that [are] facing all of us."
Garcia said the use of images such as realistic vomit in a toilet at the bulimia display and papier mache legs representing a black man being dragged behind a truck are not intended to "create too much discomfort, but a little discomfort so where people think a little bit more."
Many of the displays employ 3-dimensional graphics, including a woman under a glass ceiling, a Ku Klux Klan member, a toilet bowl full of condoms and a phallic symbol representing a sex change operation.
Garcia said students doubling as section coordinators were encouraged to make the display multi-sensory, "so that it does touch people in different ways."
After venting their feelings about the display, students were offered materials by national groups like Planned Parenthood, the Southern Poverty Law Center and various student groups purporting to fight against the oppression of women, homosexuals and minorities.
Nasim Nabily, a 22-year-old senior at the university and a member of the campus's College Republicans, said the display "wasn't [her] kind of thing." She said she felt like some of the displays were vulgar.
Nabily went through the Tunnel of Oppression as an assignment for a leadership class she is taking at the university.
"They had some pretty disturbing pictures of stuff like abortions and breast implant surgeries," Nabily said, adding that such extreme images might turn off people with different political or cultural views.
"They actually did a good job as far as if you're into that kind of stuff," Nabily said. "It's [probably] pretty interesting to those kind[s] of people." She complimented the creation, saying it was obvious that students put in a lot of work, but added that it just did not move her much.
Garcia said she had not heard of any extreme responses to the display, but added with a laugh that it was early and that anything could happen. "It's getting you to think, even if you're emotionally upset," Garcia said. "You're like, 'Okay but here's why [I'm angry]. Let me talk through that.'"
The tour
A display on abortion includes signs for Planned Parenthood encouraging students to "Stop Bush's War on Women." But the same display describes in graphic detail the process of different kinds of abortions and their effects on the women and their unborn children.
A data poster claims that 3 to 5 percent of women are left sterile after abortions, 55 percent experience guilt and 44 percent develop nervous disorders.
Passing through a curtain, viewers come to a display relating the oppression of blacks and other racial minorities. It includes large posters with numerous racial slurs targeting minority groups.
Viewers are met with a large 3-dimensional display of a modern day lynching. A cardboard cut-out of a Ford pickup truck shows a confederate battle flag in the back window and a license plate that reads: "BIGGOTS." Underneath the truck is a pair of black papier mache legs, meant to represent James Byrd, the African American who in 1998 was dragged to his death behind a truck by three white men in Jasper, Texas.
A tribute to Matthew Shepard, a homosexual man killed in Wyoming in 1998, includes a video of singer Elton John paying tribute to victims of so-called "hate crimes." The display promotes hate crimes legislation and answers critics of such laws. "Hate crimes laws don't privilege a certain class of victims; they punish a certain class of criminals," the signs say.
Homosexual "oppression" is represented by a "Wall of Shame," featuring pictures and quotes from religious, political and social leaders like Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan, former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, Jerry Falwell, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Mel Gibson and the late former Green Bay Packers player Reggie White. According to the display, all of them have exhibited extreme anti-homosexual sentiments.
The final section of the tunnel makes other miscellaneous assertions. It accuses the now-outdated Food and Drug Administration Food Pyramid of being racist because it encouraged eating 2 to 3 servings of dairy products every day, even though, according to the display, minorities are disproportionately lactose intolerant.
The Food Pyramid was recently replaced by a variety of new pyramids tailored to different lifestyles.
Garcia said she hopes the display would spur change in and around the University of Maryland, the program would continue in College Park in future years and that it would expand to more campuses as well.
Your chickens get paid?
Forgive the flippancy, but a visit to Ground Zero in Manhattan is a more moving and effective display of "intolerance" and "oppression" than any of the students could ever create.
He gets paid in chickens.
Gee, I wonder if they included any videotape of the vicious beating that Reginald Denny received during the LA riots?
And, since it is a given that they didn't, I wonder why not, hmmmmmmm?
I saw this on an episode of South Park.
Tunnel of Intolerance
Cartman learned some new racial slurs.
Oh, THANK THE LORD for small miracles! What would we ever do without trained counselors when we no longer have mother's apron strings to hide behind???
Good point!
I can see why old-timers didn't put much value in a college "education."
Poultry or paltry? Do you work for KFC or something?
Isn't diversity grand? Besides the KKK'er, I am surprised they did not display a white man holding a Bible in one hand, and a gun in the other.
"my chickens get paid, but very little."
I suspect fowl pay...
They make it sound as if the James Byrd murder is commonplace, or that all whites would do that if they could.
The Planned Parenthood display actually sounds like it is unintentionally making abortion sound like a bad thing.
That's actually fairly amazing ... They may be leftist scumbags, but they're not totally dishonest leftist scumbags.
LOL! I read this story and wondered if the idea came from South Park.
ROFLMAO!! Sorry to bust your chops here, just funnin' ya!
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