Disrespectful students need to shape up

By Frank Visco
Collegian Editor
October 3, 2007

Wednesday’s on my list.

As senior editor, I function as third in charge on the Collegian staff. Despite this, I do not, like my two superiors, read every article before publication. Busy with other production activities on Tuesday nights, I only read several of our stories, usually at the behest of Queen Brodbeck. Thus, like our readership, I encounter many of our stories for the first time when the Collegian hits newsstands.

As I leafed through the Collegian this past week, eyes aglow, I had the same general reaction I do every week. I noticed some articles that shouldn’t run, due to lack of competent reporting or lack of coherent narrative, while also glossing over some seemingly worthwhile stories that just didn’t entirely pique my interest. However, as is always the case, I became aware of several little surprises, articles so good that they make a big Charlie Brown-like half circle form on my face.

For the second straight week, my little surprise (as I call it) was not produced by the Collegian staff, but was instead found in a letter to the editor. Last issue it was Tamia Robinson’s thought-provoking letter about her former partner Dante Barnes. This past issue, D.W. Stahl stepped up to the plate.

In sum, his letter lamented the fact that students at the Sept. 21 football game displayed disrespect during the National Anthem. The problematic actions he noticed were aplenty—“talking, walking around, laughter, joking, whistling and hats not being removed”— and he asserted that such actions disrespected the veterans in attendance, as well as the nation as a whole.

I applaud the courage he exhibited in voicing his dismay and challenging the student body to improve. However, that said, his letter has raised another question: Are we, as a student community, bad Americans?

Obviously, our age group has received a lot of national criticism for our alarming political apathy. Over the past five years, study after study has pointed this out, and pundits, as well as the media, have criticized college-aged students for a variety of things, particularly our inability to show up in strong numbers at the voting polls. However, while political apathy is a problem in its own right, it’s not really at the core of what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is much more basic than that—a base-level lack of respect for the country.

Stahl’s letter may seem trivial to some, but it raises an important point. What does it say about our society that we can’t donate a measly two minutes of time to reflect on the freedoms we are afforded because of the hard work and bloodshed of our forefathers? This is especially worrisome, because in this era of uncertainty, such reflection may be needed more than ever.

In correlation with Stahl’s story, I offer one of my own: There are currently two American flags sitting in the Collegian office. These flags were found on 9/11, and were undoubtedly lifted from a remembrance event. I found one of them in the trashcan in the men’s bathroom outside of the Gold Card office, while the other was found discarded around campus.

When I initially saw a flag in the trashcan I was disheartened. Not exactly a “politically minded” person, I still could not believe my eyes, especially considering the date, so in a gut reflex I snatched the flag from the trashcan. In that moment, I discovered that our community wasn’t just politically apathetic, but, even worse, someone had gone out of their way to throw a flag in the garbage.

In no way do I mean to make a mountain out of a molehill (although I do think such treatment of the flag is deplorable). However, I tell this story to illustrate a point of my own: based on these incidents, our age group is being given too much credit when we are derided for political apathy. After all, how can college-aged people be expected to be politically active, when they can’t even sing the National Anthem or respect the flag, the symbol of our nation? Doing so seems as silly as requesting that a small child recite Dante’s Inferno before learning to talk at all.

Clearly things are even worse than expected, and so my hopes are that our age group will make baby steps toward maturity. Eventually, we (my politically inept self included) will hopefully take our heads out of our asses and get involved in the political game, so that we can, as the leaders of tomorrow, help shape a better America. However, until that day comes, I challenge our age group to at least respect the history of our nation and the beauty of democracy. Otherwise we’ll be no more civilized than babies.

viscof1@lasalle.edu