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`Intolerance´ of intolerance
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By Mike Cuenca | May 24, 2001
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I must confess: I am "intolerant."
I'm passionately "intolerant" of: prejudice, discrimination, racism,
sexism, ageism, ability-ism, sexual orientation-ism, anti-semitism,
religion-ism, placism, cultural elitism, colonialism, intellectual
sloth, avarice, xenophobia, criminal violence, institutional violence
and cultural violence.
The list goes on, but you get the point.
I'm passionately "intolerant" of: public officials who lie to their
constituencies; University administrators who abuse their power to
oppress and ostracize political foes; University administrators who
commit acts of fraud to further their personal and political agendas;
anyone who sits in silence while surrounded by injustice; those who
would oppress another´s free expression and people who don´t know the
difference between "intolerance" and "intolerance."
If more people were "intolerant" of moral crimes, maybe we wouldn´t
have had such things as the Jewish Holocaust in Europe or the genocide
occurring around the world today. Maybe we would have social justice.
Since Hemenway took charge in 1995, this University has faced 29 civil
rights lawsuits in federal court. The previous administrations, back to
1988, had faced only 10. Maybe if more of us were "intolerant" of the
unrestrained institutional violence against women and people of color
here, we wouldn´t have seen the number of civil rights lawsuits jump.
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Originally published by the University Daily Kansan.
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