Build-a-Bear and Bullets

While American Sniper seems like an odd fit for Umix, in any film there is probably something to get upset about if you try hard enough: gender roles, sexualizing women, the options are endless. Sometimes it is hard to tell when these concerns are reasonable and not just an overreaction. This distinction can only be found through discussion. What is important about the American Sniper debate is that the initial protesters were not offered a legitimate platform for discussion because they were framed as enemies of free expression for trying to remove the film from Umix. However, it is important to point out that the protesters were not against universities showing films like American Sniper, it was the venue they had a problem with. They seemed to claim that Umix was a setting that limited some students voices more than others. So the debate is really about whether or not students can be expected to engage in this type of discussion without the University's prompting, and I would argue that the evidence seems to suggest we all need some serious help in this regard.

Following protests on campus, American Sniper was
replaced with less controversial film Paddington

While the American Sniper debate was a year ago, the Muslim versus American debate is continually recurring. Shortly after the Brussels terrorist attacks, "#StopIslam" appeared in chalk on the Diag. In fact the website from which I got the movie posters shown above has a tagline that reads: "It isn't Islamaphobia when they really ARE trying to kill you." These are extreme examples of what Iris Marion Young deems cultural imperialism or "how the dominant meanings of a society...stereotype one's group and mark it out as the Other." Minorities, such as Muslims, are often stereotyped into a homogeneous mass of opinion, which is especially dangerous when that opinion is defined as anti-American. As Mitch Hanson points out in his blog, the initial cancellation of the film was actually damaging to the minority students involved in the protest, because it added to the anti-American stigma surrounding the protesters. This allowed for the protesters to be painted as enemies of free speech and contributed to an otherness surrounding Muslim and other MENA students.

A cartoon that appeared in the Michigan Daily depicting the negative stigmas
 that were attributed to protesters after the cancellation ofAmerican Sniper

As Chantal Mouffe writes, "Politics aims at the creation of unity in a context of conflict and diversity...the aim of democratic politics is to construct the “them” in such a way that it is no longer perceived as an enemy to be destroyed, but an “adversary”...whose ideas we combat but whose right to defend those ideas we do not put into question." This clearly explicates what went wrong with the American Sniper debate; those against the movie were denied a legitimate platform of debate, instead they were marginalized and painted as 'the enemy.' Debates like this attribute to a separation of identities such as Muslim and American, because they make it seem impossible to be both, so by protesting American Sniper Muslims and other minority students are forced to alienate themselves. What happened with the protests surrounding Umix was the opposite of what Mouffe describes as the goal of democracy. Debate wasn't used to connect different groups, it was used to further the preconceived idea of minorities as a 'them' that has to be defeated.

This is such a severe failure because the University generally acknowledges that students need help in breaking the thinking that leads to these problems. That's why as freshman students are required to attend several events to learn about the importance of language, and how even unintentional actions can hurt people. They seem silly at first; my friends and I mocked the concept of a "microaggression" for months after sitting through over an hour of skits telling us how hurtful wishing someone "Merry Christmas" could be. But after reflecting on these events, what the University was trying to accomplish was breaking the cultural imperialism that Young describes. The events challenge students to view things through the lens of the Other and change behavior to be more inclusive.

Just one of the many work shops I was required to attend
 as a freshman on campus, intended to create
 a more inclusive University

I spoke to my friend Kenny Vi, a Community Assistant for one of the dorms, to ask what his perspective as a University employee was: "Freedom of speech can often be used to defend behavior that hurts a specific group, and it's important to fight the mindset of 'I can say whatever I want' to a more thoughtful perspective that considers how an individual's actions can hurt another person, and I don't think that happened in this instance." Kenny is responsible for making the dorms a more inclusive environment, and this includes organizing events to promote social justice (though he admits attendance is generally low). When asked if he thinks it is the University's duty to provide settings that promote understanding when situations such as the American Sniper debate occur he replied, "Of course the goal of college is to individually take charge of your education and social growth, and ideally people should be able to have these debates by themselves. But sometimes it's not easy to see past your privilege. You can hope for people to engage this stuff by themselves but high expectations doesn't mean anything will really change. When the University can help by providing targeted programs, it probably should." 

In my personal opinion it is hypocritically of the University not to provide for the protection of minority opinions in instances like the American Sniper debate. A solution to this problem will have to create a platform of sorts where students can engage one another and hopefully stop looking at each other as enemies that need to be overcome. I firmly believe that most students on campus want to be good allies to their fellow humans of every race, religion, and ethnicity. However, we need some help in learning how to do that.