Free-for-All Speech at CSUSM
UPDATE: The Koala CSUSM editor-in-chief is not a CSUSM student. See more of the faces of The Koala below.
By Kit-Bacon Gressitt
The Koala, a tabloid launched last week by some California State University San Marcos (CSUSM) students, has achieved its publishers’ apparent goal: to inflame the university community with hate speech.
“Apparent” because, while The Koala has certainly engendered impassioned responses, the predominantly white males behind the publication have refused to discuss what it is they have wrought — or to identify themselves. At a recent recruitment meeting, they would not give their names and avoided being photographed; they moved the meeting to a private dorm room to exclude critics and news media; and they demanded 30-packs of beer from journalists who requested interviews, which, given their likely ages, smacks of soliciting criminal acts — and challenges their legitimacy as a newspaper, as they describe The Koala.
It is The Koala’s content (downloadable at csusmkoala.com) that most effectively challenges the newspaper claim. Just about every demographic — except straight, white males — is addressed with violent, prurient and/or grotesque language: gays and lesbians, women, rape and pedophilia victims, pediatric cancer and burn patients, African Americans, Latinos, Asians and Muslims. The Koala is a miasma of isms.
The Koala recommends used bikini wax as “lip balm for lesbos,” suggests leaving c-section incisions “open for easier future abortions,” and reports that one advantage of dating a 10-year-old girl is “If you knock her teeth out, they grow back.” It includes statements that glorify and encourage pedophilia, rape of a teaching assistant, domestic violence, date rape and physically assaulting campus police.
Anecdotally, the “reasonable person” test of The Koala’s content suggests that many CSUSM students and staff indeed find much of the content obscene — obscene and hateful. But obscenity remains in the eye of the beholder, and in the United States we can speak freely whether our speech is hateful, loving or indifferent.
More interesting are the test results of The Koala’s two advertisers, cougarbookrentals.com and Miramar Wellness Center — “interesting” because it takes funding to publish any speech.
The textbook-rental service is, according to bookrenter.com Vice President of Marketing Michael Geller (at 650-288-3500), an independent bookstore using bookrenter.com’s open platform, an “entrepreneur” who can “choose to market it any way they want.”
Nonetheless, when read content from The Koala, Geller’s response was, “Oh! Oh god! Okay, that’s enough!” An articulate man — and pragmatic — he disavowed any responsibility for cougarbookrental’s ad and declared that bookrenter.com “would never, ever, ever” advertise in The Koala. He also said, “I’m going to contact the owner of [csusmbookrentals.com] and first make sure he or she is aware of what this is all about.” Then the company will “evaluate whether or not we should attempt to restrict our store partners’ advertising.” Whether or not? Hmmm.
The Miramar Wellness Center (at 858-689-9098), a marijuana dispensary, had a slightly more definitive response. An employee who did not identify herself said the Wellness Center had received “a lot of upset calls, a whole lot” and that the manager would not take any more, but she added, “I heard [the ad] was a mistake and they are trying to get it removed.”
That’s promising, but, in the meantime, what to do about the privileged young men who publish hate with anonymity?
Read The Koala so you can make informed comments about it (available at csusmkoala.com). Although the thing is no joy, condemning something you haven’t read is shallow commentary. And ignorance is not bliss.
Contact The Koala’s advertisers to reinforce the message that their ad dollars are supporting content that encourages pedophilia, racism, misogyny, rape and domestic violence. If a second issue comes out, contact any new advertisers. Eventually The Koala publishers will run out of businesses they can dupe into supporting them, if they haven’t already. Any advertisers left deserve to be boycotted.
State your opinion of The Koala freely and frequently. The right to free speech goes both ways: They have the right to speak and you have the right to criticize what they say — maybe even the responsibility. Hate that goes unchallenged goes on and on and on.
Call or email CSUSM President Karen Haynes’ office (760-750-4040 or pres@csusm.edu) to ask what the administration can do about the content that promotes rape and pedophilia; how they can protect students under age 18 from The Koala’s obscene content; and what they can do about students who appear to be below the drinking age soliciting alcohol on campus.
Identify, if you can, the fellows involved with The Koala, in the photos below. They are accountable for the speech they publish. No one — white, male student or anyone else — has the privilege of anonymous hate masquerading as “lighthearted humor.” If they can say it, they can own it for all the world to see.
Then, find some peace in this thought: What goes on the Internet stays on the Internet, and one day in the next few years The Koala’s publishers will be looking for jobs in competitive marketplaces where respect for diversity, social maturity and the ability to self-edit will be deciding factors for employment. These young men have already round-filed their job applications by exercising a most wonderful right irresponsibly.
Free speech is a messy, exquisite, ugly, glorious and precious free-for-all; comeuppance is delicious.
Love,
K-B
The Koala staff: George Liddle, editor-in-chief of The Koala at CSUSM and a former editor-in-chief of The Koala at UCSD (circa 2002 — probably not a CSUSM student, eh?); and CSUSM students identified to date Aaron Jaffe, Scott Middough, Blake MacKenzie, a Jeff W. and…
Scott Middough (l) and Blake MacKenzie (r)
Anyone know the other two fellows?
Read more about this topic: The Cowardice of Hate.
Crossposted at the OB Rag and San Diego Gay and Lesbian News.
Hey xxxxxxx, staff don’t write this, they merely work layout, editing and ad sales. They don’t supply content. If you maybe actually read the paper first you beforehand, you would prob understand, but you dont so that makes you a complete xxxxx. Students send in their stories, content and comments, The Koala an organization, now growing with more members as we speak posts it on the koala newspaper in which you think is trash. You must be completly xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx.
Oh, indeed, I read the entire thing and talked with some of you all, although you were not very forthcoming. If you actually read my column, you would know I did not indicate who wrote the content. I addressed you all as the publishers that you are. And, as The Koala‘s publishers, you are fully responsible for the content, as I am responsible for the content of this site. Hence, my removal of your profanity.
I opted against correcting the many mistakes in your writing, however, because it is so effectively emblematic of your publication and the thought process that goes into it.
BTW: Be forewarned, anymore profanity from you all, and I will not publish your comments. It would be irresponsible to do so. And I will only publish your comments with your names and confirmation of your identify.
Love,
K-B
I was directed here since I am writing an article about the Koala for the Pride newspaper. After reading through your piece I noticed some very clever play on words that are clear violations of the journalistic code of ethics that I have been taught. Is it truly educated to say that the Koala is suggesting and recommending how to commit acts of assault, rape, pedophilia, racism, etc.? In reading the top 5 lists where the majority of these comments were made, nowhere in there does it state that “This is how you _____.” I feel that you are stretching and reaching for controversy and in doing so you have allowed your personal bias to affect your journalism.
Also after perusing your site I did not notice any commentary on Comedy Central, CNN, or even the local news. I say this because using your logic as applied to the Koala, each of these media outlets provide “instruction and suggestion” on how to commit certain acts. Certainly you are not suggesting that because CNN reports on how Egyptians are rioting that CNN is now suggesting that Americans riot. Or how John Gardner despicably took the lives of two young ladies that KFMB is now suggesting that viewers commit the same heinous acts.
I applaud your efforts in providing a journalistic report but not how you are going about them with underhanded tactics to serve your own bias. Post this or not, know that a fellow journalist is disappointed in you.
It is reassuring to know that bright and curious members of the community take interest in the unfortunate choices of those who purport to offer “journalistic” information and entertainment at our local academic instituions. Thank you for informing, K-B, and keep the camp fires of intelligence and decency burning brightly.
Dear Aaron Jaffe,
Thanks for commenting on my site some days ago. Since our email exchange, I’ve learned that you are not, in fact, “writing an article about the Koala for the Pride [CSUSM campus] newspaper,” but, rather, you are writing an unsolicited article that you want The Pride to publish, as, according to the paper’s editors, your current role is that of volunteer photographer, not writer.
As I wrote to you before, your comments have put you in the awkward position of indicating a personal bias about a subject you claim to be reporting on. And, to add some context to your comments that you failed to reveal: You are on The Koala staff.
As for your suggestion that it is I, not you, who have failed to honor journalistic standards, you might not be aware that the standards for commentary, which is what I write, and for news are distinct. Check the national society of newspaper columnists to learn about the standards to which opinion columns are held.
On a couple of your other points:
1. I have indeed criticized major media outlets for encouraging — even inciting — bad behavior in their audiences. However, I know you’re on a deadline, so searching through several years of columns is probably not an option for you. Nonetheless, your statement about that is incorrect.
3. I challenge your point about a “clever play on words.” There was no “play” happening there, but, rather, the clear and direct statement of my opinion (it is an opinion piece, remember, not reportage). Presenting pedophilia, rape, racism, homophobia, etc, as The Koala does, attempting to portray such acts as humor, directly diminishes the horror of these acts, thus encouraging their normalization and, eventually, for some, their perpetration.
You and I can agree to disagree on the potential outcome of the type of speech in The Koala, but I write commentary, so I have the joy of spouting my opinion.
As you claim you are writing an article, you have a very different task, and I look forward to seeing how well you honor the standards to which you should be held.
Thanks again for writing,
K-B
I liked this article when I read it in The Pride, K-B. I’m glad to have had some company in my stance on The Koala (my letter can be found here: http://csusmpride.com/2011/02/08/letter-to-the-editor/). Also, thanks for providing some names and faces to attach to the responsibility for The Koala.
Hi, James,
Nice letter to the editor! While the the Koalan owners, George Lee Liddle III and Sammy Elhag encourage their student fronts on the various campuses to behave irresponsibly, which they do with crude enthusiasm, it’s nice to see the significantly larger body of students take responsibility for calling the publications’ content what it it.
READERS: Here is James’ letter to the editor of the CSUSM Pride student newspaper:
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Several negative comments in The Koala about students who commute to school suggest that its mission is to create campus solidarity. If more people lived on campus, it seems to say, there wouldn’t be such a “boring ghostly atmosphere” at CSUSM. “No longer will school spirit deteriorate,” not as long as The Koala is around, right?
The Koala touts itself as “the shot in the arm” that is necessary to effect a sense of community on campus. However, the paper’s language is racist, sexist, and homophobic, and this language is not something that brings people together. Rather, it is something that strengthens and perpetuates the divides between people—such rhetoric of intolerance benefits no one. (It is, however, a hallmark of fascism, as is The Koala’s militaristic imagery. I’m just saying.)
Although I disagree with The Koala, I respect the creators’ right to produce it. But, who are the creators? The paper is credited to such mysterious entities as “General George” and “Captain Clutch,” and the articles aren’t credited to anyone at all. When it comes to producing something as potentially controversial as The Koala, I would argue that you’re duty-bound to put your real name on it. Freedom of speech is as much a responsibility as it is a right. John Hancock didn’t use a cute pseudonym when he signed the Declaration of Independence—he signed his name in huge letters, as if to say, “This is my right as a human, so come and get me, England.” I challenge the producers of The Koala to do the same: if you’re so proud of it, put your names on it, and insist that your contributors do the same. Otherwise, your freedom to print The Koala is as stale and base as your paper’s content.
Sincerely,
James Jones
A friend pointed me to this article, & even though this is about 3 months overdue, I felt like I should still let you know that the unknown covering his face with a binder in Matt Weaver.