Watch it, that last step’s a doozy.
The last column I wrote rustled some feathers, folks. Who would’ve thought that a millennial could’ve gotten people talking about an important subject by writing? I know, crazy stuff.
But here we are, two weeks out from the gender neutral pronoun debacle, and still talking about it. I’ve already given my two cents, so I won’t take up any more of your time with that. There are plenty of other voices that need to be heard, especially members of the LGBTQ+ community — so I’ll leave it to them. The conservatives don’t agree with me, and that’s fine. Progress doesn’t happen overnight, so I ask my nonconforming classmates to please be patient with those that aren’t so quick to see your perspective. We’re all humans, and therefore, we’re all stubborn.
This debate has, more than anything, raised the question of tradition. Tradition is something that many people in this area hold dearly. Tradition is Rocky Top, Volapalooza, running through the T, painting The Rock, making fun of Jimmy Cheek, frat guys streaking through Pres Court and roasting marshmallows on the Torchbearer’s flame. Tradition is what makes up our culture here, and without it, UT wouldn’t be the special place that it is.
However, tradition isn’t always a good thing. Tradition is what some South Carolinians used to defend flying the Confederate flag over the state capitol. Tradition is what Kim Davis used to deny gay couples the right to marry in rural Kentucky. Tradition is why Governor George Wallace stood in the way of black students from registering at the University of Alabama. Tradition does not carry any inherent good with it. Traditions are the practices we choose to repeat as a society, and if we follow them blindly, we are allowing ourselves to be bound by previous generations.
If you stand to protect “tradition,” you are not necessarily defending a worthy cause. You must justify why the traditions you hold so dearly are worth defending. In this ever-changing world that is being left to us by our parents and grandparents, we must learn to think for ourselves and chart new paths for humanity. Our ancestors have seen slavery, racism, xenophobia and war. We do not have to be the same. We can do better, and to do that, we have to change.
The reason the pronoun stuff became such a big deal is because it got people scared. People, especially in this area of the country, don’t like to see change. They fear change and when it happens, they oppose it. How else could you explain the local response to an internal email? Of the many comments I read on social media, several criticized the very existence of an office for diversity. Only 7.5 percent of students are black compared to the staggering 80 percent for white students, and the stats for other races are even more dismal. It seems to me that the Office of Diversity is needed now more than ever.
One of the most important things you’re supposed to learn in college is the ability to critically think for yourself, to see different perspectives. Do not fear change just because it is change, just as you shouldn’t accept tradition just because it’s tradition. We don’t owe the previous generations anything. They’ve left us a planet in dire straits, an economy that isn’t exactly booming and foreign wars which we never should’ve been a part of. History doesn’t have to repeat itself. We can look out for one another, listen to each other’s problems, have intelligent dialogue about issues and work together to solve them. That’s what it means to be a Volunteer. That’s what it means to be an American. That’s what it means to be a human.
Thomas Carpenter is a senior in classics. He can be reached at[email protected].
