This is not news. This is a column.
Passive aggressiveness gets on my nerves.
“You have your opinion, and I have mine.”
“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
Statements like that essentially make up the Southern pseudo-polite way to prove that you would rather stay quiet and duck out of the way of conflict rather than engage people in productive conversation. Instead of this frustrating deference and fear of hurting feelings making you seem polite or like the “bigger person,” this sentiment frustrates the crucial exchange of ideas that makes communication actually meaningful.
The opinion section of The Daily Mississippian exists in order to start conversations.
Although it manages to offend some of you on such a fundamental, existential level that you ask for it to not even be delivered to you any longer, The Daily Mississippian’s purpose is to inform rather than alienate you.
The opinion section is sandwiched between several pages of reporting on issues and events unique to this university and the city of Oxford.
By all means, if you pick up this paper at all, read the actual news first — allow the newspaper to do for you what it intends to do every time it gets printed, and only allow the written ramblings of your peers to inflame your senses after that.
Be careful and engaged readers. Have a filter that allows you to pick out what is important, what is legitimate, what is a mistake when you give something your attention.
You do not have to like everyone, and you definitely do not have to respect every opinion ejected into the atmosphere, but it is dangerous to shut out the opportunity for exchange and critical thinking because something you read might challenge you or make you feel uncomfortable. Stay woke, fam.
If you can believe it, not everyone on campus is a fan of my opinion pieces, a fact that I would tell you keeps me up late at night if I felt like lying to you. To be quite frank, I do not care whether or not you care about mine — I am merely a human, attempting to graduate and resisting the urge to self-immolate, just like everyone else.
“Why does The DM publish this trash?!” you Tweet angrily in response to mine and whomever else’s commentary.
The Daily Mississippian, being a newspaper and possessing the prerogative to stamp whatever text it wants on this newsprint in your hands or on your browser, has an opinion section, and thus hires writers to fill it, and, unlike some of you, does not feel the need to silence my commentary on sexuality, gender, race or whatever else I feel like saying.
In fact, despite my misgivings about some of the thoughts of my fellow opinion writers, The DM does not feel the need to silence them, either, or any of you when you choose to write letters to the editor.
Welcome to Obama’s America, where, regardless of what your one aunt publishes on Facebook, public discourse exists, and more than that, it matters.
Do not get caught in the passive cycle. Engage in public discourse, and try not to shut down opportunities for real discussion. We all will be better for it.
Sierra Mannie is a junior classics major from Ridgeland.
