Posted on by Californiacontrarian

I Don’t Like Dat

“I don’t like dat,” spouts my two year old granddaughter. At what point do you explain to her that if she doesn’t like something, she does not have to use it, play with it, or eat it, but she cannot expect others to not use it, to not play with it, or to not eat it just because she “doesn’t like dat?” Just because she doesn’t like to play hopscotch, doesn’t mean that nobody else should play it. Just because she doesn’t like Curious George on T.V., doesn’t mean that her sister cannot watch it. Just because she doesn’t like tomatoes, doesn’t mean that they should not be grown in her parent’s garden. It’s probably not necessary to explain the intricacies of different likes and dislikes to her at age two or three, but I would hope that her parents, who are educators, would attempt some explanation before she is twenty-three!
Why age twenty-three? Well on the front page of this morning’s local “newspaper” there is a story about Savanah Lyon, a 23 year old theater major at U.C.San Diego.
Who is Savanah Lyon, and why is she on the front page?
She is a student at U.C.S.D. who is demanding that the school stop teaching a course on Woody Allen’s films because he has been accused, but never charged with, the sexual abuse of his daughter. Apparently Ms. Lyon noticed the class, “The Films of Woody Allen,” in a school catalog before she was actually a student at the school, and
and has recently started an online campaign to stop Professor Steven Adler from teaching this Woody Allen’s film course.
Lyon doesn’t believe that silencing Adler, the prize winning theater professor who teaches the course, violates the First Amendment, which she describes “as a law written by a bunch of white men. . . . It was written in the 1700s – the late 1700s. I mean those men were experiencing things that are completely different than they are now. (It’s) outdated” (Has U.C.S.D. lowered its admission standards?)
When asked how it was outdated, she replied, “Well it protected Donald Trump when he said – a breath of offensive things.” (“I don’t like dat!”)
Aha!! Now to me things become a bit more clear!
It seems that what we have here is a snowflake in Southern California; a snowflake who has collected 15,000 additional snowflakes with her online campaign and is now trying to build a snowman ( err, I mean a snow-person) in order to attract attention to her demands. (“If I don’t like hopscotch, then no one should be allowed to play hopscotch!!”) I wonder if she was ever taught about either likes and dislikes in general or the First Amendment in particular by her parents who also happen to be educators.
Speaking more generally, Angelo Corlett, an ethicist at San Diego State stated, “I am offended by people who are easily offended. People must get rid of the idea that they have a right not to be offended. There is no legal or moral right to it.”
Well, Professor Corlett, I am offended that the San Diego Union Tribune put this snowflake on the front page!

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