READER’S EDITORIAL: HATE TABLOIDS AT LOCAL UNIVERSITIES MOCK VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE WITH RAPE “JOKES” AND RACISM

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By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

 
Warning: Adult content
 
 
 
 
October 3, 2011 (San Diego)--October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. So how did The Koala welcome in the month? Tabloid owner George Lee Liddle III of San Diego, released the latest issue of The Koala at Cal State University San Marcos (CSUSM), with the message that rape, violence, racism, homophobia, sodomy of minors and forced pornography are laughable entertainment. Students and faculty at CSUSM have had enough, and they are calling on members of all three San Diego County public university communities to take action.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Liddle and the predominantly white, heterosexual, male students who help produce Koala editions at San Diego State University (SDSU), University of California San Diego (UCSD), and CSUSM call the tabloids satire, but their content makes it clear that the publisher, writers and editors of The Koala don’t know satire from scripture.
 
What they are doing is not funny; it fails as satire; it has no redeeming features. What they are doing is purveying violence, prejudice and hate. They use these forms of violence to attract attention to The Koala and then snicker at the fear and outrage, the humiliation and damage that it causes. And they elicit these reactions from their victims with such content as the following (with The Koala’s errors intact):
 
Top Five Phrases Never Heard at CSUSM 4. I’ve never been raped before
 
Women secretly want to be raped
 
Why do Mexicans classify themselves as people? THEY ARE A F***ING SWARM OF BROWN S**T.
 
Dear koala, Does drugging and raping my roommate make me gay?
 
Top Ten Advantages To Dating An Underage Girl: 6. If you knock her teeth out, they grow back
 
Top Five Signs Your Girlfriend is Dead: 2. She stopped struggling under the rope
 
I couldn't tell if the fishy smell was escaping fromt the fridge or if all these beautiful azian women had some of the stankiest p****s ever
 
To black guys: make your c**ks smaller please.
 
Dilcie, go to the top of the parking structure and jump…
 
And, in the recent CSUSM issue, Liddle published an image of a female student leader who was running for Homecoming King, Photoshopped into a pornographic scene, with the following headline and copy:
 
Please ask and do tell … and take pictures
 
Remember those fantasies of Homecoming you had back in high school? Imagining what it would be like to have a “lezzed-out” homecoming court. Wishing that the Jock who won the title of King were actually an exotic and stunning babe that could scissor the s**t out of the queen?
 
In our rapidly changing times this dream has now become a reality. Thanks to the courageous and open-minded women who are running to be the Queen of King [student’s name redacted], we can all look forward to a Royal F**ting. The question remains, which princess will become the lucky Queen?
 
This is the product Liddle publishes and promotes on public university campuses, a product funded by commercial advertisers — and supported as a sanctioned student organization at UCSD.
 
And this is, statistics being what they are, what the 1,500 female students at CSUSM, the 3,675 at UCSD, and the 4,350 at SDSU who have been, are, or will be victims of domestic violence are subjected to each time The Koala is distributed.
 
Outrageous, eh? Are you outraged enough to do something about it?
 
Many of us are, and we are planning some actions that will protect First Amendment rights while attempting to protect students, faculty and staff from The Koala’s hate.
 
If you’d like to join us, visit www.CallOutTheKoala.com and subscribe to receive our updates or click the Call Out The Koala Facebook page Like button.
 
In the meantime, call The Koala advertisers and encourage them to stop funding hate. If you live in the same legislative districts as UCSD, call your state legislators and ask them to help UCSD find a way to stop lending public support to a hate tabloid passing as a student organization.
 
Whatever you do–
 
Do something. In the face of hatred, apathy will be interpreted as acceptance — by the perpetrators, the public and, worse, the victims. Decent people must take action; if we don’t, hate persists.                          Southern Poverty Law Center
 
 
Kit-Bacon Gressitt's commentary and political fiction can be read on her blog, Excuse Me, I'm Writing. She is host of Fallbrook's monthly Writers Read open mic and can be reached at kbgressitt@gmail.com
 
The views expressed in our readers’ editorials reflect the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of East County Magazine. To submit an editorial for consideration, contact editor@eastcountymagazine.org.
 
 

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