Student at an $80K College Takes to the School Paper to Complain About 'Cisgender Men' Installing Radiators in His 'Safe Space' Dorm
Source - A student at an $80,000-a-year ultra-liberal Oberlin College in Ohio claimed in an op-ed that he was left ‘angry, scared, and confused’ because ‘cisgender men’ installed a radiator in his ‘safe space’ dormitory.
Peter Fray-Witzer, a student enrolled at Oberlin College, posted an article in Friday's edition of The Oberlin Review in which he takes school administrators to task for giving him short notice about the installation.
Fray-Witzer writes that he asked a campus official if he could be exempt from having a radiator installed in his room so as to avoid the ‘intrusion.’ ...
He also complains that he felt ‘mildly violated’ and ‘a little peeved’ when the contractors returned to his dorm room the next day to ‘check the insulation.’ ...
Fray-Witzer adds in his op-ed that he was 'very averse to people entering my personal space.'
'This anxiety was compounded by the fact that the crew would be strangers, and they were more than likely to be cisgender men.' ...
Oberlin, the liberal arts college with a student body of 3,000, describes the dorm as 'a close-knit community that provides women and transgendered persons with a safe space for discussion, communal living, and personal development.'
OK, now here's the part where the Boomer comes along to "own the lib" and "destroy the snowflake" and yell at clouds about how weak Gen Z is.
Except that will not be me. I'm trying to be the OK Boomer. In my journey down the lonely path to achieving personal perfection, I'm efforting to be a better, more tolerant person. So Peter Fray-Witzer doesn't have my contempt. Or my disgust. Just my sincere and genuine sympathy.
This is a young man who's been let down. By our culture. Likely by his own family. Undoubtedly by his school. Because for the 80 grand that Oberlin is getting from his parents, the one thing they are not doing is what one pays a college to do: Prepare your child to live in the world. To assess it. To evaluate it. To adapt to it. And, to the extent possible, bend it to your will and establish your place it in.
Fray-Witzer is checking none of those boxes. And I truly feel bad for him. The fact that he's reached adulthood and still possesses a world view where he evaluates everyone according to whatever group identity he chooses to place on them instead of individual human beings, means a disservice has been done to him. The notion that he sees someone as a threat when they're merely doing a job but don't belong to whatever social tribe he's more comfortable with is a tragedy, if not outright hatred. That he can't even respect the very necessary skills these men are performing, means he's utterly unprepared for life in our times.
This is a real world example of those Eagles lyrics, "So oftentimes it happens when we live our lives in chains, and we never even know we have the key." And he's to be pitied, not hated back.
Thinking every one around you has to conform to your worldview and bend to your will is infantile. It's goddamned amazing this attitude has survived Kindergarten, never mind made it all the way to an $80,000 a year university. And while I have no idea how common this attitude is on campus, I can't think Fray-Witzer is the only one.
Maybe it's simple elitism. If so, at least that's been around forever. The students in this dorm may have perfected contempt for blue-collar workers, but they certainly didn't invent it. One of the best stories I've heard recently on this topic (and I apologize if I've told it before) involves Truman Capote. While known primarily as the author of such groundbreaking works as "In Cold Blood," Capote was also a raconteur, professional celebrity and a fixture on the talk show circuit back in the day. And openly gay, with a preference for what was sometimes referred to as "the rough trade." Big, burly men. Macho guys who worked with their hands. And the story goes that he brought his latest boyfriend to an elegant dinner party in England, attended by a lot of high society and literati types. While his date was in HVAC. So apparently all the elite, well-educated guests began looking down their noses at the guy. Making references they knew he wouldn't get and telling jokes they knew would go over his head. And generally being condescending.
That is, until the air conditioning broke. Then he became the only person in the room who mattered, because he had the knowledge and skills to solve the problem. And all that knowledge of Shakespeare and Chaucer the rest of them had picked up at Oxford and Cambridge was utterly useless when it came time to turn a wrench and get the compressor up and running.
I can't think of a more perfect story to illustrate the situation at the safe space dorm in Oberlin.
By no means am I anti-education. I've got two young adult sons at college as we speak. But I made it clear to both that if that wasn't their path, if they chose to pursue trades instead, I'd welcome that too. Once when they were little, we were getting a delivery of gravel from a giant industrial sized dump truck. And as the driver negotiated this behemoth around the narrow, 90-degree angle of our long driveway without so much as harming a blade of grass, I made them come with me to watch this guy at work so I could give a Dad Speech to them both. To remind them that it's people like that who make the world work. That the country is lousy with unnecessary worker drones who can be replaced in a heartbeat. Including their father. But that when one of these guys takes a day off, we're all screwed. And that goes for snowplow drivers, construction crews, truckers, plumbers and guys who install radiators in dorms. They make modern life possible. Without them, cities would be like 17th century London, with everyone dumping buckets of shit out their windows into the streets and spreading diseases everywhere.
Advertisement
What we don't need is voting age grownups hiding in their rooms terrified of the people trying to make them comfortable through the winter on their way to getting their degrees in Gender Studies. So sincerely, best wishes to this guy and anyone else who feels the same way as he does. And seriously, get professional help before you graduate. Life's not going to get any easier after you do.