COLUMN: Just Kidding Around

From Adam Scioli's "The Old Boys' Club," Fall '93 From Adam Scioli's "The Old Boys' Club," Fall '93Friends kid friends. In my house, when an Irish housemate took off on a class trip to Boise, Idaho we all told him that there was no need to fear another potato famine. How loose one can be with language defines to some extent how comfortable that person is with his peers. However, perhaps our forefathers were more prudent than we. It used to be that a "gentleman" would never incorporate such language into his vocabulary. Not with friends. Not with relatives. Not with anyone. When has it become more acceptable for "educated" people to sling such loaded tags at each other, language that once was a sure mark of ignorance? Just the other day in the weightroom I couldn't help but overhear two black athletes joking with one another. They kept addressing each other as "nigger." Both of them were laughing. When I turned to them and told them that that was the type of language that could get a white boy killed, they laughed in a sort of confirmatory way and one of them answered, "You bet." I continuously witness my Jewish friends rail on each other in a lighthearted fashion, "Jew" this or "Jew" that, or "That's because we're Jews." I hate to think of the stir that would be caused if that type of language were exchanged between Jewish and Gentile students arguing at a campus function. On the other hand, I have heard legitimate street fights between people of the same ethnic or racial background in which such language was used not in jest but rather out of hate for one another. At a recent family gathering, a Jewish relative of mine, when describing another Jewish neighbor with whom he was having continual problems in his apartment building, said that he was "Nothing but a dirty Jew-Kike!" I had never heard anything like that uttered by the lips of a Jewish mouth. I was shocked, as were my parents. The only comparison I could make came out of witnessing fights between blacks where the word "nigger" was used as scathingly as a saber in a sword fight. So what's the difference? I see none. It is clear to me that my friends are able to play games with me and that I can reciprocate. I also have a strong feeling that there exists in one's gut an internal gauge that serves to measure a line not to be crossed. It is difficult to say exactly where that line lies, but it is most certainly there. Sometimes the line shifts up and down a tolerance scale depending upon one's mood or other intangible factors. Certainly things were a lot easier when society knew for certain that such behavior was unacceptable. There is a certain element of chance that one must choose whether or not to toy with before engaging in such dialogue, as a result of this newfound "freedom." After all, no one can deny that there is hardly a topic more sensitive than that of a person's race or ethnicity. Often times it is very hard to predict what type of response a comment will elicit, in which case the response is better left unsolicited. But still, friends joke. What on face looks offensive is really a sign of respect and understanding of another's race, ethnicity, or religion. But when people of different backgrounds don't laugh together, they probably don't have much of a basis for interaction. Ethnic and racial divisions are not intrinsically wrong. Rather, it seems only natural that a person find comfort in "his own." The danger in these divisions or self-separation occurs at the point at which a person feels uncomfortable around anyone other than people of his own faith, race, or ethnicity. Unfortunately I see a lot of this happening at Penn. Why is it that a black student at an Ivy League university is pressured by his peers, both black and white, to justify his having chosen a "white" fraternity? Why further must a gentile fear or be discouraged from joining a "Jewish" house? Who makes these "rules," and would anyone other than a coward succumb to or enforce them? Why are some people so afraid of intermingling? In 1962, my father was pressured by the Italian fraternity to pledge his allegiance. He decided against their plea, and they felt betrayed by their fellow Italian-American. My father explained to me that he liked those guys. He had nothing against them. But they were the same kids he grew up with in "the neighborhood." It was time for him to branch out and didn't feel particularly guilty for any extended period of time. But the fact was that the pressure was still there. Perhaps as a community we at Penn have not done an adequate job in opening up real opportunities. Instead, people continually seek the security blanket that they think they are going to find by sticking with what they perceive as "their own." These past four years of our college experience we have had the fingers of the hand of "diversity" wringing our impressionable little necks. Maybe people decided that there was something wrong with being coerced into accepting one another. Perhaps some decided that this new push for sensitivity was reason to believe in holding on to the bonds of our obvious "differences." Could it be that all this talk has gone so far as to have the reverse effect of stirring animosity among the student masses – of adding fuel to a fire that had not quite been extinguished but was merely smoldering? Rather than trudging down the beaten path of the past, Penn should be helping people with obvious intellectual compatibility find each other. In the name of diversity, groups have gelled around themselves. This is perfectly fine, to an extent. But on the flip side, such behavior leads to concrete enclaves that discourage exchange. Naturally, this fosters an ambiance of mistrust in which we stop talking to each other and start emphasizing our differences at the expense of our similarities. It has come time to find the true meaning of diversity – to recognize that although we may have things about ourselves and our roots that we cherish, we must recognize that as human beings we have far more in common and far too much at stake to stay apart. College, of all environments, should represent a time and a place in which such a truth is most easily discovered. Then, we all can kid around about it. Adam Scioli is a senior Political Science major from Rockville, Maryland. The Old Boys' Club appears alternate Thursdays.