Student Asks for Tact and Consideration

To the Editors:

Recently, a brazen flyer came to the attention of many on this campus. The flyer read: “Smear the Queer!” A time and location was given for this event, but no note of who was holding it, and certainly no indication of what exactly is “Smear the Queer.” At a campus as diverse and sensitized as Oberlin, those who want to get together to play a game of tackle football — which “Smear the Queer” is a nickname for, apparently — need not use a name so openly offensive and ambiguous. And heck! The party responsible for the flyer didn’t even take credit for it. There was no contact information on the flyer, even for those who knew what “Smear the Queer” was and might have been genuinely interested in a game of tackle football. This flyer definitely caused a certain degree of distress to many members of the lesbian-gay-bi-transgender community. For future players of tackle football, please employ some tact in your flyering. I don’t think it’s too much to ask.

–Jyoti Bhatt
College first-year