Choose an area:

« back to columns
« back to fall 2000 columns

Crosses show limited cultural perspective

I am in the majority.

I am a white Anglo-Saxon male, age 18-49, who has lived a life in middle class America and has been lucky enough to be able to get a college education. I quite literally, am in the majority for nearly every category that someone could throw out. I have little idea, if any, of how it feels like to be in the minority. I just have never been in that position.

Because I'm in the majority, that means that I will very rarely, if ever, be discriminated against. I will not be turned down for a mortgage because I'm white. I will not be the butt of jokes or be looked at with a suspicious eye by a salesperson at a retail store because of my race. In short, I will not be looked upon differently simply because of the color of my skin or because of my religious affiliation.

When DAWN put crosses up in the lawn outside the old library to symbolize alcohol-related deaths; a huge controversy erupted through the faculty and staff e-mail system. Dr. Walter Brasch, a mass communications professor, started the e-mail conversation with a satirical e-mail to the faculty. That e-mail opened the floodgates.

Some people thought that there was nothing wrong with the crosses and that they were only there to create a vivid depiction of alcohol's effects. Others saw the display as a misrepresentation—not of the alcohol related deaths—but of the religious makeup of those deaths. Their argument was that the crosses symbolized Christian death and were not representative of all religions.

In fairness, I don't believe that DAWN ever intended to offend anyone. They simply wanted to display in a very visual manner that alcohol related deaths are a major problem in our country and that we should be aware of alcohol's effects. I wholeheartedly agree with DAWN's message and I think anyone on campus would be hard pressed to say that DAWN's intent was to hurt any particular religious affiliation. In fact, I think that DAWN should be commended for their continued efforts to make the university community aware of the effects of alcohol and drunk driving.

While I commend DAWN for their in-your-face approach to combating drunk driving, I can certainly see Brasch's point. There is no representation of non-Christian faiths in the crosses that line the lawn outside of the old library. There are only crosses, signs of the Christian faith. Even though it was unintentional, DAWN displayed the majority beliefs and effectively stamped out the minority.

I do have to admit that at first I, like many others, was not offended by the crosses that DAWN put up outside the old library to symbolize alcohol-related deaths. I looked past it like any other Christian person. It was just normal in my mind to symbolize death with a cross.

And then I realized why it seemed normal to me. I was brought up in a Christian family. We went to church every Sunday and believed in the Christian beliefs. As a child, I never learned about the Jewish or Islamic faith or any of the myriad of other religious beliefs. I learned what my parents wanted me to learn. I learned what the majority of society wanted me to learn.

The cross is not the universal sign for death. It is the universal sign for death if you are a Christian, and since Christianity is the dominant religion in the United States (and here at Bloomsburg University), the cross is seen by most people as the universal sign for death. People are relying on the dominant, or majority, religion to dictate the norms for society. That is society's biggest mistake.

Sadly that isn't what worries me the most about this whole situation. What I'm worried about is that some students, faculty and staff don't see a problem with the religious display, even after they were told of the religious bias.

In some of my classes, students just simply didn't see what the big deal was with the whole thing. "I don't see it as a problem, so I don't see how others can have a problem with it" was just one of the wonderful quotes that I heard throughout the day. Another student said that she "doesn't want to learn about others' beliefs" because she already knows her own beliefs. Wow, sometimes I wonder if a college education has done anything for these people.

A college education is supposed to open people up to new points of view so they can look at things a different way. A college education is supposed to shed new light on past beliefs that used to just seem so solid and correct. Apparently, either the college education didn't do its job or the individual wasn't open to the change.

My bet is on the latter.

I am continually amazed that the majority opinion can so easily just overshadow any minority opinion. What the majority seems to forget is that our country was founded on the rights of the minority. Sure, majority rules, but the minority has to retain certain rights — rights such as equal representation and a forum to have its opinion heard. Instead, many people at this university see fit to just cast the minority opinion aside and go on with their lives without a second thought. This is exactly what worries me.

In many cases, the minority should be counted as more important than the majority. The Supreme Court has agreed in numerous decisions that largely denounced prayer in public schools. The Court demonstrated that above all, the United States has to give freedom of religion to not just the majority, but to everybody. Everyone has a say, and, while not the popular opinion, non-Christian religious beliefs have to be considered equal with Christian beliefs.

The majority — in this case, the Christians — should be fighting for equal representation of all religions on campus. Who knows if sometime in the future, the Christian religion may not be the dominant religion at Bloomsburg or even in the United States. If that happens, I have a good feeling the Christian faith would be up in arms just like Brasch and many others have been.

The old proverb by Pastor Reinhold Niemoller from Nazi Germany certainly holds true in this situation. Niemoller said that when they came for the Jews, he said nothing because he wasn't Jewish. When they came for the Catholics, he wasn't Catholic, so he said nothing. And then when they came for him, there was no one left to fight for him.

I know that right now I am not in the minority. But it also seems that I am one of the people (around here anyway) who may be in the majority, but at least can understand the position, and the rights, of the minority.