Character attacks on environmentalists are unfortunately common, but criticizing environmentalists in a letter meant to deride students protesting the Board of Trustees is unnecessary and out of line.
In a letter to the editor published in the April 23 edition of The Post, student senator Evan Webb spends a good amount of time telling student protestors that they are complaining about the university without putting forth any suggestions for change. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, but the beginning and end of the letter are irrelevant to this stance.
He begins the letter with: Hippies
tree-huggers and socialists of Ohio University ... enough. You know who you are. Reading this sentence really did not brighten my day, but after reading the letter - which ended with a command for those hippies, tree-huggers and socialists to put down your organic food - I was puzzled. How in the world are hippies and tree-huggers, commonly associated with the environmental movement, involved in this Student Senate business?
Well, they aren't. Environmentalists are often grouped into the category of liberal which apparently means that environmentalists should be blamed for any liberal-ish action that happens in the universe. Webb's objection to the protestors' pissing and moaning directly links to environmentalists, who the reader can infer are also being called out for dishing gripes about the planet but not offering solutions.
Making this correlation is very problematic, because environmental organizations rarely just complain about the state of the environment without offering efficient solutions to the problems at hand. For instance, Coal River Mountain Watch, a grassroots organization against mountaintop removal mining, has an entirely separate Web site dedicated to their wind power plan, which is their proposed alternative to coal mining.
The constant association of environmentalists to the extreme-left is also a reason that some might be hesitant to call themselves environmentalists. Webb's letter perpetuates the stereotype that to be a tree-hugger you also need to be a socialist involved in protesting the administration.
In reality, anyone can be an environmentalist, and it's common to refer to people as different shades of green. Some people are deep green and are super involved in environmental initiatives and live a very eco-conscious lifestyle; for others, recycling and using electricity is the extent of their eco-friendly lifestyle. Both of these are perfectly acceptable, as are the countless contributions that people make on behalf of the environment.
At the beginning of the letter, the phrase You know who you are stands out. It is something a teacher or parent would say to small children who refuse to confess who committed the wrongdoing; you might not admit to your bad behavior, but the guilt will be punishment enough. Why exactly should people be scolded for eating organic food? And why is such behavior framed as something people should be ashamed of?
The perpetuation of such stereotypes misinforms the public about the aims of the environmental movement, and it asserts that those who associate with the movement ought to be ashamed for doing so. Explicating these few words from the letter is not an overreaction because the writer purposefully put them there even though they were irrelevant to the topic he was arguing.
Standing up for what you believe in is not shameful, but over-generalizing an entire population of people is.
Cathy Wilson is a senior studying journalism and a copy editor for The Post. Send her an e-mail at cw224805@ohiou.edu.
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Opinion
Cathy Wilson
