‘I used to consider myself a liberal, then I came to college’

I used to consider myself a liberal, then I came to college.

I have been interested in and intrigued by politics for as long as I can remember, and despite the fact that my house was never overly political, politics frequently came up and the conversations flowed. My political ideology flourished naturally and rather independently, as I was not socialized to become a Democrat. I grew up in a staunchly Roman Catholic home, and my mother still calls herself a conservative, whatever that means, though she has abandoned the Republican Party due to their recent, uh, missteps.

I remember in the earlier weeks of my favorite class in high school, AP American Government, having to take a test which through your responses on a variety of issues ranging from economic policy to social and human rights issues, revealed your political ideology on a broad spectrum. I was surprised to find out that I was one of two or three students in this advanced course in a town in the blue state of Connecticut who had received the “super liberal” rating. There were more conservatives than us in the mix, though the vast majority of the class were rated as moderates or middle-ofthe-roaders.

Still, I chalked up those results to me being very sure of where my political allegiances stood, and assumed this was not the case for most of my classmates. In my head, they were probably highly influenced by the politics of their parents, and hadn’t given as much thought to politics as I had.

I had never questioned my political beliefs as they had been cemented into the person I was up until the end of high school. Then I came to college and the kind of liberalism I was introduced to both scared me and made me laugh.

Before my junior year, I took on the role of resident assistant, in essence, a glorified babysitter of sorts with some authority. We’re tasked with building community and bridging students with the campus resources — all good things undoubtedly. On one of my first training sessions for this job, all new RAs held a discussion on the subject of sexual harassment and misconduct, again, a vital discussion for young people and for any workplace.

It was the content of the discussion that puzzled me. I remember the instructor posing scenarios to the group, and asking if they were examples of sexual harassment. One such example was telling a dirty joke. While voices quickly cried out that yes, dirty jokes are sexual harassment, I raised my hand and explained that in my view, telling a dirty joke in the workplace, while inappropriate, does not equate to sexual harassment if not done repeatedly and not targeted at any one individual specifically. The room erupted.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever been in a room where everyone’s eyes felt like daggers ready to pierce your skull, but this is kind of how that went down. One woman burst into tears and accused me on condoning rape, and that my remarks made her feel unsafe on our campus. I could not believe my ears, but without being combative, I tried to explain my view, and move the discussion along.

Back then, I thought this was an isolated incident. Until it happened again and again. Each time where I dared to offer an alternate perspective to contrast the group-think on a controversial issue, I was shut down by peers and instructors alike. An instructor once actually told me my opinion was wrong. Another peer once told me I couldn’t comment on race issues because I was a white male. I am actually Latino, but that doesn’t really matter. What’s concerned me most, is this scary narrative that people’s opinions can be a direct attack on someone’s individuality and identity and that disagreement on its face must be offensive or objectively racist to one side. Don’t even get me started on the whole micro-aggressions thing.

These sentiments scare me because I now see how the right can dismiss the left as “snowflakes” and elitists and say that the highly educated microcosms of our country, particularly in metropolitan areas are so out of touch with middle America. This scares me for the future of the Democratic party and the definition liberalism is taking on in our country. So much about the “revolution” and these incredible social movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo while at times characterized by the right as divisive, can actually catalyze conversation and a mending of the fabric of our country which has long been rich in its diversity of thought, expression and culture.

The beginning of all of that is attempting to understand those whom we don’t normally agree with, and I could have never expected my college education at the ultra-lib University of Connecticut would have ironically opened my eyes to this.

Contributed photo Caio Felipe Goncalves