SAF money shouldn’t fund Tucker Max
For those of you who may not have read The Signal blurb about the Student Finance Board (SFB) last week, it said that SFB almost unanimously approved the College Union Board (CUB)’s $25,000 bid for Tucker Max to appear at the College in January, $16,138.40 of which comes directly from Student Activity Fee (SAF) funding.
I won’t waste my precious word count explaining who Tucker Max is, but in short, he is a writer whose comedy is based on stories that reduce women to sexual objects.
As an example of his apparent lack of judgment, billboards for his movie use slogans like “Deaf girls can’t hear you coming,” effectively poking fun not only at sexual assault but people with differing abilities as well.
Some people think he is funny — maybe they also think rape is hilarious. I am not one of those people. I am horrified that my SAF money is going to bring someone to campus that I strongly feel is antithetical to our mission as an institution of higher learning. Our mission as a college is to promote an environment of tolerance and equality. Tucker Max goes against all of this.
I am not suggesting that SFB adopt an attitude of censorship. There is nothing wrong with having speakers with differing opinions speak at our campus. However, Tucker Max is not just representing a minority of opinion — he is dangerous.
It is because people still think jokes about raping women are funny that it continues to happen in this world. I do not want someone who promotes a culture of rape to be speaking at my college.
After all the work College students and faculty put into increasing awareness about the continued prevalence of violence against women on our campus and in the United States this past month, it appalls me that we would pay to have someone who makes jokes about date rape and abusing women come to the College.
I understand CUB intended Tucker Max to speak about his experience as a writer, but you can’t separate a writer from the content. As a woman and a human being, I am insulted both by Tucker Max and by CUB and SFB’s apparent insensitivity to such an important issue on a college campus.
I strongly encourage anyone who thinks that Tucker Max is an inappropriate speaker for the College to sign the petition in the Office of Anti-Violence Initiatives, and to e-mail SFB@tcnj.edu or CUB@tcnj.edu and let them know. This is your money that is being used to bring him to campus.
This is absolutely not an attack on those individuals involved in CUB or SFB. I know a lot of you personally, and you’re great people, but I think you made a poor decision in this case, and I am urging you to rescind the bid.
Changing your minds on this issue will not reflect badly on you — in fact, it will show that you are listening to the student population and are responding to it. This is not just coming from me. A lot of students are very angry about Tucker Max, and not just our female student population. He is controversial in a way that our students won’t tolerate.
I would suggest that future bids for entertainers be chosen with a little more consideration for their compatibility with the College, and that SFB be more critical of just how “controversial” they need a speaker to be to sell tickets.
Our college does not support domestic violence, and it is not a laughing matter. Let’s show it by not endorsing misogynist, sexist, self-proclaimed assholes like Tucker Max.
Source: tuckermax.com.
Jen Hill
Tucker Max’s writing based on insults
For those of you who don’t know, Tucker Max wrote the deceivingly popular book “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.”
He’s even called himself an asshole, and considers his writing to be graced by genius. With a degree from the University of Chicago and a Law Degree from Duke Law, he considers himself to be smarter than everyone he meets, especially those from state schools like the College.
I fail to see how someone who constantly uses swear words, extreme profanity, or just dumbfounded slang can call himself smart. His entire writing style is predicated on these slang words, insults and slander.
For someone who talks a lot of his intellect, his writing has been filled with drivel and nonsensical fluff — absolutely nothing in his stories indicates that it was written by someone with any intellect.
He recently released a movie based on his “popular” book. As a person with a disability, after hearing of his ad campaign, I was completely outraged.
“Deaf girls never hear you coming,” was just one of his many insensitive ad campaigns. He goes on to outclass strippers and blind women, he goes on to outclass African Americans, both men and women, and he goes on to degrade large women.
To Tucker Max, the only people who have any control over their lives are white males and white females who are attractive and don’t have “too much” sex. This flawed perception of life is unreasonable, and you can’t honestly expect me to stand here and listen to this man say that everyone — anyone — in this society doesn’t have a choice.
We’re going to stand here and let this man come to our campus, a campus he himself calls backwards in intellect, and tell us that we don’t have a choice in our actions, we are all worthless and here just for his entertainment?
Darryl Levy
