PC ALERT: peace, quiet, and civility are now officially RAYCISS!!
Apologies for the delay on this one, again; what with this, that, and the IRL other, I sorta lost track of things. I actually had this post nearly finished as of Thursday afternoon, but yesterday the fact that it was Friday just passed me by entirely—another embarrassing Biden Moment for sure. Mea culpa, folks, mea maxima culpa.
The Atlantic is currently promoting an article from its archive, one selected by the editors as a “must-read,” a measure of the magazine’s importance to the progressive lifestyle. A choice that is perhaps more telling than intended.
The chosen article, by novelist Xochitl Gonzalez, poses the question, “Why Do Rich People Love Quiet?” It is sub-headed, “The sound of gentrification is silence.” A racially judgemental tone prevails. Such that the term rich people can be read as meaning white people. Followed by implied tutting.
It begins with an account of life at university – Brown, since you ask – and the merits of Brooklyn hip hop combos:
I first arrived on campus for the minority-student orientation. The welcome event had the feel of a block party, Blahzay Blahzay blasting on a boom box. (It was the ’90s.) We spent those first few nights convening in one another’s rooms, gossiping and dancing until late. We were learning to find some comfort in this new place, and with one another.
Ah, those downtrodden minority students, huddled together for mutual safety. Lest the roaming tigers find them.
Then the other students arrived — the white students.
As I said, the tutting is implied.
And then, belatedly, the realisation that attempts at intellectual activity – say, at an upscale university – tend to require a certain restraint, noise-wise:
I just hadn’t counted on everything that followed being so quiet. The hush crept up on me at first. I would be hanging out with my friends from orientation when one of our new roommates would start ostentatiously readying themselves for bed at a surprisingly early hour. Hints would be taken, eyes would be rolled, and we’d call it a night.
Morning lectures being an inconceivable thing, it seems.
Ms Gonzalez, who repeatedly mentions how “minority” and “of colour” she is, also tells us how she, “just wanted to be around people in places where nobody told us to shush.” Say, when being a late-night annoyance to roommates and neighbours, a thing that by her own account happens repeatedly, or when playing music in a library. Where other people are trying to study:
One day, when I accidentally sat down to study in the library’s Absolutely Quiet Room, fellow students Shhh-ed me into shame for putting on my Discman… I soon realised that silence was more than the absence of noise; it was an aesthetic to be revered. Yet it was an aesthetic at odds with who I was. Who a lot of us were.
A bold admission. One, I suspect, that reveals more than intended. Also, the claim that one can sit down in a library accidentally.
Ms Gonzalez’ tale of woe continues:
Within a few weeks, the comfort that I and many of my fellow minority students had felt during those early cacophonous days had been eroded, one chastisement at a time. The passive-aggressive signals to wind our gatherings down were replaced by point-blank requests to make less noise, have less fun, do our living somewhere else, even though these rooms belonged to us, too.
Ms Gonzalez, it seems, was being oppressed. Just for being thoughtless and noisy when people are trying to study. Her comfort was being impacted by requests for civility. How very dare they.
As dicentra notes in the comments,
Quiet means you’re studying, and boisterousness means you’re not, and given you’re at a university, which aesthetic ought to win out?
Well, indeed. One of the many things to have somehow not crossed our author’s mind.
A boisterous conversation would lead to a classmate knocking on the door with a “Please quiet down.”
Feel her pain. The outrageousness of it all.
I felt hot with shame and anger, yet unable to articulate why. It took me years to understand that, in demanding my friends and I quiet down, these students were implying that their comfort superseded our joy.
Well, yes, It does. You selfish, classless bint.
Ms Gonzalez tells us that the “absence of noise” – by which she means, consideration for others – is “at odds with who I was. Who a lot of us were.” And yet she wonders why other people – less selfish people – might want to get away from her. Away from all the noise. And to live somewhere nicer, somewhere she doesn’t.
Personally, I’d be entirely willing to give up quite a lot, up to and including pretty much every material thing I have, to be able to live well away from ferals like her. Of course, then her ilk would scream that I’m guilty of the H8 Crime of “white flight,” my fleeing their selfish, tribal discourtesy exclusively because RAYCISMISMICISSISMING!!!!© As Thompson says:
Readers may wish to ponder the possibility that noise may often be a pretty good measure of other issues. People who don’t care about stopping their neighbours from studying or sleeping may not care about other things too.
Just so—minor, trivial little things like, oh, say, robbery, mugging, home invasion, grand theft auto, gang activity, rape, arson, and out-and-out murder. All of which are rife in the noisy, uncivil urban ghettos Ms Gonzalez claims to prefer. Of course, read a little further into Thompson’s article and you’ll learn that the self-obsessed imbecile Gonzalez might actually be more of a hypocrite than she is a bigot, to the surprise of precisely no one.