The support shown for Milo Yiannopoulos was more than disturbing – it was disgusting
His talk at UA was nothing more than a comedy show, but it wasn’t funny
Right wing speaker Milo Yiannopoulos visited UA on Monday as part of his nationwide “The Dangerous Faggot” tour, on which he travels to universities to deliver degrading, sociopathic and terribly offensive “speeches.” The event was hosted by UA’s College Republicans chapter.
Throughout his tour at other universities, Milo’s talks have often been cancelled or protested. And although there was talk of protests and a few student groups who disagree with him, Milo received a lot of support at Alabama – and that’s a problem.
Supporters who attended the talk, on the whole took it as an intellectually based speech. But it was nothing more than a comedy show cleverly designed to get Milo and his supporters attention and money.
After the treasurer of UA’s College Republicans chapter introduced Milo at the talk, a video began that contained footage of protests at other Milo events, along with footage of Hillary Clinton calling Milo out for being exactly what he is – a narcissistic fuckboy. (She obviously used much nicer terms.)
The crowd roared in laughter and booed at protesters throughout the video. After the video concluded, Milo took the stage as the crowd gave him a standing ovation. A standing ovation for Milo Yiannopoulos – the man who thinks “gayness” needs to be cured, although he is gay. The man who thinks feminism is cancer. The man who has decided he doesn’t like certain groups, ethnicities and nationalities.
The UA student supporters – scratch that, the highly impressionable UA students – were laughing, although the things Milo was saying weren’t funny. He called the United Nations “fags,” and then defined the word as lame, liberal, Hillary-supporters.
I’m a member of the LGBTQ community, so hearing someone use that term so carelessly – the term that has historically been used in the oppression of homosexuals – is disgusting. Sitting in that room as a gay man, hearing fellow students encourage the use of such a derogatory word is so, so difficult to understand.
And Milo didn’t stop there. When he spoke about the United States losing control of the internet to foreign countries, he used the above image to talk about Saudi Arabia’s influence. If you can’t tell what’s going on, it’s a photo of a person about to be beheaded. It was being used as a joke by a sociopathic extremist.
The support shown for Milo was more than disturbing – it was disgusting. A man that the university attempted to ban from coming to campus. It’s not news that this man is controversial, but it is news, to me at least, that this man has actual supporters, like the Missouri student who drove nine hours that morning to hear him speak.
How ignorant are we that we don’t realize this man is just putting on a show and very likely does not believe half of what he says? We have yet to realize that continually allowing for offensive, degrading and abusive propaganda to be used is getting us nowhere as a country – or a student body.