apparently, we fucked just a little too much shit up for the taste of the people giving $$ to the school.
less than a week before the 2nd Annual Drag Show was scheduled to occur, Jill (who i schedule rooms/events with) called me in to tell me I can't call the drag show a "drag" show. This comes directly from the top (i.e. father locatelli, pres of the university)
This comes from the individual who spoke directly with Fr. Locatelli on the matter:
Please work with the students to help them understand that we are trying to be supportive, while also maintaining our need to hold the group to their stated and approved mission and constitution--keeping in mind the Jesuit, Catholic nature of the institution as a primary framework."
first of all, i consider myself a reasonable person, and i don't find the title "drag show" to be in your face IN THE LEAST. And by reasonable person, do you mean homophobic alumni giving money to the school, because that's REALLY who you're referring to.
You know if we were a ethnic club, and referred to an event with a name celebrated in their community, they would not DARE to demand a name change. But because we're a queer organization, it's OKAY to discriminate against us. It wouldn't be okay for alumni to question the existence of an ethnic club, but the fact that the very existence of GALA is questioned yearly is okay, and we should just be thankful that Fr. Loc "stands up for us."
And i fucking can't stand people who use religion as an excuse to be homophobic. it's the biggest load of bullshit EVER.
Jill told me that if i don't change the name of the show, maybe next year they're make a rule and we won't be able to have the show at all. awesome, a threat. In addition, she told me i couldn't call it a drag show when talking to the press (either on-campus or off) . Ultimate censorship.
i mentioned the fact that i had already advertised it as a drag show and given fliers out at the kickoff weekend. The administration asked me "can you get those back?" Yea, i'm going to track down everyone i gave a fucking flier to and burn em, 'cause goddamn we can't have the word "drag" floating around. pretty soon people will think this is an accepting place to be.
So we re-designed the fliers, and called it the "queer awareness week kickoff event." with the subtitle "I'd be a Drag if you missed the Show." The administration demanded we take them down because, according to them a) the term queer is offensive and b) we still used the word Drag. Hello, the word queer has been academically re-claimed, and as an academic institution, we should know that. And, if people don't already know it's a drag show, they won't catch the reference. They told me not to call it a drag show. I didn't. And we spent basically our entire club budgets on the color fliers, and went through the proper flier approval process. For them to ask us to take down the fliers is clearly discrimination. In the student handbook, SCU clearly states they don't discriminate against people based on "sexual orientation" but this is obviously pure rhetoric.
To truth of the matter is, the week all this was happening is the week the university was having donors and alumni visit, to raise millions of dollars for the new business building on-campus. Money talks.
Last year after the drag show i reflected that "maybe being at a Jesuit University isn't so bad." But now, i'm just angry. And, yeah, there are worse things that have happened, and they could have told me i can't have the show at all. It's just a name. But, goddamn, there's POWER in a name, and that's why they're taking it away from us.
Fuck censorship. Fuck homophobia disguising itself as organized religion. They should write in big red print on all their pretty little pamphlets "if you're queer, don't come here 'cause we have a history of homophobia and because we are financially dependant on those who wrote that history, we are committed to never changing. Diversity's great, as long as it doesn't apply to fags and dykes, 'cause that shit's immoral." At least then they can keep their pretty palm trees untainted by our queer revolutionary footsteps.