Although presidential candidate Donald Trump has recently shifted his focus of hate from Mexican immigrants to Muslim immigrants, the sentiment of his rhetoric remains the same: stay the fuck out of America. If Trump was just one batshit reality TV star with the white house in his sights as some sort of sick publicity stunt (which many were hopeful of in his campaign’s infancy), his words could be easily dismissed with eye rolls and head shakes. The grim reality is, of course, that he is currently leading in many polls over both democrat and republican hopefuls. What’s more, his words have broken the barrier of merely disconcerting political rhetoric and entered the realm of inciting violent action–proving that rhetoric matters and should be given much more gravity in academia than it currently receives.
According to an article written by Russell Berman which appeared in The Atlantic on August 20th, 2015, “Police in Boston say that one of two brothers who allegedly beat a homeless Hispanic man cited Trump’s message on immigration as a motivation for their attack. “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported,” Scott Leader, 38, told officers, according to a police report.” Trump, in response to this news, had only this to say: “…the people that are following me are very passionate. They love this country. They want this country to be great again.” He takes zero responsibility and expresses no remorse for the innocent 58-year-old man who was “urinated on…and then assaulted…with a metal pole.”
Clearly, there is a point at which words are no longer just words. I think we can all agree that a good place to draw the line is when hate-speech influences violent action by others.
This is why the study of rhetoric, English, and/or composition is crucial for all students and should be taken just as seriously as any/all of the sciences. All students should know how to proficiently navigate the rocky terrains of rhetoric as they exit the university, lest the academy wishes to produce citizens who are susceptible to being easily swayed by such hateful ignorance; lest the goal of a college education is to leave students unequipped with the tools necessary to discern sound from poor logical constructions and argumentation; lest violence is an appropriate response to rhetorical interpretation.
If that is the case, continue to defund our programs, call our studies pointless, and laugh at our earnest pursuits from behind your Ivory doors while, outside, hatred flourishes and innocent people are beaten half to hell with metal pipes and pissed on. Cut our budgets. Piss on us while you’re at it. Our study doesn’t matter.