{"id":14154,"date":"2017-06-14T09:00:48","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T16:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=14154"},"modified":"2017-07-07T09:44:33","modified_gmt":"2017-07-07T16:44:33","slug":"open-space-student-group-should-not-have-apologized-over-lou-reed-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2017\/06\/14\/open-space-student-group-should-not-have-apologized-over-lou-reed-song\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Space<\/em>: Student group should not have apologized over Lou Reed song"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Central Student Association student group at Ontario\u2019s University of Guelph recently found themselves in the spotlight over an apology they issued for playing a transphobic song at an event on campus.<\/p>\n

The problem is, the song\u2019s not transphobic.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This story originally appeared in our June 14, 2017 issue.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The cut in question is Lou Reed\u2019s 1972 classic \u201cWalk on the Wild Side.\u201d <\/i>Several students complained about the song\u2019s allegedly inappropriate lyrics (an example: \u201cHitch-hiked her way across the USA\/Plucked her eyebrows on the way\/Shaved her legs and then he was a she\/She said, \u2018Hey, babe, take a walk on the wild side\u2019\u201d).<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe that it is accurate, nor is it fair, to label the late Lou Reed or this song as transphobic. The lyrics do not indicate transphobia, and Reed once dated Rachel Humphries, who was a trans woman.<\/p>\n

Calling Reed\u2019s lyrics transphobic would be like calling The Beatles warmongers because they sang about war; it is absurd. \u201cWalk on the Wild Side\u201d was released at a time when the LGBT community was oppressed and looked down upon; in fact, this song actually helped raise awareness about the topic, introducing trans issues to the mainstream.<\/p>\n

Instead of condemning the use of this song at their event, the Central Student Association should have clarified that the song has no transphobic undertones, and just because it mentions trans issues doesn\u2019t mean that the portrayal was meant to be negative.<\/p>\n

PC culture has been in the news a lot lately. I believe it\u2019s good when looked at in the grand scheme of things, and I believe that we should all strive to not be assholes to each other and to respect everyone equally in our day-to-day lives.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true, however, that when PC culture is taken to the extreme, it can lead to decisions that distort the reality of the situation. It can cause us to go after fake homophobes\/racists\/sexists\u2014people whom we view as those things but who actually aren\u2019t. It\u2019s a witch hunt.<\/p>\n

When we falsely accuse a person of being hateful or bigoted, the real bigots just revel in it and crack up at our stupidity. I\u2019m completely against transphobia, but we can\u2019t just go around calling people transphobic when all available evidence says otherwise, or because they were courageous enough to talk about trans issues in a song in 1972.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Central Student Association student group at Ontario\u2019s University of Guelph recently found themselves in the spotlight over an apology they issued for playing a transphobic song at an event on campus. The problem is, the song\u2019s not transphobic. The cut in question is Lou Reed\u2019s 1972 classic \u201cWalk on the Wild Side.\u201d Several students […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-june-14-2017"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14154"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14156,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14154\/revisions\/14156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}