UF’s Student Body really has nothing interesting to say.
The Society of Professional Journalists held a First Amendment Podium event Monday on the North Lawn with a lectern next to a table covered with books, poems, song lyrics and jokes.
Students could choose from any of the readings on the table or they could say anything else. Seventy-two empty chairs stood before the lectern.
The point of the event was for students to be able to walk up to the lectern and say whatever they wanted, whether it be loud, repetitive four-letter words or passages from “The Catcher and the Rye.”
We wanted to grab everyone’s attention, to have people shouting out their crazy ideas. It was supposed to be so dramatic that anyone passing by on the sidewalk wouldn’t be able to turn away.
SPJ members walked by the Colonnade with signs promoting the event. We screamed at passers-by, “Use your First Amendment rights!” and, “Say anything you want!”
Hundreds of students walked by the event.
Only three people came up to the lectern to speak during those two hours.
When I asked each person why they did not want to walk up to the lectern to speak, their reasons ranged from being too scared to not caring or to having nothing to say at all.
This is frightening.
Students were given the power and opportunity to say whatever they wanted. This is not a right to be taken for granted. Yet so many choose to not take advantage of what they are offered.
We are tomorrow’s leaders. To be part of such a silent generation is disappointing.
The SPJ event really does apply to the way people act in life. Many choose to keep their mouth shut because it is enough for them to just live their lives following their everyday, mundane tasks.
We fear change. Using your right to freedom of speech can be a risk.
When you open your mouth and say something with meaning, something you care about, people listen.
And sometimes they will not be happy with what they hear.
People get uncomfortable when they hear about the faults of society. It’s just easier to pretend everything is perfect.
In a generation in which the latest technology and popular culture is what matters, the importance of the First Amendment gets lost somewhere.
Maybe we really do have nothing interesting to say.
