TO THE EDITOR:
The Daily Tar Heel reported that Duke freshman Brian Grasso refused to read the graphic novel “Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel because he felt doing so would compromise his religious beliefs.
I’m having a hard time understanding where “discrimination” came into play here. The novel depicts graphic sexual scenes between two women, which he felt contradicted his Christian beliefs, but in no way is this discrimination. The word “discrimination” tends to be associated with repeated unjust prejudices. Think: racism, homophobia, sexism, etc.
But it seems that Grasso remains unaware these systems exist. In 2015, it is just plain ignorance because they have existed in Western society since its conception. This is not an opinion but a fact — anyone in a standard U.S. history course has learned, at the very least, the fundamentals of these prejudices. Suffrage of the 1920s, the colonization of “savage” peoples and the Civil Rights Movement, to name a few.
I find it hard to believe that a Christian man would find himself challenged in a society that was founded — and continues to be governed — by Christian men. How a freshman would believe that Christians face discrimination in college based upon his two-week college career is ludicrous in itself.
Hannah Macie
Junior
Journalism
