April Fool’s about humor, not hatefulness

The editor responsible is blaming fatigue and deadline pressure for printing an egregious… The editor responsible is blaming fatigue and deadline pressure for printing an egregious racial epithet in a local college paper.

In a cartoon in which a goat brags to a mouse that he struck a black person on his bike, the black person is referred to by a particular racial slur. The punch line from the mouse was, “Only one?”

The cartoon was but one example of sophomoric, misogynistic, violent shock humor in Carnegie Mellon University’s paper, The Tartan, billed that day — April Fool’s Day — as The Natrat. A full page was devoted to poetry about raping a teacher and violating a woman with an ice-skate blade, laid over a graphic of a woman’s nude, spread groin, inset with a detailed diagram of her vulva.

For the editors to claim that deadline pressure caused them to make such revolting mistakes is simply ludicrous. The Tartan comes out but once a week, and the April Fool’s edition is a special, once-a-year event. If The Tartan was on the ball enough to secure $2,500 in student activities money so that the issue could run without advertisements — they were — then it stands to reason that they were aware enough of the impending issue to give second and third and 50th thoughts to running such pathetically unfunny and disturbing content.

This abomination can’t be explained under the umbrella of satire. The editors all knew that the April Fool’s edition would be a chance to get away with saying off-color things, and if racial hatred and violence against women are what they’ve been waiting all year to be able to say, then that indicates some serious personality issues for them.

The editors have proposed a content review board consisting of administrators and faculty members. This is a band-aid solution, a glossing-over of a greater problem, and contrary to the nature of student journalism. The students involved should take a look at their own values, not look to a higher authority to save them from themselves.

The entire editorial board of The Tartan must resign immediately and undergo sensitivity training. Next week, they should print an apology, and then not publish for the rest of the school year. They should not, though, be expelled, as some are calling for. They should have to attend classes every day for the rest of the term, facing the students they have harmed with their pointless vitriol.