AS A precocious elementary school boy, I remember when bathroom stalls were forums of forbidden romance. I recall poring over terse love letters: "Johnny hearts Sally" or "Courtney is hot" or more amorous yet, "Jenny hearts Michelle."
During a recent tour through the men's bathrooms in New Cabell Hall, Alderman Library and Clark Hall, I discovered that our stall walls display the most revolting homophobia, racism and anti-Semitism on Grounds. More importantly, this ideology represents an ignored facet of University culture -- one that merits public examination. If only we could return to an era when bathroom stalls lacked vicious slurs and "heart" served affectionately as a verb.
I recorded the following phrases haphazardly scrawled into the once-spotless marble walls: "It's the niggers' fault," "Die Jews," "Roger sucks," "F*** Mexicans!" There are innumerable more, but you get the point.
To a lesser observer of toilet literature, these comments may seem disjointed -- merely the deranged ranting of intellectually constipated stall-dwellers. As a connoisseur of such matters, I assure you this is not always the case.
The bathrooms in Alderman Library reeked of erudition. "Every piece contains a map of it all," one wall read. This particular graffitist makes an intriguing point.The topics of bathroom graffiti -- racism, sexism, religious animosity, political strife, etc. -- mirror the myriad problems plaguing the University at large. In other words, each piece of graffiti forges an ideological map of a broader University culture.
But by relegating these ideologies to bathroom walls, instead of more public venues, the authors willingly repress their own ideas. Instead, they should try scribbling these hateful messages in public, on whiteboards, building walls or wherever the ideas would be subject to public scrutiny.
When racial epithets were "discovered" on whiteboards and Beta Bridge, the University tasted a genuine discussion on the threat of racism. If the vandals had written on a bathroom wall (Racist rhetoric in bathrooms dwarfs that which adorned Beta Bridge, by the way), the racist presence would remain largely unchallenged.
Readers should appreciate these pithy quips as more than crude graffiti, which tends to be viewed as a collection of scratches and grooves rather than as conveying a idea. Scratching something on a dilapidated stall door accomplishes the same feat as writing an editorial and neglecting to publish it.
SherriLynn Colby-Bottel, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology, explains that bathroom graffiti "may be a 'safe place' for hidden or discouraged views
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