Duke Students’ ‘Think Before You Talk’ Campaign Draws Right-Wing Hate Speech

It started as a conversation in class that turned into a class project that turned into a campus-wide campaign. Now, several groups have joined together at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, to ask their fellow students to “Think Before You Talk.” 

The students are asking that students think before using phrases like “Man Up,” “That’s So Gay,” “No homo,” and “Don’t Be a Pussy,” along with words like “homo,” the “c” word, “tranny,” and “bitch.” 

Doesn’t sound radical, doesn’t even sound like censorship. It just sounds like asking people to understand how their words can affect others — and how they can affect how they, themselves, are perceived.

“Think Before You Talk is a student-lead campaign to end the misuse of sensitive terms on Duke’s campus,” their Facebook page reads.

The campaign fights the derogatory usage of terms like “gay,” “rape,” and “retard,” since the inappropriate usage of such words marginalizes these identities. The campaign focuses on awareness through social media, student discussions, and facilitated workshops. Currently, Think Before You Talk is partnered with the Center for Multicultural Affairs, the Duke Women’s Center, the Duke Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, International House, Blue Devils United, as well as the Do Something! campaign.

An effective video and online print campaign, along with their Facebook page, are helping to get the message out, but some conservatives just don’t want to hear it.

Right-wing news site, The College Fix writes:

The campaign consists of a series of black-and-white memes with students posing behind large pledges to avoid so-called offensive language. “I don’t say ‘No Homo’ because it delegitimizes love and sexual identities,” says one. “I don’t say ‘Man Up’ because the strongest people I know have cried in front of me, regardless of their age, gender or sex,” says another. “I don’t say ‘Tranny’ because it’s insulting to transgender and genderqueer communities,” adds a third meme. Other banned words include “bitch,” because it “insists feminism is inherently negative,” “‘fag,’ because it only serves to hurt and oppress homosexual men,” and “pussy,” as it “implies that having a certain feature is indicative of being a coward.”

Did you catch that? The College Fix claims the words are “banned.” Of course they’re not — the college students are merely asking their classmates and colleague to, well, “think before you talk.”

One commenter on the far right-wing forum Free Republic called it “Thought control,” another wrote, “Good luck enforcing it against any lawyered up student. Being offensive is a constitutionally protected right.”

And take a look at these responses culled from Think Before You Talk’s Facebook page:

Image, top, via Facebook 

Hat tip: Gawker