The bathroom: A haven from political correctness

Kristin Arola Dancing in Ceiling Fans

I've slowly come to realize one of the steps towards having a fulfilling experience at the University: Finding your favorite campus bathroom. One of my friends brags of the peacefulness the Natural Science Museum bathroom provides, some students delight in the cleanliness of the Chemistry building toilets while others enjoy the get-stoned-during-class accessibility of the MLB basement restrooms. Yet over three years of college, my choice has to be the dirty, busy, National Women's Rights Organization Coalition-stickered ambiance of the Mason Hall lavatory.

I recently noticed a sign has finally returned to my favorite between-class pit-stop. Since I can remember, the only clue the door led to a bathroom was somebody's sloppy handwriting reading "womyn." Now, because of the cutesy figure of a woman in a perfect 1950s housedress, all women can rest assured that this is indeed a public restroom.

Sitting upon the porcelain goddess, I begin to notice the conversations scrawled across the walls. Conversations often start with a statement that pisses the masses off, for example: "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!" or the female chant in times of male problems "All men suck!" Such statements create a barrage of responses from hate slurs (yes, let's fight ignorance with ignorance) to 300-word diatribes by politically correct "womyn" trying to change the world.

Most times, a conversation is started with a question from some lost soul - yes, chances are you're pretty lost if you're searching for answers in a bathroom stall. "Should I go on the pill?" "I have a crush on a girl, what should I do?" Then everyone and their mother adds their two cents, most likely confusing the hell out of the poor lost soul.

Being the observer I am, I usually keep quiet in these bathroom dialogues, but one day I had to fish out my pen and add something. Some deep theologian had posed the question, "What is your favorite city in the world?" Answers varied from "Paris, the city of love" to "Detroit, rock city," to "anywhere but the U.P." Did someone just dis my hometown?

Michigan's Upper Peninsula is an interesting place many teens can't wait to get out of. I admit, after 18 years of living there, I was ready to put on my walking boots and venture elsewhere. Once someone leaves a small town to enter a diverse, liberal city, they seem to think they've won - they escaped the close minded ignorance of Small Town, USA. I know I held this attitude my first year in Ann Arbor, yet as time progresses, I realize that this city isn't the diverse, loving place I once thought.

At least in my hometown you know when somebody doesn't agree with you. They get their stereotypes right on the table without any politically correct cover-ups. When my neighbor from my hometown says, "All those niggers are the same, doing drugs and listening to that rap music," you basically know where they stand when it comes to race relations. But in Ann Arbor when someone says, "I have an African-American friend, I attended Martin Luther King Day festivities with her," you have no idea if they're trying to hide some deeper racial hostility, or if they're honestly color blind (which I doubt anyone is.)

I'm not saying that my U.P. neighbor is right and the Ann Arbor bleeding-heart liberal is wrong, but it's hard to work past differences when you never know how someone really feels. The faceless words of the bathroom provide a forum for open, honest conversation. At the University, we have been brain-washed to say certain things as to not offend anyone, yet words don't breed tolerance, they just hide ignorance.

- E-mail Kristin Arola at arolak@umich.edu.

06-04-97