Dear Mr.Crimm,

I am glad that you wrote to the editor, for I feel that your sentiments might be indicative of the views of other Wofford alumni. I understand your concerns, but I find them to be a bit troubling, so I will give a rebuttal to each of your points in the order you presented them.

1. The full page aid for contraceptives was obviously very disheartening for you, could one perhaps say that it triggered you? Abstinence only education has been taught in the American South for years, yet it has never been successful at stopping teen pregnancy. Unfortunately, no matter what your religious beliefs are, college students will have sex. Perhaps you did not have sex during your college years (whether that be by choice, or otherwise), but I assure you, Mr.Crimm, you were a minority. The fact is that knowing about contraceptives, or using them, is showing responsibility for your sex life, not the lack of it.
2. Your insights into the Gender Equality Club (GEC) were quite confusing to me. You claim that the issues of domestic abuse, the wage gap and abortion have already “been addressed in practice and statute,” but that is not exactly true. All these issues are still hotly debated in politics, and many policies on these three issues have been overturned or never established. The most confusing part of your GEC claims is the physical side, you say that the “total feminist philosophy” is forcing us to believe that men and women are equal physically. Where did it say this in the GEC article? Perhaps you just skimmed over it too fast and projected some personal feelings onto it.
3. The BLM movement is without a doubt controversial, so I will not comment on the practices of it. However I believe you have a profound misunderstanding of what the movement is, one that you did not get from the Old Gold & Black article. Firstly, you claim that by definition, saying that Black Lives Matter excludes all other lives from mattering. By saying “my phone is important” does that by definition exclude your wallet from equal importance? You also say that the root of the problem is that “blacks” have a dysfunctional home life. That’s not the root of the problem- the problem is that innocent people are getting killed by the police.
4. Your stance on trigger warnings may be the most confusing to me yet. To begin with, the article is just asking the question whether trigger warnings are beneficial or not, it is far from full fledged support. Also, some people have been through traumatic events in their lives, such as violent rape, and do not wish to read a graphic description of rape in an English class. This article was just a legitimate inquiry, and I cannot help but feel that you read more into the article than what was there.

Perhaps we should start putting trigger warnings in the Old Gold and Black.

Mark Matthews ‘18