Comments on: OSU to be tobacco free http://ericstoller.com/blog/2007/09/10/osu-to-be-tobacco-free/ | social justice | higher education | technology | Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:04:03 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.7 by: Iowa becomes smoke-free » Eric Stoller’s Blog http://ericstoller.com/blog/2007/09/10/osu-to-be-tobacco-free/#comment-20338 Wed, 06 Feb 2008 02:49:11 +0000 http://ericstoller.com/blog/2007/09/10/osu-to-be-tobacco-free/#comment-20338 [...] Don’t forget that OSU is going to be tobacco free on July 1, 2008 and Miami University will be smoke-free in the fall of 2008. [...] […] Don’t forget that OSU is going to be tobacco free on July 1, 2008 and Miami University will be smoke-free in the fall of 2008. […]

]]> by: Oregon State University smoke-free? » Eric Stoller’s blog http://ericstoller.com/blog/2007/09/10/osu-to-be-tobacco-free/#comment-17663 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 01:38:04 +0000 http://ericstoller.com/blog/2007/09/10/osu-to-be-tobacco-free/#comment-17663 [...] A lot of comments were submitted after I wrote a post in September titled, “OSU to be tobacco free“. [...] […] A lot of comments were submitted after I wrote a post in September titled, “OSU to be tobacco free“. […]

]]> by: notes from the interblags: college edition at A Collage of Citations http://ericstoller.com/blog/2007/09/10/osu-to-be-tobacco-free/#comment-17344 Tue, 20 Nov 2007 01:28:59 +0000 http://ericstoller.com/blog/2007/09/10/osu-to-be-tobacco-free/#comment-17344 [...] • Oregon State University’s Student Health Advisory Board is proposing a smoke-free campus (Barometer). This is particularly interesting after learning that Oklahoma State is going smoke-free (Eric Stoller’s blog). [...] […] • Oregon State University’s Student Health Advisory Board is proposing a smoke-free campus (Barometer). This is particularly interesting after learning that Oklahoma State is going smoke-free (Eric Stoller’s blog). […]

]]> by: Michael Faris http://ericstoller.com/blog/2007/09/10/osu-to-be-tobacco-free/#comment-14986 Sat, 15 Sep 2007 17:29:11 +0000 http://ericstoller.com/blog/2007/09/10/osu-to-be-tobacco-free/#comment-14986 Dennis, my question for you is: If you don't take Tom's point seriously, how can you expect others to take your ideas seriously? Is there only a small fraction of ideas out there that we should respect as serious? I don't see how deriding Tom's perspective will either build common ground amongst us or help persuade either of you to a different position. Dennis, my question for you is: If you don’t take Tom’s point seriously, how can you expect others to take your ideas seriously? Is there only a small fraction of ideas out there that we should respect as serious?

I don’t see how deriding Tom’s perspective will either build common ground amongst us or help persuade either of you to a different position.

]]> by: Michael Faris http://ericstoller.com/blog/2007/09/10/osu-to-be-tobacco-free/#comment-14985 Sat, 15 Sep 2007 17:23:20 +0000 http://ericstoller.com/blog/2007/09/10/osu-to-be-tobacco-free/#comment-14985 Tom, my apologies for sounding insulting or dismissive in my previous comment. I did not mean to be so in regards to your ideas, but I suppose I was in regards to your comparisons to Nazism. To be honest, comparisons to Nazism are so abundant and made from so many ideological positions that such comparisons can't really carry any persuasive weight at all, except with those who already agree with the argument or case. I am trying to see this issue from your perspective, trying to see smokers as a subordinate group that is oppressed, and I am having difficulty. This is partially because I have experiences being discriminated against as a queer man, but not as a smoker. I have been called slurs as i have innocently walked down streets, I have at times feared for my physical safety, and I feel like people have judged me as "less than human" — all because of my sexual and affectional feelings and my gender performance. However, I have never had a slur thrown at me because I smoke, I have never felt that my physical safety is in danger because I smoke, and I have never felt that someone was attacking my dignity — that I was somehow less than human because I smoke. And really, the only time that I can imagine fearing for my safety as a smoker is if I were in some place like Salt Lake City surrounded by violent straightedgers who beat up smokers and drinkers. But straightedgers hardly have institutional power (except for racially and gendered: they are generally white men). I think to make a further case in why I am having a difficult time understanding smoker as an identity group that is oppressed is because I don't seem "smoker" as an identity in the same manner as others. Certainly, it is an identity: "I am a smoker," I have often said. But today I could smoke my last cigarette (as I tried to do a few weeks ago) and suddenly I am no longer a smoker. One cannot do that with other identities which have oppression inscribed in them: one cannot simply quit an action and stop being queer, stop being a woman, stop being black, stop being a Jew or Muslim. So it seems to me that smoker is different from other identities on an ontological basis. I am more than willing to continue this discussion, and more than willing to listen to evidence you have that smokers are unfairly discriminated against. Tom, my apologies for sounding insulting or dismissive in my previous comment. I did not mean to be so in regards to your ideas, but I suppose I was in regards to your comparisons to Nazism. To be honest, comparisons to Nazism are so abundant and made from so many ideological positions that such comparisons can’t really carry any persuasive weight at all, except with those who already agree with the argument or case.

I am trying to see this issue from your perspective, trying to see smokers as a subordinate group that is oppressed, and I am having difficulty. This is partially because I have experiences being discriminated against as a queer man, but not as a smoker. I have been called slurs as i have innocently walked down streets, I have at times feared for my physical safety, and I feel like people have judged me as “less than human” — all because of my sexual and affectional feelings and my gender performance. However, I have never had a slur thrown at me because I smoke, I have never felt that my physical safety is in danger because I smoke, and I have never felt that someone was attacking my dignity — that I was somehow less than human because I smoke.

And really, the only time that I can imagine fearing for my safety as a smoker is if I were in some place like Salt Lake City surrounded by violent straightedgers who beat up smokers and drinkers. But straightedgers hardly have institutional power (except for racially and gendered: they are generally white men).

I think to make a further case in why I am having a difficult time understanding smoker as an identity group that is oppressed is because I don’t seem “smoker” as an identity in the same manner as others. Certainly, it is an identity: “I am a smoker,” I have often said. But today I could smoke my last cigarette (as I tried to do a few weeks ago) and suddenly I am no longer a smoker. One cannot do that with other identities which have oppression inscribed in them: one cannot simply quit an action and stop being queer, stop being a woman, stop being black, stop being a Jew or Muslim. So it seems to me that smoker is different from other identities on an ontological basis.

I am more than willing to continue this discussion, and more than willing to listen to evidence you have that smokers are unfairly discriminated against.

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