Letter to the Editor: Dosman must face consequences

I’ve been reading all sorts of people’s posts [in regards to Sandor Dosman’s contract termination with the GSA] and the common theme I’m seeing is everyone saying: “how sensitive is this generation is blah blah blah.”

In my opinion, if you think about it realistically, slavery is not really something to joke about publicly. I say publicly because, of course, not everyone thinks alike and it is very unfair to get upset at that. I understand that you cannot control how someone else might feel. However, in the grand scheme of things, just because a person can take “a joke” better than others, does not mean everyone else is “soft” or “sensitive.” In this case, your sense of humour is more passive than others. To me, it is the root of the problem that is still at large: racism and people actually believing what they do/say/think isn’t as bad as people think and that those who respond are just being “soft”

For those who say: “Sandor Dosman wasn’t intending to be malicious, okay?” I don’t care how you spin it but I have one question for Mr. Dosman: how old are you? You should know better, you can’t be that ignorant and I would hope that you are aware of what is going on in the world right now. You obviously know that you work on a university campus, that is home to many different races, people from many different walks of life and many different people coming from many different experiences.

If you have a problem with [Dosman] losing his job because you fail to see what he did was wrong, you are part of the problem, plain and simple.

Truthfully, if you cannot come to realize that in an establishment like this, there is no wiggle room for, “Oh, sorry I didn’t know,” or “Oh, sorry I didn’t mean to offend anyone.” Come on man, you need to be a professional. You cannot make grey area/borderline funny or borderline offensive jokes like that publicly and expect anything less than termination. That is a sick joke and the uproar behind it is insane.

To the students outraged about the loss of employment by this situation, I ask, “Are you kidding me?”

I’m sorry this is so long but I’ve got to make my point loud and clear — especially as a former Laurier student-athlete. This slavery joke is beyond black and white because slavery was something that a lot of different cultures and races have dealt with, whether it was here in the Western world, or overseas in other countries.

I refuse to sit here and make comparisons by saying, “Oh, that’s like making a joke about [blank] and saying what? Its just a joke.” But, you can fill in that “blank” with anything that has happened in history. You can say to yourself that it is not funny and understand that as unfortunate as it is, he lost his job and he should have known better instead of getting upset that people are offended. Who are you to get upset about that?

For the individuals who feel that this decision was unfair, you are part of the percentage of people that can “take a joke,” whether is is offensive or not and keep it moving. Just know that the world does not revolve around such kind of people. We have to be able to co-exist with one another. Just because you feel a certain way about a topic like slavery, do not expect others to as well.

When very sound, disciplinary action is taken, an apology and saying there was no malicious intent does not mean you are entitled to being reinstated. You have to face the consequences.

I can recall a couple of situations happening at Laurier while I was a student there, of things occurring related to race. One in particular being a picture of Trayvon Martin titled “lost dog” or something disgusting like that. This was “just a joke” to someone, but does it make it right for that person to share that sort of joke with everyone?

I’m glad Laurier did something about Dosman’s ad, because if nothing was done about it, there is a percentage of “ignorant” people that would continue to believe that an apology will get you out of offending someone. In the real world, if you say the wrong things to the wrong people there are consequences, and you’ve got to be ready to face them.

Maybe I was raised differently and understand the world differently but hey, who am I really to tell you guys how to react? Logic tells me if you say something borderline, be ready for the other side of that border to do/say something about it. If you can’t respect the people around you, learn how to. The world is a much better place that way, my friends.

Ese Mrabure-Ajufo
Laurier alumn, class of 2015
Laurier men’s football team 2011-2014

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