The tickets for guest speaker, Ben Shaprio, here on Susquehanna University’s campus are sold out. For those of you who don’t know who Ben Shaprio is; He’s a conservative Jewish author, columnist, lawyer, radio show host and political speaker. His presence on our campus is controversial because he is very outspoken about his beliefs, which can be seen as offensive to some and perfectly okay according to others.
At the age of seventeen, Shaprio published his first book titled Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth. Since then, he has written six other books. Shaprio graduated high school at sixteen. He now runs a small firm and produces a daily podcast, as well as raises two children with his wife.
He’s pretty successful, right? So why is his presence on campus causing such uproar? This has nothing to do with him being a conservative, most of us truly enjoy hearing stories and having discussions with successful people outside of our personal stances. Susquehanna students are very much politically aware, but what Shaprio says sometimes, can be offensive.
For example, Shaprio often refers to liberals as “liberal snowflakes” and thinks they create “a hierarchy of victimhood”. Also, Shaprio says, regarding certain LGBTQ persons that being transgender is a “delusion” and compared Caitlyn Jenner’s transition to men getting off boats on the beaches of Normandy in terms of courage, saying Caitlyn Jenner’s transition is not courageous. In terms of feminism, Shaprio says ” the transgender movement is destroying feminism” as well as saying “If men and women are exactly the same, why do we need a woman president?” Here, on this campus, we have transitioning students as well as a strong LGBTQ community. Shaprio argues that your biological sex is who you are and stands by that strongly calling transgenders and transitioning a “mental illness” and a “delusion”. He speaks to this many many times in videos online as well as his podcasts and writings.
He recently commented on the movie Black Panther, and the excitement and comments surrounding it. He comments on the media treating Black Panther as “a glorious moment” and how that’s incorrect. He states that Wakanda does not exist, which is true. He says, in terms of Wakanda, that “All that matter in this universe is that a big meteorite lands right here and there are no white people to ruin it.” Then discusses how there is a Black Lives Matter speech at the beginning of the film. He says that the movie makes the statement that “America is the worst place for black people” and goes on to say that, in reality “America is the best place for black people”. He also says that the United States is the least colonizing country in the history of colonizers. Feel free to listen to his podcast here. He does also say that he really liked the movie and believes it to be a very good movie.
I’ve kept my opinions out of this article so that readers may form their own separate opinions. I’m keeping my views on politics out of this as well as to keep this as unbiased on my part as possible. All I’m saying here is that these can be reasons for students to not agree with his presence here on our campus. Somethings he says can offend the minority groups that call this institution home. This is why his presence is causing such controversy. Our student body is speaking and practicing our free speech. What happens after all this, I do not know, but what I do know is that some students are thrilled to hear him speak and others are offended by it.
For more from Ben Shaprio, check out these links and feel free to make your own opinions: