It was with more than a little skepticism that I ventured into the Tunnel of Oppression two Tuesdays ago. Frankly, I expected to be bombarded with little more than the usual politically correct fare and sanctimonious appeals to justice that characterize much of college discourse. I must admit I was surprised at the amount of effort put into the display, as well as my own reaction to some aspects of it. Amid the cacophony of all the various exhibits, there was some truth to be learned.

When I reached the Grand Ballroom, I was told to have a seat before entering the tunnel; one of the volunteers then explained that what was to follow may be traumatizing and that I should be aware of my feelings as I proceed through the tunnel. What followed was (in a stark example of inability to make selections) a series of rooms depicting instances of oppression in the context of this year’s themes: tools of oppression, women’s issues, racial oppression and sexual orientation issues. The actual tunnel was much broader in scope, depicting the effects of economic inequality, stereotypes against those with disabilities and more or less any instance of discomfort imaginable.

I was specifically affected by the displays that detailed the various instances of religious and ethnic minorities being oppressed by governments. Rather than succumb to the temptation to only be critical of the United States’ treatment of minorities in the past, an effort was made to draw attention to the arbitrary persecutions of people in China, Burma, North Korea and other genuinely oppressive societies.

The exhibit was jarring in many respects; there were certainly portions that were unnecessarily graphic or perhaps even exploitative. For example, the display on racism focused almost exclusively on the use of ethnic slurs and other expressions people find offensive. These words were given prominent display, and a clip of various actors spouting similar insults was looped. Certainly, when racism has been a cause in so much of the world’s genuine oppression, it is trivializing to focus so much on the basic lack of decency of those who persist in using racial slurs.

In recent times, there have been numerous instances when a public figure has invoked some horrific cataclysm of the past (usually the Holocaust) when trying to characterize present occurrences. These abuses of history have been frowned upon rightly; when one decries all injustices as no different from the superlative, there can only follow a loss of judgment.

As is true in the classification of almost anything, the degree of injustice is what separates the truly shocking and evil from the commonplace and indecent. This conflation of degrees is what ultimately weakens the impact of the Tunnel of Oppression. There is an obvious irony in bringing to light the directed practices of slaughter and genocide against whole groups only a few meters from where one decries the lack of minorities in magazine ads.

I myself have lived my life being made the occasional subject of fun. I have always been somewhat stocky, and moreover, I am an Indian male. But the instances of discomfort I have felt over the years and the occasional childhood stares do not constitute anything near oppression. If I were to feel oppressed every time this happened, I would be profoundly egotistical and probably unable to determine what constituted genuine unfairness or discrimination.

One of the fliers for the Tunnel exhorted the reader to see human behavior in terms of mere differences in power, where one is either the oppressed or the oppressor. In trying to prove this silly reduction of human behavior, the organizers of the Tunnel of Oppression have instead proved, although graphically and somewhat haphazardly, a far more basic truth: That we, as humans, will always have to grapple with the evil tendencies that reside in us all.

Goutham Ganesan is a sophomore chemistry and biochemistry major. He can be reached at gganesan@umd.edu.