Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/1998/05/27/your_questions_answered_here_uncommon_threads_tricky_rhetoricals_finally_answered.php
Wednesday, May 27, 1998
Uncommon Threads, the student 'publishing collective'dedicated to 'resisting racism, homophobia, sexism and classism and focusing on women and gender' (and which recently printed a controversial lesbian's coming-out story) published in their latest issue a serious of rhetorical questions under the title 'Why do all the white people sit together at Food Court?' We have selected several questions posed by Uncommon Threads, and, both as a service to the Dartmouth community and to educate those wayward Threads, offer below our own responses.
Q. Why will the revolution not be televised?
A. Will eventually air as 'When the Unwashed Attack' after Fox buys the television rights.
Q. Where is the Second World?
A. The Second World is a designation assigned to partially developed nations (i.e. Brazil, most of formerly communist Eastern Europe). See also, White River Junction and the River Cluster.
Q. Who chooses the news?
A. TV programming directors, managing editors of newspapers, focus group feedback studies, and, of course, The ManÙ.
Q. Why doesn't J.Crew just open an outlet store on the Green and house the Third World slave laborers in the Super dorms?
A. Zoning laws. See also, the cornering of the third world labor market by Nike and Kathie Lee Gifford.
Q. Why does Dartmouth divide the world into western and non-western?
A. The same reason that Dartmouth divides the world into women's studies, gay/lesbian/bisexual studies, Native American studies, and African-American studies.
Q. Why is education so costly?
A. Too many student newspapers.
Q. Why aren't suits sold in a uniform store?
A. For the same reason most retailers do not stock the counterculture's standard issue ragged henley/army pants/Guatemalan bag/beret/hemp necklace/Birkenstock ensemble.
Q. Why do people use the expression 'white trash'?
A. See David Allen Coe, Cops: In Little Rock, the Ku Klux Klan, or most interviews involving rural tornado disaster victims ('it sound lik uh freight train comin' tord me').
Q. Why is there only one contraceptive option for men?
A. Simple creatures, simple solutions.
Q. If the alumni are so concerned about our distributing 'pornographic' material to the Dartmouth community, then why are they willing to post it on the internet, where anyone can read it? (http://members.aol.com/bbwilkens/dartmouth.html)?
A. To entertain those who didn't have an Adult Check ID to access the Penthouse Variations homepage.