I have to say, I find it pretty ridiculous that the Senior One-Acts this year are permitting an adaptation of “Andrew Macdonald”‘s The Turner Diaries. Had drama organizers or Father Wildes even heard of “The Turner Diaries” before allowing this production to take place?

“The Turner Diaries” is a 1978 novelization of a race war in the year 1996, written by Dr. William L. Pierce. Dr. Pierce, now deceased, was the head of the white supremacist organization National Alliance. The book’s plot concerns a protagonist, Earl Turner, overthrowing the government by blowing up a federal building in the name of white people everywhere. You see, the government (called “The Organization” in the book) is little more than a conspiracy consisting of black people and Jews, aiming only to persecute Caucasians.

Except for that last bit concerning the government, do the actions of “Earl Turner” sound familiar? The FBI sure thought so. They called “The Turner Diaries” Timothy McVeigh’s “inspiration” and “blueprint” in blowing up the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.

Now, of course I support and cherish our First Amendment rights afforded to us as American citizens under our Constitution. Those producing and supporting the production of “The Turner Diaries” at the Senior One-Acts will probably point to both the previously stated and claim the adaptation will “take on the racist content in a new light, you haven’t seen the end result,” etc. I highly doubt the first point, at least. I quite simply can’t see how that would be possible, knowing the source material. “The Turner Diaries” is a novel that casts its racist content in a decidedly non-ironic light, to be certain. There are no winks to the reader that this is repugnant fantasy, but what should be happening in real life.

Frankly, I have no idea what was even going through the mind of the drama student who selected something like “The Turner Diaries” to adapt as a one-act play. After all, out of…well, ALL the previously-written works available on Earth, “The Turner Diaries” was chosen? Perhaps the assignment was “pick a wholly inappropriate piece of literature,” but I highly doubt it.

Furthermore, consider the following. For “The Vagina Monologues” (a sticky subject on both secular and Jesuit campuses nationwide, admittedly) to be produced at Loyola, our school needed a regime change and the hiring of a new university president willing to take official rebuke for his actions from an Archbishop of the Catholic Church. For an adaptation of a book advocating a treasonous overthrow of the federal government, racism, white supremacy, and the murder in general of all non-white peoples everywhere…nary is heard a discouraging word, here on our Loyola range. No angry Archbishops, no outraged students, no attention whatsoever.

Honestly, it’s highly troubling and very disturbing indeed that a racist polemic is being permitted to be performed on the Loyola stage to a reaction of utter silence by all sides. The student body, probably, has never heard of “The Turner Diaries.” That would be their reasonable response, but ignorance should not and cannot be claimed by university leaders. They’re responsible for what goes on here at Loyola, as what we do provides the public face of our university at large. I, for one, am not comfortable at all with the seeming current stance by this institution that adaptations of white supremacy literature are perfectly fine here at Loyola University New Orleans. Are you?

Robert SullivanA’06