This story was co-written with Meghan O’Sullivan.
Milo Yiannopoulos listens as he prepares to answer the question of NAACP president, Tenae Turner. Photo by Ashley Kairis
Audience members cheered as guest speaker, Milo Yiannopoulos, spoke fervently against feminism, Islam, Black Lives Matter and liberals. Through his growing popularity, he has incited protests, anti-Milo committees and been permanently banned from Twitter in an attempt to silence his dialogues that can be taken very offensively.
Yiannopoulos, a self proclaimed cultural libertarian and free speech fundamentalist, came to WCU’s UC Illusions on Oct. 12 as a part of his “Dangerous Faggot Tour”, that is scheduled to reach 26 college campuses this fall.
“My goal is to ignite a free speech revolution across college campuses because I think free speech is being extinguished by the progressive left, by feminism and by Black Lives Matter,” said Yiannopoulos on his goal for his tour and added: “It’s working.”
The event was brought to campus by WCU’s College Republicans and had an audience of over 150 people. Police presence and high-level security were prominent at the event, with around 12 officers, a bomb sniffing dog and a wand to detect weapons on those in attendance.
At least a dozen WCU police officers were patrolling the event in an effort to keep everyone safe and control any potential protests. Photo by Ashley Kairis
A police officer at the event said the heavy presence of security was for “potential threat of protests” by students against Yiannopoulos coming to campus.
College Republicans’ Chairman Benjamin Snedegar explained that high police attendance was the result of a credible bomb threat was investigated by the FBI. The threat was made at Florida State University before Yiannopoulos’ performance that caused its cancellation.
“I think it was important to bring him here for students to understand that you don’t have to agree with somebody to tolerate them expressing their opinions,” said Snedegar.
The room was overwhelmingly filled with Yiannopoulos’ supporters, who broke out into laughter at comments made at the expense of religious groups, women, and people he classified as overweight. While this was the case for the vast majority, not everyone was on board with the conservative opinions filling the room.
“He is not what our community creed upholds. He is everything against what we are supposed to be as a community,” said senior, Mali Gunawardane.
Trump and Milo supporter from Clemson University takes photo with Yiannopoulos. Photo by Ashley Kairis
With campus police officers and university officials standing at attention, Yiannopoulos showed no reservations in expressing his opinions. He displayed satirical graphics with the audience in reference to controversial topics occurring in pop culture as well as in the political atmosphere.
Among his more memorable one-liners were: “Feminism is cancer,” “Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy” and “In what universe does fat shaming not work?”
While Yiannopoulos is an openly gay man, he does not believe in lesbians. In previous interviews, Yiannopoulos has characterized lesbians as fat, dungaree wearing, and “lacking options” in regards to relationships.
“I think it’s backwards that he is someone who is a minority himself but he is so for the oppression of other minorities that don’t include himself”, said Gunawardane. “I’m not going to [support] someone that spills out hate to other students.”
Yiannopoulos also talked about Islam, calling it a “kill joy religion”, going on to say that together, feminism and Islam are the two biggest threats to America today.
Amongst the crowd were not only students, but people who traveled to campus just for the event.
Milo supporter, Matthew DeWolf, stood in admiration during the open question forum after travelling from Charlotte. Photo by Ashley Kairis
Matthew DeWolf traveled three hours from Charlotte to Cullowhee to see and give praise to Yiannopoulos’ rhetoric.
“I wanted to meet him and meet the team. I’ve been following Milo since the Gamergate [exposure] happened and I’ve been a fan ever since,” said DeWolf.
DeWolf also participated in the question and answer section of the event, crediting Yiannopoulos for his weight loss of 40-50 pounds because of Yiannopoulos’ opinions on “fat shaming”.
As the event came to a close, those in attendance applauded Yiannopoulos for being uncut, unrehearsed and unapologetic for his opinions.
