Elitism occurs in numerous forms

My friends and I were walking out to the movie theater the other night. So anyway, a couple miles in, a drink starts to sound like a good idea. There's an unnamed fast food restaurant nearby and though the dining room is closed, the drive-up window is still open. A very parched opinions editor and his friends could be heard reciting our collective order to the little microphone only —

Did you know you aren't allowed use the drive-up window without a car?

Neither did we. We couldn't use the dining room because it was closed and now a disembodied voice told us we weren't welcome in the drive thru. This means people on foot are prevented from eating, where as people in cars have free reign. Sort of a reverse of the pedestrian right of way.

I understand now that this is done for the safety of the person working the drive thru window. After all, we could have been eight bloodthirsty serial killers with sacks of decapitated fingers that we were looking to super-size.

Let's just say that I apologize for my rather harsh words to that night manager, and he knows who he is.

I was parched and angry.

As we sat and tried to figure out whether our enthusiastic plea for a change in drive thru policy would get the police called ("At least if we get arrested, we'll be in a squad car — maybe then I can get my Coke"), I started thinking about today's column.

Elitism and Me (Not You)

Elitism occurs whenever we divide people into groups. Because of our competitive nature, each group then must band together and see itself as better than the other for morale or group identity. To use the previous anecdote, let's say our groups are pedestrians and motorists. Now were we motorists, we probably would have no understanding of the plight of the late-night drive-thru pedestrian. As pedestrians though, we were the victims of a discriminatory act, one that, whether they realize it or not allows motorists an unfair privilege.

Now as I stated before, this discrimination is policy and for the safety of the employees, even though not all and maybe only a select few of the discriminated group fall into the worst case serial killer group.

So the pedestrians become angry and bitter, maybe some even begin to believe that they aren't as good as the motorists. Or maybe the pedestrians rally together to become empowered as citizens worthy of late-night food, too.

Lines of communication between motorist drive-thru customer and pedestrian drive-thru customer will be blocked by rage. Maybe some motorists out of their car might find out what the plight of a pedestrian is and use their experience to plead for tolerance from their fellow motorists and fast food establishments. But tolerance seems like a dirty word to pedestrians. After all, feet were here before cars; how can a car be better? Why should we have to be "tolerated"?

Even if they were to allow pedestrians to order from the drive thru after years of protest, history would always remind us of the time when we were kept from eating when we were hungry and drinking when we were thirsty.

Motorists would still carry that pride in their cars, and might be reluctant to relinquish their privileges, believing that there's only so much food in the drive thru and that now all those dirty pedestrians are going to get it. How will the motorists eat then?

We're All Hungry

Even though there's enough food for anyone at the drive thru, it'll be overlooked as motorists cry reverse discrimination. Maybe there'd be violence and threats, maybe there'd just be carist jokes behind closed doors with friends.

What do you call 500 pedestrians run over by cars?

A good place to start.

Why did the pedestrian cross the road?

To pick up his welfare check.

Untrue and cruel stereotypes, left over from the pre-drive-thru unification era would come up to the forefront ("Walkers are all on welfare, that's why they don't have cars." "Pedestrians are dumber than motorists and they don't shave." "Don't read the Exponent, I hear their opinions editor walks to get where he's going. Damn Pedies.").

The crux of the issue, the fact that we're all drive-thru customers, has already become forgotten as we debate and confuse the issue.

But sooner or later, we'll all band together to discriminate against something else, motorist and pedestrian alike, enjoying humor about the stupidity of restaurant employees.

And that, dear readers, is what prejudiced society based on elitism is like. But thank God this is America, land of opportunity and late-night fast food, where that sort of thing doesn't happen like everywhere else in the world.

Tom McHenry is a junior in the School of Liberal Arts who walks because he's cheap, not because he's poor. He can be reached at opinions@purdueexponent.org.

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