Out of Control

By Caelyn Woolward

One of the advantages of being a journalism student is that we tend to notice everything. The past year that I have been studying at Rhodes I have noticed that there have been many fights.

This is not particularly unusual since we live in a student town where there are numerous drunk and aggressive students walking the town on a Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and now even a Monday night. What does surprise me is that the most vicious fights involve “The control” the very people who are there to ensure order.

It appears that these bouncers take their temper out on anybody who happens to disobey club rules. Bear in mind that these men are not small, they are muscular and sometimes even trained fighters. I am not going to defend drunk and disorderly students, however, nobody should be a punching bag. There is a limit to the amount of violence and blood that these bouncers should have to shed. As recently as Friday a student was beaten up by one of the bouncers at Lounge Around. The stench of blood was everywhere and the students face was not visible behind the bruises and scratches. Surely this should not be allowed?

The worst thing is that nobody stops the bouncers because everybody is too scared and people are always thinking that since they are bouncers they probably have good reason to beat someone up. This is outrageous. It takes virtually no effort for them to walk the perpetrator out of the club. The fight should never have to end with an unconscious student. The scary thing is that if this is what is happening to the students then one can only imagine what is happening to the street children.