The Occidental Weekly

While I am usually impressed by the maturity of Oxy at attending to race issues, I am surprised by the ignorance pervading letters to the editor last week relating to issues of race.

Robin: Just because no one was there to complain about the racism and stereotypes at the party, does not make it okay. If a mob lynches a black person, and there are no other black people around to say its bad, then, by your argument, that's fine. Furthermore, your argument that blackface and the brownface at the party are not comparable is frankly absurd and difficult to understand. I understand that the party members have no intentional malicious intent towards Native Americans; however, mere silent participation constitutes racism. Racism is a mental illness affecting many. It deludes them into a sense of superiority and/or difference based on bloodlines. The problem is that racism today is NOT overt, it manifests in the deepest darkest corners of everyone's psyche and arises surreptitiously in things like median wages by race, prison populations and parties which deem it acceptable to trivialize the genocide of a people. Also, the "I have a ___ friend" argument is not only a stereotype by itself, but it is overplayed and horribly ignorant. One person does not speak for a race.

Miner: Saying the party was a "parody of a stereotype of a misinformation of" a culture is not only a grammatical nightmare, but a nonsensical statement. If I can wade through the errors, I can conjecture that he means the party was meant to satirize the damaging stereotypes against Natives. However, there is no base for this claim, it is just what Miner hopes was the case. The fact is, no matter the intentions, the party offended someone of that group. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and unless we stop sugarcoating racist events with claims that intentions are pure, prejudice and stereotypes will persist. Finally, a toga party would be in no way degrading to Greek or Italian students because it represents a culture, whereas the cowboy/Indian theme represents the active, trivialized role play of a genocide. Let's have a Hutus and Tutsis dress-up party next week!

Thomas: Your article goes like this: Write in pretentious tone. Assume vast things about someone you don't know. Generalize statements, and make faulty comparisons. Attack author. End with distorted, twisted message of self-righteousness.

If it is a waste of your time to read Tef's article, it is damaging to my hope in humanity to read yours. If people are not willing to have dialogue about race, the stereotypes will continue.

It is all too easy to blame the messenger of this critique, but what is more difficult (but rewarding) is to examine your own inner flaws and come to terms with them. We are ALL racist, in varying degrees, some just confront their own inner demons, and grow because of it. Others blame, attack and slander to protect their own egos, but remain in a juvenile mindstate about important issues.

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