Dissension in the ranks

Funny thing happened to me yesterday. I was attending our Black Student Alliance meeting in my usual capacity of an officer. The meeting was short and sweet due to the weather and so we all ended up chit chatting after official business got dealt with. A previous conversation emerged from our chat. The vice president was remarking about the fact that I didn't write a letter to the college rag/newspaper and disappointing the group as a whole. Maybe I should start from the beginning.

A few weeks back in the opinion page at school a university student's views were met with anger especially from the minority black students. She had written that people view residents from the midwest/heartland of America as being dumb, slow not to mention uninformed. She made an analogy in her piece. She said this view is almost comparable to someone saying that black people are lazy people who love handouts. Distasteful as the analogy was, it was an analogy nonetheless. Needless to say the black students in the school reacted when they saw the piece in the Rag. When approached I said I didn't think the girl was wrong . Why? She was being a writer and not to mention the fact that her piece was published in an opinion page of a university paper. She tackled the piece like she was having a one on one conversation with a friend. She was in no means a professional and articulate writer. Her piece was filled with kinda and gonna to illustrate my judgement. So why would you attack the girl on those grounds?

I took a stand. I said the people who should be held accountable should be the editors of the paper. They are the ones who proof read the pieces submitted before they hit the press. It is therefore their task and duty to make sure that articles published in the papers met journalism standards. I am sorry but I thought they were overeacting to something that was due to someone's laxity in the duties. They were crucifying the wrong person and I wasn't going to join in holding her legs as they hammered the nail home.

A young lady in the room taking interviews from the outspoken blacks slid next to me and the VP. She asked me if I would be like to air my views on the school TV channel. I said NO. I didn't think I needed to present a different view to a united front. I didn't think I needed to spotlight dissension in the minority group. I would keep my opinions about their oversight solely to our circle. I will win them over with my aptitude for social justice. Racism is a touchy subject especially in US. It is said that discrimination is on the downswing but in reality it is just being whispered between knowns and rarely aired. I choose to also whisper mine between knowns and not air ours.