Response to last week’s letter to the editor

Ray Payne, Staff Reporter

 

Oberlin College students have made it clear that they’re tired of feeling the way they do; nobody can argue that they’re not upset.

However, what the original opinion was trying to convey was that the demands made were unreasonable and extreme. I too, share this opinion.

I understand wanting black faculty and counselors, because one can argue that students will be able to relate to them better. I also understand, though, that increasing the diversity of faculty is more complicated than some think.

Nowhere in the original opinion was the idea of students asking for equality and respect called extremism. Extremism is making unreasonable demands that include bringing back a form of segregation and the use of threats in order to obtain compliance.

Again, nowhere in the original opinion did someone say that when the issue is racial, it becomes extremism. However, when the issue involves threats to force compliance, that’s when there is a problem, no matter what the issue is.

To support your argument, you made several claims that were troubling.  I will allow the claim that there is housing discrimination present, however black Americans do not receive the lowest wages, Hispanic and Latino Americans do. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median weekly earnings for blacks is $641 while for Hispanics and Latinos it is only $604.

The claim that black Americans are having their right to vote stripped from them is debatable seeing as there are laws with the purpose of preventing this action. If what you’re referencing is voter ID laws, then you are misrepresenting the purpose of them in order to back up your own argument.

Black people being less likely to receive treatment at hospitals is another debatable claim on the grounds that hospitals are required to treat everyone until they are stable. The idea that police are more likely to shoot an unarmed black teen than an armed white terrorist is something that cannot be backed up.

What can be backed up by police records is that in 2015, 54 percent of the people shot by police were white and only 1.8 percent of the blacks shot were under 18. Over 80 percent of the individuals across all race that were shot were armed with lethal objects.

While the incarceration issue in the U.S. is a definite concern, there are many factors contributing to incarceration rates outside of race. Also, someone cannot be “detained” for resisting arrest, they are being arrested and resisting arrest is a crime.

The one thing I want make clear is that you have no right to ever tell someone that that they cannot express their opinions because of their skin color, you cannot fight racial issues with more racial discrimination.

Until everyone understands this, we cannot make progress.