Land of the free?

This letter is in response to the letter entitled “For White Unions.”

Dear Tom Sullivan, there is nothing wrong with having a white student union or standing up for issues that are important to you. I question your motive for wanting to start one.

Black student unions were formed in part to voice our united opinion in an economic and social system that is undeniably racist!

I’m well aware that all races are discriminated against; however, I truly question whether a 20-year-old white male, born and raised in America can ever really truly know what it is to be economically, politically and socially discriminated against. Chances are that no one called you a “nigger” at age four.

I hope no one ever forgets the horror of slavery. I am “still crying” about what happened 130 years ago and you would too if YOUR relatives were one of them. Most whites don’t even know what really happened and never will find out from a college textbook; in fact, your textbook covers “White-American history,” because our educational system is structured that way.

Whites DO have an economic dominance! If I had a business in 1700 and had 250 years worth of free slave labor plus whatever I could rape, pillage and plunder from the Indians, I too would have economic dominance, (or at least a good head start).

The right to succeed isn’t to be confused with a guarantee of success. Martin Luther King Jr. never lived to see the true results of his efforts. I wish you had the courage to tell us what you meant when you said that 75 percent of all blacks in college don’t graduate.

Blacks should never stop idolizing a black man who seeks to improve our lives. Blacks don’t want special treatment, nor do we expect it. We want equal rights and opportunities; but, most people don’t realize that new legislation isn’t that same as equal rights nor does it guarantee opportunities.

We need to change hearts, as well as laws and conditions. “White domination” isn’t the results of blacks portraying whites that way. We are not “seeing things”! No white person born in America will ever really know how deep racism runs and what it’s like to be black in the land of the “free” and the home of the brave.

Dereck Werner

Graduate Student

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