ISU Bengal

Issue date: 1/25/06 Section: Opinion

After reading Forrest Stout's op-ed piece on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, it made me stop and think: isn't combating discrimination every person's responsibility? Forrest Stout alludes to this, but I believe that his coverage of the history of racism and to a lesser extent sexism and homophobism is only one side of the coin, and somewhat one-sided. We must be willing to examine the present, and how our own prejudices have influences on society. This not only includes the descendants of slave owners or various other caucasian males who hold prejudices against those of color or opposite sex, but everyone, caucasian, African-American, Asian, Hispanic, Latino, male, female, gay or straight. All one needs to do is rent a movie such as Waiting to Exhale (1995) or Crash (2004) to see that caucasian males are not the only people in our society who hold prejudices. Studying the labor history of the nineteenth century can also allow us to see that many "white" (some more olive-skinned, of which I am proudly partially descended) Europeans also faced discriminatory behavior, and though their treatment may or may not have been as cruel and inhumane as the American slave movement it certainly was discrimination none-the-less.

My point in all of this is that though we cannot avoid placing some blame on the Caucasian prejudices and history, people of all races and genders must examine their own beliefs and histories to see if they hold the same prejudices. Otherwise, our culture may never move on.



Sincerely,

Michael Benner

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