LETTER: Alternatives

As a 24-year old black male who is on the staff here at Penn, I never in my life have read such a racist article coming from anyone -- black or white -- since I was able to read at the age of five. I see no problem with white students -- male or female, frat members or non-frat members -- escorting or volunteering their time with the neighborhood black kids on this campus. I would rather have the kids being used in this way rather than them being used or letting them see either drug deals or the hostile environment they might face in their neighborhoods. I live in North Philadelphia, which is not a nice or safe area for kids to grow up in. In my neighborhood alone, the kids know more about how to make crack (rock cocaine), where it is being made, who is the biggest dealer, who shot who, who has a beeper, who runs what drug corner or house, and what is the best gun to have, instead of how to read a white properly. Then I know the mothers of these kids who sell their bodies -- the mothers, not the kids -- for five dollars worth of crack while their children live in way-below-poverty-level conditions. If this is happening in my neighborhood, then I know it is happening here in the Penn community area. The difference is this: here at Penn, some students are taking young children from these conditions and exposing them to more pleasant conditions than those I just described. If Bill Madison has a problem with this, maybe he should get off his big, fat, black and lazy behind and volunteer his time or service to his young black brothers and sisters of this community. PHILLIP GILLIAM Secretary Regional Science