COLUMN: The ties that bind

From Dave Crystal's "Crystal Clear," Fall '96 From Dave Crystal's "Crystal Clear," Fall '96Defending one's own ethnic or racial groupFrom Dave Crystal's "Crystal Clear," Fall '96Defending one's own ethnic or racial groupsimply because of personal pride is wrong. From Dave Crystal's "Crystal Clear," Fall '96Defending one's own ethnic or racial groupsimply because of personal pride is wrong."People hear what they want to hear" is an adage so trite that I had disregarded it as inapplicable to real life. However, over the last two weeks, I have learned that people do indeed hear what they want to hear, especially when they are hearing themselves read. All of us remember that dreadful day when the verdict was reached in the O.J. Simpson trial. Many of us remember being aghast at how a man so blatantly guilty of murder was deemed innocent. I remember being even more astonished when I picked up the DP the next morning. My jaw dropped upon seeing two adjacent front-page photos -- one of African Americans in the Penn community jumping in exuberance, and one of Caucasians stunned and distraught. I asked myself, "How could this be?!" How had a moral issue become a racial issue? The same can be said of my last column. My intention in the column was to expose the revisionist history perpetrated by Professor Antonio McDaniel in his Sociology 6 class. Instead, many of my African American critics viewed it as designed to "foster bigotry" and "create an offensive piece of writing." The fact that none of my Caucasian critics saw it that way boggles my mind. Are we so closed-minded and misguided that all we can see are the wrongdoings of others? Have we been conditioned to defend "our own" to the point where we can not see objectively? The answer, unfortunately, is yes. I will not set out to answer the question "Why?", since the answer is obviously not "Crystal Clear." I will, however, attempt to answer the question "What can we do to correct this grave situation?" The best way to do this is not to speak in broad sweeping terms that carry little weight, but to use specific examples from my last column to illustrate my point. Many of my critics accused me of believing that everyone at Howard University is a fan of Farrakhan. This accusation was a response to my statement that "I hear they have a great major in Farrakhanism." Now, have you ever heard of a university where everyone majors in the same field? Obviously, when I said Howard "has a great major in Farrakhanism," I was being sarcastic. I was merely implying that Professor McDaniel's historic revision might be better suited for a university that not only condones but welcomes speakers like Khalid Abdul Muhammad. It is true that "everyone at Howard University is not a fan of Farrakhan," as one letter-writer stated. In fact, I would suggest that the majority are not. However, a considerable minority does endorse Farrakhanism and has the power to usher in Nation of Islam representatives whenever it pleases. Howard University's administration must be held accountable for not once voicing its disapproval of the spewing of racist rhetoric that occurs during these functions. If my African American critics have a hard time separating my point from their natural affinity to Howard, allow me to illustrate it in a fashion that hits home. Let us say that the majority of Caucasian students at Penn are not white supremacists, but a significant minority are. If this minority brought to campus representatives of the Ku Klux Klan, would not the African American community call upon the Penn administration to condemn such gatherings? If the administration then refused to do so, would not that same community charge that administration with being "racist?" I hope my African American critics now see why I harbor ill feelings toward Howard University. If Howard were truly an "institution of higher learning," it would not stoop to such low moral levels. So too, if Professor McDaniel were truly a teacher of high caliber, he would not preach the Farrakhanist belief that "whites went into Africa and enslaved blacks." Furthermore, some people -- when influenced by their racial ties -- are willing to make any fallacious remark so their point sounds like it has merit. One of my critics remarked "there have never been race distinctions from a biogenetic point of view except in rare instances like Nazi Germany," implying that such race distinctions could only be made by Nazis. If this were true, then biomedical scientists would not have spent the last 40 years trying to find cures for genetic diseases like Tay-Sachs, which plagues Jews, and sickle-cell anemia, which plagues Negroes. I hope my columns will foster dialogue and mutual understanding between Negroes and Caucasians. We must all come together to hold truth as the higher law, and come to the realization that every and any revision of history will only engender further confusion and mistrust between the races. It is imperative that we learn to separate our values of morality and justice from our affection toward our respective ethnic groups. Just because you are a Negro doesn't mean O.J. Simpson is innocent. Just because you are a Jew doesn't mean Baruch Goldstein is just. You can have ethnic pride and still be able to look at the world from an objective perspective. It is alright to be an ethnocentrist, as I too am an ethnocentrist, but defending one's "own" solely because they are one's "own" is the point where ethnocentrism becomes racism. And this is something of which we may all be guilty.