To the editor:

I am writing in response to Aaron Woell’s column on April 26. I am not surprised at the one-sided racism that Greg Jerrett and Sara Ziegler decide to publish.

Sara is the same person who used almost a whole page to ask Paul Shirley out, meanwhile she failed to mention Black History Month until Feb. 4.

Carmen Cerra’s illustration accompanying Woell’s column, in which a black person’s arm is coming out of a Klansman’s robe, is absolutely ridiculous. As if these incidents weren’t enough, now we have the Grand Wizard Aaron Woell aboard to keep up the racist tradition.

Aaron’s column was absolutely absurd. He took two isolated incidents and totally ran with them. He tries to deny the fact that white oppression is widespread.

Let’s be honest. Everywhere the white man goes, he brings hypocrisy and turmoil, and this is followed by domination.

This is evident from the stealing of the Americas to the slave trade and stretches beyond America; just look at the oppression taking place in South Africa. The white man is responsible for the greatest crime in history.

Let us not be oblivious to the facts because of an isolated incident. This woman at U of I was obviously wrong in her actions, but she was also mentally ill.

If we are going to trade isolated incidents, then let us discuss the two white bouncers who killed an unarmed black man in Iowa. They will receive two years in prison at the most.

Let’s look at James Byrd, who was dragged and killed, or maybe even Amadou Diallo, who was murdered by four white cops. Don’t think that one mistake by a black woman excuses you for 400-plus years of tyranny and injustice.

If African-Americans are complaining about white persecution, it’s warranted. Aaron, why don’t you analyze why everyone is so alarmed when hate crimes occur or are speculated? Are you so absent-minded that you’ve forgotten about all the lynchings that have taken place, all the rapes and beatings that have taken place against blacks?

This is just another attempt to cover up the truth that white oppression is as prevalent today as it’s ever been. This is the worst column this despicable newspaper has printed since the Sally Hemings TV movie listing in “On the Tube” in which Thomas Jefferson was supposedly having a “love affair.”

The former president had to be at very least 35 years old, and Hemings was no more than 14 years old when this started! Now had this been a black man and a white girl, he would have been murdered. This is evident in the Scottboro boy’s trial in which nine blacks ages 13 to 21 were tried for raping two white girls, one of whom was a known prostitute.

This is evident in the case of Emmit Till, who was murdered for whistling at a white lady. Aaron is a liar who claims to be from a diverse town. I know better; I am from Illinois, and Bolingbrook is predominantly white.

The same town in which he claims there is no segregation and everyone plays together is the same town in which Leonard Clark was beaten severely by three white males.

Leonard Clark was 13 years old at the time of this incident. However, the oldest convicted was 21 years old. Then Aaron has the audacity to adulate white Americans for supposedly giving us freedom.

Should we thank you for giving us something that is “inalienable”? “How can you thank a man for giving you what’s already yours? How then can you thank him for giving you only part of what is yours?” (Malcolm X)

If blacks were truly free, would there be a need for affirmative action and other programs of this nature?

The white man has done a lot for blacks, but not for any reasons besides personal gain and recompense. There would be no need for a white man’s help if we weren’t belated because of his evil ways.

Aaron speaks as if equality came about as soon as the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. Then what were the Jim Crow laws? White America must understand that the black revolution’s intent has never been to have a racial revolt. Rather, it’s a “rebellion against the oppression and colonialism which has characterized his era.” (Malcolm X)

It just so happens that those who have done the oppressing are white; so maybe a racial revolt is inevitable.

Curtis Carver

Sophomore

Pre-business