To the editor:

I have a bone to pick with Mr. Aaron Woell, author of the column “White people not the root of all evil” from the April 26 Daily.

While I must agree there is more evil in this world than what is just racially motivated, white hate groups are still a problem in modern society.

Woell stated, “[racism] may have been true in the deep South a long time ago, this is the present day, and the last time I looked Iowa did not constitute the deep South.”

This article conveniently ignores the existence of the nationwide (North and South) white Christian hate group called the Ku Klux Klan. Although the KKK began in Mississippi, one of the largest branches of the Ku Klux Klan is now organized along the border of Illinois and Indiana, right here in the Midwest.

I am sure Mr. Woell learned in grade school, as all Midwestern children did, that the KKK was an organization founded by Nathan Bedford Forrest, which began in the deep South and terrorized African-American men and women during the Southern Reconstruction period.

While that may have been the end of the chapter in his history book, it was not the end of the Ku Klux Klan.

Instead of dwindling, the religiously motivated KKK grew and set up branches of their organization across the entire nation, even north of the Mason-Dixon line. In his article, Woell failed to mention that there is a branch of the Ku Klux Klan right here in Iowa.

The Midwestern area is even home to the leader of the national group Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Pastor Thomas Robb. Robb is an ordained Baptist minister who grew up in the far northern state of Michigan.

Woell’s column seems to be attempting to prove that white hate groups only live and breathe in the “Deep South,” and that is simply not the case.

It seems to me that he was very relieved that a white student did not cause the incidents at the University of Iowa.

It was as if a white person had caused these hate-related crimes, he would somehow be to blame.

His faulty logic that drew him to conclude that because the few incidents he mentioned in the article did not involve white people, white hate crime no longer exists.

It may very well be that because Woell himself is a part of the white majority, he has never personally experienced these white Christian hate group crimes in action and does not realize the seriousness of their existence.

Woell is living in the Bible Belt of America. I personally have never met so many Protestants at one time in one place in my entire life.

The KKK lives in the Bible Belt as well and, as one may guess, uses the word of the Lord to strengthen its misguided mission.

Religion, primarily Christianity, is very important to people, especially in this area of the country.

I think Woell should be more concerned than he appears to be about the white Christian hate groups and the crimes committed by them in his area.

If a Baptist on the basis of religion can found an organization such as the Ku Klux Klan, preach white power and back it up with the Bible, then where does it end?

Some Christian children, in the North and South, who believe they are growing up in a loving religious atmosphere are being preached hate in guise of the word of the Lord.

In the Bible Belt of America, where blind faith is often placed in the hands of ministers who preach the word of the Lord, where are these children allowed to draw the line?

If a person in any area of the country, North or South, grows up in an unpopular moral background learning hate as Gospel, crimes with hate as a motive can likely follow.

I believe the time has come to reassess the values being taught by these radical Christian churches and how these leaders are interpreting them from the Bible. Only then can we stop hate crimes, in the North or South, before they start.

Sabrina Denise Cutinelli

Sophomore

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