There’s six to eight white males out there who owe a lot of people an explanation.

Six to eight white males — likely Iowa State students, hopefully not — did the unthinkable Friday. They beat and cut a black man — one of our own, our classmate, our co-worker, our friend.

Student security officer Deantrious Mitchell was just doing his job, asking members of a white-male group for some ID. They were reportedly drinking alcohol on Clyde Williams Field.

Instead of digging through their wallets, the good ‘ole boys punched him. They cut him. They put him in the hospital.

Lots of things come to mind — angry things, things that won’t make the situation any better but necessary evils nonetheless. Most have recognized that acting on these knee-jerk emotions is not a wise course.

That’s good.

But there’s one question for us that lingers: Why? This is Ames, Iowa, for God’s sake. Things like this aren’t supposed to happen here. But they do. They did.

So instead of taking an eye for an eye when the boys are caught — and they will be caught; there’s just too many of them — we want to talk with them. We want to know why.

Why, boys, would you put someone in the hospital for asking a few simple questions?

Why, boys, would you set race relations back years on this campus?

Why, boys, would you gang up on another individual and call him a “nigger?”

Why, boys, would you be so dumb?

Why, boys, haven’t you learned anything from our history, your history?

Why, boys, haven’t you been man enough to admit what you’ve done?

And why, boys, would you care so little for our classmate, our co-worker and our friend?

You see, boys, we want to know these things.

You see, boys, we think you owe us the answers.