Loading...The events of the Monday newspaper controversy made me sad to discover on
Tuesday the depth of the accident that the Daily Wildcat perpetuated. In
particular, I am ashamed to find that it was an accident and not a bold push by
the Daily Wildcat staff in order to bring such issues to the forefront through
what, effectively, is a clever editorial comic. So now, I find myself writing
this letter as a statement to Mr. Knight and the Daily Wildcat readers.
I’ll make a first level assumption that those readers that were greatly offended
by the truncated use of this derogatory term are also completely offended by the
use of the term in rap culture on a near constant level. I will also assume that
they are offended by the use of the term itself. I have not seen a single letter
taking offense at the generalization of white American voters being labeled as
racists even when voting for Obama. I certainly don’t take offense, as it is
necessary to get the point across.
What Mr. Knight does, and I applaud him for, is bring out the fact that
President-elect Obama reached across even the still existent racist divide. It
is only natural that in order to fully point out the existence of such racism,
that a term would need to be used. Without the use of a derogatory term, the
point of the entire comic is lost. If offended for the use of a term, I ask for
a look at who the audience is. The audience for the Daily Wildcat is students
and alumni who should be capable of intelligent thought on such a subject.
Instead of being immediately offended by the use of a word, I would have
expected many of you to sit and THINK on the point of the comic. Instead, all I
see is outrage at the usage of a word, as opposed to congratulations to Mr.
Knight for his portrayal of a message.
If the Daily Wildcat had printed this intentionally, I would be congratulating
them as well – for their denial of censorship that has started to become so
commonplace in the media. The real world isn’t perfectly nice and politically
correct. I’m sure Mr. Knight is well aware of that fact when he brings the
message of his comic to us. I hope that there is never a day when the papers of
the country try to hide our people from every harsh word and every inconvenient
truth. I hope, in the future, that such comics are bold pushes towards bringing
issues to a forefront, as opposed to accidents.
A.
