JustRalph
04-25-2004, 07:01 PM
Ok...the title is a little Hyperbolic.......but this is very interesting if you ask me. I remember the arguments over "words meaning something" in the last Presidential campaign. Apparently they only mean something when the speaker is the right color.......this kind of action by the Black student group cuts their credibility to nothing if you ask me. This does a disservice to their so called constituency
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,118048,00.html
COVALIS, Oregon — Barred from writing columns for the Oregon State University Daily Barometer, senior David Williams is in the eye of a storm some call a racial double standard.
The newspaper's editor fired him after he wrote: "I think blacks should be more careful in deciding whom they choose to support. They need to grow beyond the automatic reaction of defending someone because he or she shares the same skin color and is in a dilemma."
Williams, who is white, was referring to examples such as when singer R. Kelly (search), who is accused of being a child pornographer, received a standing ovation at the Soul Train Music Awards. He also cited past support for O.J. Simpson (search) and Allen Iverson (search).
"I guess this case has shown me that just because I'm a different skin color, the merits of what I wrote have been marginalized and ostracized to the point that I'm labeled everything in the book like racist, Nazi," Williams said.
A similar article, written just two days earlier by Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts (search) drew no such outrage. Pitts, who is black, wrote: "Blacks ought to be more thoughtful about whom they choose to rally around, ought to be less automatic in leaping to the defense."
Although Williams admits he read Pitts' article before writing his own, he wasn't fired for plagiarism. And he was canned only after protests erupted on campus.
"I think he was fired because he's white," said talk show host Lars Larson (search). "If he had been a black student saying the same thing ... as Leonard Pitts wrote the same thing ... Leonard Pitts' opinion was welcome. His opinion was not."
Black leaders on campus disagreed with Williams' firing but admit they protested against the article and didn't take the same action for Pitts because of their different races.
Williams "does not know the experiences African-Americans have gone through. He will never know that," said Lauren Smith, president of the university's Black Student Union.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,118048,00.html
COVALIS, Oregon — Barred from writing columns for the Oregon State University Daily Barometer, senior David Williams is in the eye of a storm some call a racial double standard.
The newspaper's editor fired him after he wrote: "I think blacks should be more careful in deciding whom they choose to support. They need to grow beyond the automatic reaction of defending someone because he or she shares the same skin color and is in a dilemma."
Williams, who is white, was referring to examples such as when singer R. Kelly (search), who is accused of being a child pornographer, received a standing ovation at the Soul Train Music Awards. He also cited past support for O.J. Simpson (search) and Allen Iverson (search).
"I guess this case has shown me that just because I'm a different skin color, the merits of what I wrote have been marginalized and ostracized to the point that I'm labeled everything in the book like racist, Nazi," Williams said.
A similar article, written just two days earlier by Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts (search) drew no such outrage. Pitts, who is black, wrote: "Blacks ought to be more thoughtful about whom they choose to rally around, ought to be less automatic in leaping to the defense."
Although Williams admits he read Pitts' article before writing his own, he wasn't fired for plagiarism. And he was canned only after protests erupted on campus.
"I think he was fired because he's white," said talk show host Lars Larson (search). "If he had been a black student saying the same thing ... as Leonard Pitts wrote the same thing ... Leonard Pitts' opinion was welcome. His opinion was not."
Black leaders on campus disagreed with Williams' firing but admit they protested against the article and didn't take the same action for Pitts because of their different races.
Williams "does not know the experiences African-Americans have gone through. He will never know that," said Lauren Smith, president of the university's Black Student Union.