Dear Editor,
On behalf of the 1995-96 ULV women’s basketball team, I would like to extend our appreciation to all those students, faculty, administrators and the La Verne community who supported us throughout the season. All of you gave us great strength every time we stepped onto the floor. We hope we have made you proud as you have made us proud!
Julie Kline
Head Women’s Basketball Coach
Dear Editor,
I am writing in response to the March 8 article titled “Racism in Reverse” [by Raechel Fittante] in the Opinion section. As a member of the executive board for La Verne’s Afrikan American Student Alliance, I must inform you that we don’t invite or pay uneducated people who speak racist nonsense. We invite people who will educate, empower, challenge and open our conscience to truth. The University is a place where students seek to become scholars. To do this, we must continually challenge ourselves. That is what Minister Muhammad did for many of us. He challenged the University students to be responsible and take on their own personal search for knowledge and truth. The minister encouraged us to look beyond the classroom and into the big picture.
I would like to discuss why Raechel Fittante is continually allowed to voice a clearly uneducated and racist opinion? Ms. Fittante stirs up anger in both black and non-black students. Is that her purpose? Lastly, I’d like to address the ULV faculty community. I would like to inform you that there are very conscious African students here. As long as we are here, we will challenge this University and its faculty every opportunity we get. Doctors and professors, how many of you showed respect for Black history month? When I say respect, I mean, did you take a whole week out of the month to discuss any people of African descent who greatly contributed to your field of study? Only two of my professors did. My next question is, why didn’t you, if you didn’t? Don’t answer that question, because there is no excuse. As long as this continues, we will invite Muhammad again, because he teaches us about our own. If we can invite the Honorable Louis Farrakhan, we will. We will celebrate Black History Month the way we want to. We (the conscious ones) seek not to make everyone happy.
Nichole Mhoon
Sophomore
Dear Editor,
I am interested to know if the article offered by Raechel Fittante in your March 8 Opinions section was the best article that you had to choose from, or just the most defaming and slanderous.
Concluding the lecture delivered by the Western Regional Representative of the Honorable Louis Farrakhan Feb. 29, several students (black and white) approached me and expressed positive responses to what they heard. It disappoints me that Ms. Fittante has to resort to slander and defamation, and she is starting at a young age, to express her disagreement. Minister Tony is in no position to behave as a racist, he does not have the power to oppress anyone socially or economically, therefore none of his comments, no matter how difficult to accept, could be characterized as racist. If his lecture did not make any sense, why did several students come away with a new and positive outlook on life, with a renewed desire to be kind and considerate to one another, with the motivation to improve their world? Why did some students feel that their lives had been put on a course to success in a world filled with a white supremacist mind? Students’ lives were changed in a couple of hours—what lecture did Ms. Fittante listen to? Ms. Fittante wonders whether her being Caucasian has prevented her from understanding her slanderous comment that Jews and Caucasian people were singled out by Minister Tony in his lecture. I am inclined to believe that the source of her lies is her own ignorance and a malicious desire to mislead people.
Ivan X. Tircuit
President, Afrikan American Student Alliance
Junior
Julie Kline
Nichole Mhoon
