So-called 'ad' wrong

As an expert on the psychology of oppression, I feel inclined to respond to your decision to print the so-called ad on reparations. My hope is that this letter can be instructive; my suspicion is that may will be dismissed by many. But the risk is worth taking.\nIn my studies, I have found that oppression creates climates in which certain groups feel entitled and privileged while others feel marginalized and disenfranchised. As long as members of the dominant, entitled group want to believe that they are good, upstanding and fair, then they must establish a set of institutional strategies to make their actions appear nothing less than fair, even grateful. These strategies were historically established and have evolved in our contemporary society. Invariably, we all contribute to the different cycles of oppression. Yet journalistic integrity ought to suggest that recognition of this socialization is necessary to making moral decisions that affect communities, like the IU campus, that are ravaged with racial hostility. \nHorowitz's so-called ad is not a fair stimulus because he attends selectively to events that serve his own interest in heralding or exonerating himself and other whites within the schema of racism. Its inclusion in the IDS also fuels an already hostile climate. Consequently, although the IDS staff may have deliberated over this decision intensely and wanted to do the right thing, they didn't. Their blinders prevented them from seeing that "opportunities for needed debate" -- something I imagined the staff concluding at the end of their discussions -- falters when a careful reading of this "ad" would have yielded the multiple inaccuracies and potential for fueling ongoing hostilities on this campus community.\nThose whose voices reflect that of the dominant opinion are seen as demonstrating their high regard for free speech and equal justice when, in fact, they are not doing so. They have fallen in step with the structure that supports and provide loopholes for their unfair actions while still maintaining their sense of fairness. And by the way, one interesting yet often missed aspect of racism is that those who conform to racist practices are not only whites, but also people of color. So IDS, if you believe that the support you've received from people of color is proof to patently dismiss racism on your part, you are wrong. Racism has a way of cultivating "multicultural conservatives," those who actually justify a system of oppression that targets their oppression. \nFinally, those of us who oppose this decision are relegated to having to react in the forum of the editorial page. You may pat yourselves on the back for giving space for this decision, but you are merely conforming to the status quo that relegates the already-marginalized position of "reacting" rather than participating fully in the process to begin with.\nRacism diminishes our collective sense of humanity. IDS, you can thank yourselves for contributing to the cycle.