Letter misinterprets Prof. Clarke's views on race

In reading Michael Zelenkov's schizophrenic indictment of Professor James Clarke's March 12 lecture on "Black-on-Black Violence" ("Prof's lecture racist, anachronistic, Wednesday), I found myself compelled to correct his skewed account of Clarke's ideology, vis … vis the plight faced by Afro American's within the United States.

In fact, Mr. Zelenkov's understanding of the lecture, calling Clarke's views "ethnocentric, without compassion, and racist," quite frankly shocks the conscious in that Clarke's views, in reality, are at the extreme other end of the spectrum. Therefore, in that it seems that Mr. Zelenkov seems to have great difficulty comprehending the gist of oration, I will attempt not to use big words so as not to add to his befuddlement.

In that I had studied Race and Public Policy, which are classes based solely on the plight of African Americans, under Clarke for three semesters, I am certain that I am much more qualified to assess his views on race then is Mr. Zelenkov. Furthermore, I am also certain that if Mr. Zelenkov chooses to speak with any of Clarke's current or former students, regardless of their racial or ethnic background, they would fully agree that his ideology is far from racist and in fact the complete opposite of what Mr. Zelenkov claims.

Mr. Zelenkov is certainly entitled to his opinion. However, when he makes his unfounded claims public by using selective sound-bytes, and then proceeds to use these as "facts" to castigate a professor who has studied the subject longer then he has been (I "assume") alive, perhaps, in the interest of upholding intellectual integrity, he should first check his facts. Labeling a professor, or for that matter any person one only has very limited information about, Mr. Zelenkov, is generally to be avoided for it is intellectually and ethically careless.

By Bonnie K. Tracy (letter)
Arizona Daily Wildcat
April 1, 1997