Editor:
I would like to respond to the column by Eric Watkins ("Dating shouldn't be racially exclusive," Sept. 26). First of all, I would like to praise Eric for his bold and truly honest article. Although I cannot agree with all of his account, I do honor him for giving the campus community something to think about.
The purpose of this letter is to shed some light and educate Eric on the finer points of African American women. First of all, African American women are the queens of our race. Unfortunately, sometimes they are the sole parents to our children, thus making them strong and caring. Throughout the many centuries of persecution and second class status, it was the African American women who kept our race alive through raising and caring for us when we could not.
Due to the enormous burden put on these queens, they have become protective of their investment, the African American. A natural result of this is to protect the black male, which in our society is an endangered species. Taking this into account, it is not hard to see why some African American women may have a problem with interracial dating. But interracial dating is not the issue here. The issue is that in Eric's argument for interracial dating, he mistreated the African American women. The fact that one of these queens commented against interracial dating during a heated conversation does not warrant the public attack you felt was necessary. Your point was well made before this hideous attack. I wonder if before you decided to establish a new stereotype you thought of what our women have gone through. If not, please see my argument above.
I am not going to argue the validity of interracial dating in this response. I am, however, going to stand up for my sisters and support them, and in doing this I demand some sort of explanation for your remarks. I suggest in the future you consider the power of the pen and consider what you write.
Augustus H. Shaw IV
Political Science Senior