We can’t just “move on” when discrimination still exists
Cynthia Kona, do you realize the hypocrisy in your letter to the editor “Forgive each other and move on” on Nov. 12? I don’t even feel the need to get into my own liberal viewpoints on Prop 8 and the crops house incident; I just want to address the dysfunction and appalling “points” you made.
I’ll answer your question, “Is it wrong to wish that certain things would stay the same?” Well, Cynthia, yes, it is wrong. If that is the mindset of people, especially of young people, progress in this world will never be made. Let’s go back in time, say to around 1920, the era of the women’s suffrage movement. If people had wished for certain things to stay the same, i.e. women’s right to vote, this dialogue between us would not exist, because you and I wouldn’t have a political voice in this, or any other issue. So sure, it’s probably quite easy for you to want to go skipping along into your blissful heterosexual sunset, because you’ve never had to question your right to get married. But by supporting Prop 8, you’re denying your fellow man and man or woman and woman civil liberties and their pursuit of happiness.
The real kicker is the optimistic call for unity, peace, and respect. How can you expect to have a society that harmoniously works together where equality is blatantly absent and discrimination and intolerance is running rampant? Eventually gay marriage will be embraced, and the conservative contributing parties will have wished they had spent their millions of dollars somewhere else.
Lauren O’Donnell
art and design senior
Cal Poly is actually less white than the national average
In the article titled “Being black on a white campus,” associate director of admissions, recruitment and financial aid Walter Harris regards the fact that “everyone has to compete on the same playing field” as “horrible.” He continues to discuss reasons why he believes that Cal Poly should admit minorities based on race. The problem with this statement is that Cal Poly actually has less whites on campus than the national demographic average; 64.7 percent on campus compared to 80 percent nationally. If this indeed the case, should we perhaps give preferential treatment to whites?
Anthony Giardina
electrical engineering freshman