UMEC segregates, restricts students

Why refer to it as the "Multicultural Honor Society"(MCHS) when it restricts its membership base to a quarter of the student body? Do white people have no culture? Are they unenlightened nomads, forced to wander the bleak desert of cultural sterility, desperately hoping for a "person of color" to vitalize the empty white man's body with a burst of culture? No.

I see no reason why "people of color" feel they are entitled to something greater than us lowly white folk, just because they may have been historically oppressed. I am of Irish descent; my ancestors escaped a famine-driven genocide at the hands of a colonial power, only to make it to the New World, where they were subjected to working conditions akin to slavery and abused by an unabated spate of hateful Nativist sentiment. Does any particular part of that story scream "white privilege" to you? No.

In sheer political terms, UMEC's policy isn't a bright idea. I am quite sure there is a reasonable contingent of guilt-filled white liberals on campus who would certainly seek to curry favor from any "person of color," if only to ameliorate the unabashed shame they feel for the fact that their great-great-grandparents were slaveholders. Or as the UMEC calls them: "white allies." The ban on white membership completely alienates this group. Do you seek to ally yourself with a group of people who reject you solely on the basis of your skin tone? No.

Frankly, I couldn't care less if the UMEC is politically reckless. If they want to let their honor society stagnate by refusing to let "white allies" join, that is their decision. My problem is that the color restriction is a fundamentally racist act. UMEC sends the clear message to all white students that they are not welcome. They are considered to be so vile, so inherently evil, that they are not even allowed to promote diversity unless the MCHS cabal deems them to be "worthy candidates." This doesn't sound like an honor society to me. There is no honor in racism.

It is beautifully ironic that in the same issue of The Bulletin, you cover the celebration of Dr. King's legacy. This is a man who once told us, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." It is tragic that so many people have given their lives fighting for what continues to be a dream deferred.