Indian student feels discriminated against
Through this letter I would like to bring to the attention of the people at LSU about how the color of the skin makes life tough for students like me here at LSU.
Coming from India I can’t help but notice the looks some of us get when we move about on campus.
I’m really sorry about 9/11 but the Indians had nothing to do with that and we cannot be victimized because we have brown skin and black hair.
My friend and I have had people walk out on us just because we sit beside them in any public access computer lab.
Initially I used to think it was a coincidence that they get up and go out as soon as we sit beside them, but it has happened so many times that it has ceased to be a coincidence and there is more to it than meets the eye.
Once during the last football season, I had gone with a couple of my friends to see the tailgating for a home game. The concept of tail-gating was new to us and we wanted to see what it was.
But while we were walking along the Nicholson extension across CEBA, a group of men were approaching us from the opposite direction. Then one of them goes (making sure we heard it) – “Hey, do you know which is the the best place to pee at LSU?” His friend asks, “Where?” For which the first guy says pointing at us, “On them.”
It was the most humiliating experience of my life. There are many such incidents that go on without anybody noticing or trying to do something about them.
I am definitely not saying everybody here at LSU is like that, because almost all of the people I’ve met at my work place and my department have been very sweet and loving. But such stray incidents like the ones I’ve stated above do occur and we can surely live without such racist bias/remarks.
It has been a privilege for us to come and further our education here in the United States, thanks to the freedom and opportunities this country has to offer, but some idiots with their narrow-minded thinking and attitude tend to leave a sour taste in the mouth.
Chetan Ramesh
Graduate Student
Mechanical Engineering
Abraham Lincoln saved America
I believe that Mr. Merryman’s assessment of President Lincoln is inaccurate.
Abraham Lincoln, unlike Bismarck, had honor and adhered to moral principles. He was not dishonest or dictatorial. True, he did suspend some rights of the American people, but most of the people were Confederate sympathizers that tried to weaken the Union. When a nation is at war, the government has a right to temporarily suspend certain rights to ensure the permanent safety of its people.
Also, Mr. Merryman’s view on the South’s secession is obviously misguided. The Civil War was about slavery, directly or indirectly. The South did not have a right to secede because their reason was immoral and against the laws of God and man. One man should not own another: there is no way to argue differently. Lincoln, even though he was against slavery, did not plan on abolishing slavery in the United States. He only wanted to prevent the spread of slavery to new states.
There was no need for the South to secede, since they would not be threatened. Plus, the South, if it had survived, would have eventually faltered due to a lack of industry and the eventual phasing out of slavery.
If Lincoln had not been shot, he would have still been revered as he is today. He ended the immoral practice of slavery, and, to quote Mr. Merryman, “he transformed a relatively decentralized union of states into a federal state.”
America would not be how it is today, with more importance given to the individual than the state, if it wasn’t for Abraham Lincoln.
Joshua Paul Melder
Freshman
Political Science
“Passion” showed no hatred for Jews
I had the extraordinary opportunity to view a rough cut of the controversial film “The Passion of the Christ” a week ago.
Having heard the charges of anti-Semitism leveled against the film, I went in with as objective of a standpoint as I could to see for myself whether or not the film sparked any hatred towards the Jewish people. It did not.
The message of the film was love, sacrifice, and forgiveness. The message of forgiveness is all- encompassing, even the ones who killed Jesus are forgiven. And it is not the Jews who killed him, at least, that is not the message that Mel Gibson is attempting to convey.
In the movie, Jesus says that He is suffering the torture and death of His own will, and He has the power to end the suffering, but chooses not to.
To add to the message that we, not just the Jews, are responsible for the death of Jesus, Gibson decided that he should be the one to place the nail on the hand of Jesus.
To blame the Jews for the death of Jesus would be to blame all Germans for Hitler’s actions. I certainly don’t blame all Jews for the choice of a few. If one comes out of this picture an anti-Semite, it’s because they went in as an anti-Semite.
By the end of the movie I was awestruck, no words would do the film justice. It is an incredible piece of art and history that everyone should see.
Nathan Torrey
Sophomore
General Studies