LETTER: Racism complaints overstated

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For the last couple of weeks I have read letters to the editor indicating that there are three kinds of people at Rice University: disenfranchised minorities, white supremacists and white supremacists that feel bad that there are disenfranchised minorities.

I'm sorry, I just can't agree. Actually, I can't agree with most of the "Amoko vs. Racism at Rice" letters I've read lately.

Robert Gross' misinformed letter last week called for an unqualified public apology to Amoko. Well, he's a bit late.

The police have already apologized and agreed to take sensitivity training. The Graduate House management has also apologized for whatever its role was, as has the administration. But Amoko does not think this is adequate.

Before I go any further, let me tell you my role in all of this. I'm currently vice president of the Graduate House Council (one of those self-important busybodies). Our jobs are to keep the Graduate House livable and to help out in disputes between residents.

About a month ago, Amoko asked if he could talk with us about the Campus Police and the Graduate House. Knowing Amoko rather well, we sat down and had a long talk.

This is where I learned that he thought that he had been harassed by the Campus Police and that the administration was conspiring with them to cover up some kind of hidden racial agenda.

I agreed with him that the police acted badly and ought to apologize (as they already had), but I told him it sounded to me like the administration was just doing its job protecting Rice's reputation.

At the following meeting, the situation went from bad to worse. No sooner had things begun, than Amoko started insinuating that the six of us, (a multi-racial group of volunteer grad students) were also in the cover-up, and that I specifically had pretended to be his friend all semester to gain his confidence.

I explained to him in no uncertain terms that this was not the case, and I was hurt that he thought I had associated with him because (in his own words) "someone had put me up to it."

Not once did Amoko ask us to do anything or propose any solution to his problems. All he accomplished was insulting us to the point that half the council offered to resign and making a dozen or so more people unsympathetic to his situation.

What is the point of all this? I'm just sick of Amoko lecturing us about how we are all evil, and he is good. In his Jan. 24 column ("Rice practices closet racism"), he wrote, "[The police] merely made explicit ideas that had already been implicit. That I -- and others like me -- are always potentially suspect or lost in the Rice community as it self-righteously defines itself in opposition to those like me."

I do not hold racism as an implicit belief, and I do not define myself in opposition to any race. Yet he claims I am lying, and that both you (as a member of the Rice community) and I are racist through and through.

My point is this: Why is Amoko applauded for stereotyping Rice's predominantly white student body, while we must sit back and endure because anything we say will seemingly prove his point?

As things now stand, I could care less what Amoko thinks about racism, Rice University or me. When I met him he came across as a sincere and intelligent student who wanted nothing more than to learn and expand his horizons. I now believe he is simply a well-educated but angry young man who believes everyone who is not like him secretly hates him.

All I can ask is that we put the idea of stereotyping by color or gender behind us, no matter whom we are talking about. Before anyone else writes another letter, please try to find out the truth rather than writing about something you overheard.

Rob, I don't know who your mystery woman is, but she definitely had nothing to do with Amoko, the police, the Graduate House Council or any other rational discussion of these issues.

Mark Nichols

Graduate student

Physics Department

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the February 7, 1997 issue.

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