School choice disagreement

The editorial in the recent edition of the Post regarding school choice in Milwaukee (School Choice Hurts, April 16), was poorly written and prejudicial, demonstrates little understanding of the central issues involved in parental choice and a biased approach to consideration of the topic on the part of the author.

The central issue in the authors discussion, as it always is with opponents of the right of parents to determine their childrens educational program, is money. There seems to be a notion circulating among these folks that the money somehow belongs to the government schools.

That is simply not the case. The money belongs to the taxpayers of the state of Wisconsin who have voted in legislature assembled to recognize the right of parents to send that money to the school most able to educate their child according to their requirements.

The logic is simple: The money (which belongs to the parents), follows their children to the school in which they select to educate them.

The anti-Catholic bigotry about propping up the Archdiocese is repugnant to the morals of thinking people and a calumny of the highest order. School choice money supports the residents of the state of Wisconsin educated in the schools of their parents choosing, be they Catholic, Lutheran or nonsectarian.

An author recently wrote that anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice. This editorial goes a long way to perpetuating that sad truth.

Reasonable people can have varied opinions on this topic. Unfortunately, the author of this editorial chose to discuss an issue without fully investigating both sides of the argument and with little recourse to logic. Sad, but not really all that surprising.

David A. Tomasiewicz

Dousman

Cho was one of us

As the events surrounding the Virginia Tech massacre unfold and everybody puts their two cents in, I see a disappointing trend developing: Why is it that most people want to distance themselves from Cho Seung-Hui so much as to label him inhuman, a monster or just plain psychologically unstable?

Why is there even a debate over whether memorials should have 32 or 33 bell tolls/candles/etc? The way I see it, Cho Seung-Hui WAS human, and he was also a victim of this murderous rampage.

The problem is that most people only want to look at the event from the side of the innocent victims, placing all the blame solely on Cho. I refuse to look at any situation from a single perspective.

Cho himself had been victimized for most of his life here in America. He had been teased and picked on because of his race (kids told him, Go back to China! � he was Korean), his language barriers, and the fact that he was a loner. He was a victim of long-term psychological abuse and its not surprising that he eventually snapped.

The sad fact is that kids like him get picked on in every school in America. Its a miracle that so few of them actually come to this point. I myself, was an outcast in my youth, and experienced thoughts of violence. But I was lucky enough to form strong friendships with other outcasts.

I was never close to snapping thanks to my friends grounding me in reality, giving me a positive outlook on life, and a reason to go on living. But obviously, Cho didnt have those things holding him back.

It is now getting out that there were many warning signs in Chos case; yet he never received the help he needed. Many kids all around America exhibit warning signs yet are ignored until it is too late.

I hope the one thing that comes out of this whole tragedy is the realization that parents, teachers and students need to be more sensitive to those weird kids who are easy targets for humiliation and abuse. Dont pick on those kids! They could be the next Cho, and you could be the next victim.

Christopher J. Schicantek

Imus article racist

If calling a group of black women nappy-headed hos isnt a racist rant, what is it? Poorly chosen words undoubtedly, but there is no misgiving that these remarks are racist.

I dont think that Olejnik knows what the word nappy means in the context of its use by Imus. Nappy refers to the texture of the hair of people of African descent, which is naturally tightly curled. I learned this when I was 10 (thank you MPS!) and I also learned that this word is most often used as a negative quality; which is another issue in itself.

Regardless if Imuss remarks were intended to hurt anyone or not, they were racist.

Olejnik tries to shift the blame from Imus to the black community by saying they should remember that this kind of racist language has been promoted for years in hip-hop music. The three artists used as examples, the late Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, are all signed to record labels run by white people, who incidentally are the people promoting and distributing the music to the masses.

I wonder how Olejnik knows that the same people later jumped into their cars and blared music on their stereo full of much worse racist talk.

It is obvious that Olejnik doesnt actually know any black people because of his comment the use of this language in the real world has overwhelmingly taken over the majority of the African-American community. Apparently, the only black people he knows of are rap stars and movie characters.

If Olejnik actually spoke to any members of the African-American community he would know that most of the black population doesnt adhere to this racist stereotype and doesnt continuously spew forth racist rants. It isnt fair or accurate to say that the majority of members of the black community incessantly use racial rants when speaking.

The sad thing is Olejnik probably doesnt think that the article he wrote is racist. Maybe Imus didnt realize that his remarks were racist, but he and everyone else know now. I hope Olejnik now realizes that his comments are extremely offensive to the African-American community, whether he meant them to be or not. The firing of Imus was a step in the right direction because it showed a zero tolerance policy pertaining to racist dialogue.

I wish that the Post had this same policy because then the racist articles published almost every week would cease and the minority students of UWM might obtain a sense of belonging to this campus instead of feelings of estrangement.

I find it disheartening that the Post continues to print racist articles toward the minority students on our campus. UWM is the most ethnically diverse campus in Wisconsin, yet we still cannot find our common ground outside of our ethnicities.

Sarah Kober

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