I want to apologize to everyone at the University who was offended by our flyers for "Caucasian-American Night." As a campus minster for Cambridge Christian Fellowship, I know that I represent Cambridge in this.
What helped me understand why people were offended was a conversation I had on the Bryan Center walkway with a Caucasian student last Thursday. She explained to me how she saw the flyer while walking with an African-American friend. She was startled by the flyer and asked her friend what it was about. Her friend told her that we were a white supremacist group on campus. She said that because she really believed it.
I'm an African-American, so I've never been invited to a Klan meeting. I'm not familiar with white supremacist slogans. If "we like white" is a popular white supremacist motto, I was completely unaware of that when I approved the flyer.
It's taken me quite a while, but now I understand why people would be upset by our flyers. Many of the students in Cambridge thought the flyers were dubious from the beginning. Because I didn't know the history of white supremacy, students were justified in calling me stupid. They were also justified in calling me insensitive.
As to another student's accusations that we are "ostentatiously self-righteous," I disagree. I didn't say, "Hey, we're sorry if we offended anyone, it was a joke and it won't happen again," because I didn't really believe that anyone was personally offended. We do admit our mistakes and confess our sins. We also renounce our sins because we take God's Law seriously.
If we made you think we take racial problems lightly by our flyers, that was never our intent. We're sorry.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.