Letters to the Editor

To the Editor: I am in total agreement with Courtney McMillian's column on the need to understand our shared history ("Remembering the neglected heroes of American history," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 1/26/01). The only problem was in the phrase, "It is our responsibility -- whites and blacks alike -- to educate ourselves about the people on whose shoulders we stand today." I would like to suggest that millions of people who are neither black nor white are more than mere spectators of the American experience. As an Asian American raising two biracial boys who the world will largely identify as African American, I hold more than a passing interest in the historical "whitewashing" of minority cultures in the West. My boys know that Asians were a part of the civil rights movement. Likewise, I try to inform my Asian friends that much of the well-publicized success of many Asian individuals would not be possible without the bloody sacrifice of generations of blacks who refused to "know their place." It is imperative that all Americans know our common legacy. The challenges of tomorrow will not be met unless we all "come clean." Just as I had to console my 12-year-old son after he was unreasonably stopped by the local police while talking to friends outside our suburban home, the dirty little secrets of society must be revealed.

Ken Yuen College '86 Penn Police officer, 1997-2000

To the Editor: I am entirely disgusted at Ariel Horn's recent column ("Self-assuring television," DP, 1/24/01), especially her rampant use of the word "ugly." What audacity she has to assume that just because she has chosen to conform to the societal interpretations of what beauty really is, that everyone else holds her base views. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Truer words have never been spoken. In my opinion, beauty has a lot to do personality and the love we have for each other as other human beings. It upsets me that Horn has developed such prejudices and so nonchalantly embraces the "ideal man and woman" that are thrust at her through the media. Unfortunately I feel that her views are representative of a large number of young men and women in our society, who discriminate against others based on "obesity, baldness and bad makeup," simply because they have not been able to love themselves enough to respect the beauty of the differences of all of us. I hope Horn looks inside herself once again, as she did when watching some fantasy television show, and starts to understand the degree to which the media has shaped her elitist view on beauty, and how she might become a more open-minded and accepting individual.

Brian Kelly Wharton '02

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