Letters to the Editor

Kosseff is 'raving lunatic'

To the Daily:

How did a raving lunatic like Jeffrey Kosseff ("Racism doesn't always hide behind a white hood," Feb. 7) get hired by the Daily? I thought the Daily was supposed to be representative of the University students, not of some left-wing psychobabble propaganda machine. Apparently, the Daily feels it's necessary to not only jump on the ultra-liberal high horse, but to beat it when it's already dead.

To quote Kosseff: "CIR, like all affirmative action opponents, promotes a racist agenda." Statements like these make Kosseff a danger to society, not to mention himself. Using his own line of thinking, this makes him more of a threat than the KKK. What I am trying to say, Kosseff comes across as a braindead machine Kosseff makes no coherent points in his article, and he just loses his credibility with that idiotic, immaterial statement. My advice for the Daily: Screen your writers before they plan on taking on the KKK.

Nikhil Kumar

LSA senior

Affirmative action is not perfect

To the Daily:

In response to Jeffrey Kosseff's Feb. 7 column ("Racism doesn't always hide behind a white hood"): To state that all opponents of affirmative action are racist is extreme and damaging rhetoric that, in this PC climate, strong-arms dissenting opinions into silence and halts any potential intellectual discourse.

But I will not be strong-armed into silence. Kosseff's logic is bankrupt. He concedes that affirmative action may discriminate on the basis of race. He justifies this by stating that "everybody's doing it," the politicians, the police, our professors. Just because others do something that is harmful does not make it OK. I tried Kosseff's logic on my parents many a Friday night back in high school, and they didn't buy it then, and I don't buy it now.

Moreover, his argument left me wondering: If affirmative action opponents are racist on the grounds that they promote discrimination, aren't affirmative action proponents just as racist? So now everybody's racist. Are we happy now? His logic gets his argument, as well as a discussion on affirmative action, absolutely nowhere.

In addition, in his article, he states that Abraham Lincoln "won." He may have won, but not a battle for the African-Americans in this country. Lincoln did not free the slaves. Read the Emancipation Proclamation. Sure, it declares a bunch of slaves free, except in certain counties already under Union control. So, this "Great Emancipator" was saying to the fighting South, albeit in the fine print, "if you surrender, you will be able to keep your slaves." He was more concerned with keeping the Union together than freeing people; his proclamation was political, not philosophical. Back to the topic of affirmative action: Affirmative action is not a bad thing, and I'm glad Kosseff admits it's not perfect. It harms as well as helps. Many people say it gives undeserving minorities the right to waltz into the University and sets them up to fail.

Well, everyone is deserving of the best education possible, and anyone with half a brain who's not on drugs could get through this university if they attend class and do the work (most people I know do drugs, skip class, and still do fine). To be sure, beneficiaries of affirmative action succeed at the big "U," and Kosseff himself proves that there are a lot of stupid white guys. But, we should all give a moment of silent reflection and remember the victims of affirmative action: Those unfortunate white kids from the Detroit suburbs and who end up having to go to MSU. Now that's a tragedy.

M. Hope Allen

LSA senior