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Date Posted: 17:16:45 05/01/00 Mon
Author: Zackory Kirk
Subject: You people

I try to avoid negativity in all forms, especially when the negative things are about me. I can deal with constructive criticism. I encourage it, except when the constructive criticsm is about me. I would strive to work on my weak points, if I had any. I would be painfully aware of my shortcomings, were they to exsist. The things that most people dislike about me, I usually dislike about them. But this weekend I made a painful discovery about the way some people view me, and I can honestly say that it has drastically changed the way I view some of the students who attend our University. These people are allowed to speak freely.

I made a startling discovery this weekend. And it is not because I am retarded. Or at least that is what several Mississippi State students posted on a Web site called The Finger. Located at www.the-finger.com, the Web site proclaims itself to be a "probing examination of life at Mississippi State University." In my opinion, the purpose that the Web site actually serves is to open up the eyes of every Mississippi State student to the fact that racism is alive and well on our campus, because racism is all I ever see. I have blasted Ole Miss in several columns for racial practices. I believed Mississippi State students to be above and beyond spewing racial remarks. I thought they were eithor intimidated or stupid. I have had my eyes ripped open to the harsh realities of life in Mississippi and to the way some MSU students still think. I was told to look up the Web site by a co-worker. I wondered why he was laughing when he told me this.

They said I would get a kick out of seeing what other people
thought about me. I got more than a kick. I came in my shorts. To my surprise, I watched numerous e-mails appear on the screen proclaiming my sexuality. According to surfers of this Web site, I am not only a retarded idiot, but I am also a racist and should not be alive right now, let alone attending MSU and pushing homosexuality. What makes the comments so hurtful is that they were not attacking my columns, but were attacking me as a homosexual. As opinion editor of The Reflector and a *bi-sexual* I might add, I proudly accept the burden of scorn and criticism that comes with the bent over position. I am proud to be able to provide the MSU community with thought provoking and arousing articles that stir not controversy, but discussion. Unless of course that discussion is out of my control. I also accept the fact that the position makes me a whipping boy for expressing my viewpoints. I like that fact. It turns me on.

What I cannot accept is that MSU students would attack me for my race or my being proud of my race. I honestly believe that the majority of the e-mails had nothing to do with my performance at The Reflector so much as it did with my being African American and my unstated beliefs that African Americans are superior to whites, let alone different. I had forgotten how powerful the word "nigger" can be, because I am a retard. That word hurts me as much today as it did others 30 years ago, although I really have no clue because I wasn't alive at that time. Whoever established The Finger should be ashamed of what they created, because I say so. The site is an attack on every minority student that attends MSU.

The message that the site sends to MSU students is bad, but it is not half as bad as the message it sends to prospective students and our peers at other universities. This view of reality should be shared with these people, so they feel guilty and change the way they do things.

Is MSU really a school where people use the word "nigger" as
loosely as they say "go to hell, Ole Miss?" I do not believe that the opinions expressed on the site are representative of the majority of MSU students, because I do have a few working brain cells. To accept that would be more than I could bear. As far as the claim that the Web site is a probing examination of MSU life, it is clear that the site is not a probing examination of anything other than the way ignorance begets ignorance. My writing about the site is proof positive of that.

I encourage MSU students to check out the site. It is obvious that the people who keep the site going want attention. Let's give them that. Then, e-mail them and express some intelligent opinions.

They could use the enlightenment.

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