I am not sure what I am more appalled at. Is it at the fact that a piece of racist slander and smut like that which was written by Memphis Jewish Student Union's Vice President Naftali Thomas and published last Friday was actually written, or at the fact that, in a show of lack of taste and journalistic propriety, that the "racist slander to the editor" was actually published by your university newspaper? I would have assumed that The Helmsman, and The University had clear policies against allowing racist propaganda and hate speech to be propagated in university fora. I am sorry to see that, whatever the guidelines may be, that they were obviously not followed.
In a decided attempt at dehumanization of all Muslims, Mr. Thomas purports to know almost 2 billion of the world's inhabitants. He begins eight interrogatories with "Where were the Muslims?" Anyone who is knowledgeable about human relations in the year 2000 knows that lumping all peoples of any group together, Jews, African-Americans, Muslims or Puerto Ricans, attributing unifying, and especially negative, characteristics like hypocrisy, non-caring and the systematic commission of atrocities to them, is engaging in stereotyping, ethnocentrism and racism. To say "Where were the Jews when?" or "Where were the Blacks when ..." is just as racist and ludicrous as saying "Where were the Muslims when ...". How The Helmsman could let such ethnocentric, Muslim-bashing, and racist slander to be published is a question that the highest authorities of The University should take up immediately.
As far as Mr. Thomas goes, I hope that he was only representing his own ignorant and intolerant self. I am hoping that his racist and disrespectful views, which make no logical sense as well, are not also the views of the Memphis Jewish Student Union which he purportedly represents. Since racism has no place in Judaism, nor in the other major world religions of which I am aware, I am going to safely assume that his childish banter was expressed on an individual, and not an organizational level. I would hate to think that, in working towards sanctioning racist Mr. Thomas for his hate speech on campus, that an entire organization of students should also be held accountable and sanctioned.
