EDITORIAL: Racism is absolutely atrocious

Seemingly misplaced in an age which marks the ascension of an African-American to the highest halls of political power, racial bigotry and hatred rear their ugly heads in both the mainstream of pop culture and the undercurrent of suburban society.Science illuminates the very unified nature of all life and clearly dismisses many fallacies of the past involving race. One may even question the validity of the word race. For a serious lack of a better expression, "people are people." No longer is the hierarchy of race determined by the over-exaggerated phenotypic characteristics of a particular ethnicity.

While intellectuals may take what we are saying as a principle, much of the uneducated still find excuses to justify their repugnantly brutish and provincial attitudes.

A reformed neo-Nazi recently spoke at LBCC. He identified the causes and effects of his own fall into violent racism. Eventually pulling himself from the quagmire of his own hate - a hate he admitted stemmed from his environment - T.J. Leyden turned from a life of radical "separatism." The separatism idealized an American state in which no ethnic group divergent from the norm could exist.

Highlighting the emergence of nationalist-socialist iconography in popular art, the increasing violence of radical groups, and a form of implicit state-support as expressed by the military's complacency in dealing with neo-Nazi's in its ranks, led Leyden to the conclusion that active measures must be taken to prevent massive social upheavals in the near future.

Leyden stressed the need to censor music and art, which may convey racist material to a youthful and impressionable audience.

Unfortunately, one need only remember the tag team duo of Susan Baker-Tipper Gore to appreciate the grand failure that is censorship. Is the media representation of hate the stimulus or response of hate? In other words, would removing the products of a hateful society mitigate the hate in said society?

Leyden warned of the growing threat of some 75,000 neo-Nazis ready to strike at an unsuspecting and complacent U.S. government. The groups bear an ideology of segregation and hate that can and do pose real danger to the health of our republic.

Oklahoma City bomb victims stand in testament to this very real threat. However, it is not the radical that we fear. It is because they are radical that we do not fear them.

The real danger stems from the mundane, the next-door neighbor or the school teacher. In this example, the skies are really full of criminals.

Leyden admitted it himself; His foray into racism did not begin with a hate of race, but with hate of the different. This is the root; this is the key. Eliminating hate does not emanate from the suppression of a racially charged joke, or the banning of a video game. It comes with the acceptance of new ideas.

When people take a dispassionate, scientific view of the notion of race and take a passionate view to their fellow citizens - regardless of melanin content of their skin - only then will the dangerous undercurrent of hate recede out of the mainstream.