is hate expanding?

Sometime earlier this week strange fliers began to appear across the UC Santa Cruz campus. They appeared as bold print on white paper stapled at bus stops and on picnic tables. Of the three I have seen they target Jews as the cause of terrorist actions, therefore Jews must be gotten rid of. They appologize to blacks for giving them education and knowledge, for ever having "liberated" them, and the third preaching for some sort of solidarity among the "white race" to solve these problems.

My usual abhorrance was replaced this time. This kind of hate differs from that I have seen my whole life. It is of a different quality, it is hate emminating from ignorance in a time of dire consequence. It is something more dangerous than what has existed for the past 30 years.

Hate and Prejudice are always deplorable, but they have not been so dangerous in recent history. It is well known that during times of National Emergency hate groups and crimes flourish, how can we stop this tide?

Minority groups across campus have perceived these fliers as threats with good reason, yet while I sat in class I found myself a little turned off by the responces given. Three black women did all but condemn 200 some students mostley white. "We are not your guinnea pigs!" they shouted. Their message was unfortunatley laced with contempt for the audience who undoubtable agreed with their feelings about the racist propaganda. As the campus organizes to find and censure those responsible I can only wonder how successful our attempts will be. Will the majority of the students be able to unite under such an adversarial conditions, I certainly hope so because we really do agree, but I like many other young white students are tired of being chastised, blamed, and punished.

As I signed the petition against hate being passed around I could only hope that the white majority on campus can understand the feelings of the minority community, and vise versa.

Lets not get caught up in the rhetoric of hate groups, racism is still an important issue we need to fight, lets hope it does not follow the pattern of its historical emergence.