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Basa confuses Christianity with popular culture

Irene Basa misses the mark in her column, “Mockery of Christianity blasphemous” (Feb. 25) when she says people don’t respect Christianity because they associate it with popular American culture. People instead tend to associate it with intrusive evangelism and threats of hellfire. While public discussion is nice, evangelism and education have disparate methods and goals. This behavior therefore makes many people jaded and generates a backlash. Moreover, this behavior is the domain of the religious right, which is in turn associated with the restriction of social freedoms and the rejection of modern science. Religious groups that don’t do these things don’t get this backlash. Consider the mockery, then, more against Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell than against Jesus Christ.

Dan Fingal Fourth-year, cognitive science

Jones distorts membership numbers, funding criteria

In response to Andrew Jones’ submission, “Torres, Democrats distort truth in press release” (Feb. 26), I would just like to say, on behalf of the Bruin Democrats, that our club is hardly dead on campus. If we are basing membership on our e-mail list alone – which seems to be what Jones is doing when he claims that Bruin Republicans is 250 strong – then the Bruin Democrats have the support of over 600 students on campus.

Most importantly, we object to Jones acting as a martyr in claiming that he is being discriminated against because Bruin Republicans do not get funding from USAC. The fact is that no politically affiliated club receives school funds, including the Bruin Democrats. Clubs like MEChA and the African Student Union receive funding and office space not for being “racially separatist” but for promoting cultural awareness and student empowerment. Plus, these clubs are not exclusive; anyone is free to join regardless of race or ethnicity.

Nice try Jones, on once again playing the victim and trying to distort the truth, but you're not fooling anybody.

Natasha Saggar Bruin Democrats

Census numbers prove Bruin Democrats wrong

Natasha Saggar’s and Kristina Meshelski’s piece on behalf of Bruin Democrats, “Bruin Republicans’ sale mocks equal opportunity” (Feb. 26) is simply baffling. 

They start out well enough, stating that the truly disadvantaged students are those of lower socio-economic standing, those who can’t afford “to attend a private school or pay upwards of a thousand dollars for SAT tutoring.” But from there, they make an erroneous leap claiming, “The majority of lower-income families, especially in Southern California, are racial and ethnic minorities, specifically African Americans and Latinos.” This statement is incorrect, as anyone who checked the last census could tell you. 

While black and Latino populations have higher percentages of people below the poverty line on the national level (22.7 percent and 21.3 percent respectively), the number of whites below the poverty line outnumber blacks and Latinos below the poverty line put together (22.7 million white compared to 8.1 million blacks and 8.0 million Latinos). The truth of the matter is that most people living below the poverty line (on the national level) are white and nothing is being done to help them and to compensate for their inability to go to private schools or receive SAT tutoring.

By Saggar and Meshelski’s admission, affirmative action is about righting socio-economic inequality; therefore it is baffling to me that they support affirmative action in its current form. Poverty is not a race issue; it is a socio-economic issue. Special consideration should not be given to a particular ethnicity, but to those who cannot afford the privileges Saggar and Meshelski describe, regardless of their ethnicity.

Kevin Williams Graduate student, MIMG