Letters to the editor

Changing a database doesn’t change
you

I don’t know if this is the type of response that Garin
Hovannisian was looking for, but his column (“Ethnic change
shows racism still exists,” Jan. 26) was one of the most
insulting and condescending pieces of trash that I have read in a
long time. Liking black people and culture will not make him any
more black than wandering to the registrar on a lark and having
them change some field in a database.

His rather lazy attempt to justify his argument shows very
little regard for the people that he claims to have embraced.
Drafting letters, listening to biased radio personalities,
wandering around the campus at odd hours, and silently castigating
the course content of your major has very little to do with the
discovery of blackness or the true nature of the associated racism.
Getting uneasy glances from passersby at 1 a.m. is a far cry from
being denied jobs and housing. The part about the loan, however, is
absurdly laughable.

If Hovannisian wants to learn about blacks then he needs to
associate with real ones. Listen to the brothers and sisters of
Ladera Heights as well as the brothers and sisters of Compton. At
the very least, he should start with the ones that go to this fine
university, unless they are all too insulted to speak to him.

Finally, he should please, please, please change his ethnic
status to something else. This is definitely not someone I would
want representing me or my ethnicity.

Otha Stubblefield Anderson enrollment and student
records officer

Abortion issue needs to focus on morals

“Anniversary reignites abortion debate” (A Closer
Look, Jan. 26) was not a bad article. Objective, concise ““
but flawed. It implies viability as the standard for determining
the legal right to kill an unborn baby. Roe v. Wade gives women the
legal right to kill their unborn baby at any time until the baby is
born.

At any time. That means a woman can kill her child until it
takes its first breath. As Democratic presidential hopeful Wesley
Clark said, abortion is legal at any time until birth. “Life
begins with a mother’s decision.” I call that a
partial-birth abortion.

Susan Larmour USC Medical Center Nursing School
alumna