It has been a few weeks since new broke of the case of extreme racism by members of a fraternity on the campus at the University of Oklahoma. I previously reacted reacted to the issue of college Greek organizations and their racial bias. In this blog I would like to look at the issue from a different perspective. What are we to do with the two young men whose actions were reflected in the video? The university has taken action. They have been kicked out of school. The fraternity is also gone from campus. Now how are we, as a society, going to react? What kind of retribution is going to be administer by the court of public opinion?
Before you are quick to judge and condemn the young men involved, I ask you to remember the sins of your youth. I remember some of mine and they still haunt me. I wish I could go back an talk to the girl I wrote a "dear John" letter to. I wish I could take away some of the damage from the, so called. practical jokes that I got involved it. I wish I could take back some of the hurtful words that spewed from my mouth. I wish I had not attached hurtful nicknames to people who did not deserve it. I wish I had told the truth and excepted the consequences instead of having the habit of lying my way out of difficult situations.
Now that I have spilled my guts, I would encourage you to do some hard thinking about the mistakes you made in your youth. We have all done them; Cheated on a test, lied to our parents, told a racial joke or maybe even used a racial slur.
The only difference in the case of the offense in question is the whole world knows about it. That is the reality of social media. Both young men have taken ownership of their mistakes and asked for forgiveness. These men are both in their early twenties. They both had bright futures in front of them. The real tragedy might be if we do not allow them to learn from their mistakes and move on. The best way to do that is to stop talking about it.
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