Clarifications

I would like to respond to Mr. Hemming’s misquotations as well as the way that he used those quotations out of context. First, let me give you a little background on the situation in which we were involved when Mr. Hemming took those quotes. I was at a meeting for the College Hispanic American Students (CHAS) to give a speech about my candidacy for the Hispanic Student Senate chair. I was asked a question pertaining to how I would treat the situation involving the YCT. My response was, “Robert Kennedy once said ‘Progress is a nice word, but change is its motivator, and change has enemies.’ I believe that the YCT is afraid of the change that the special interest seats have brought about and they do not wish to see this progression to continue. I would encourage communication amongst the YCT as well as the minority communities in order to find some sort of common ground where we could work out our differences.” Somehow Mr. Hemming was able to get “our group was labeled as ‘racist’ and ‘an enemy of change’ by current ‘Hispanic-American’ senatorial candidate Homer Lopez” out of what I had to say. The “enemy of change” part I can understand, but where he got “racist” from I have not the slightest of ideas. I was quite upset about the way that he went about taking my quotes and modifying them. Yet, I understand that this is not the main issue and will not spend more time on the misquotations.

The main purpose of Mr. Hemming’s attack was all about him as well as his three fellow YCT members not being able to run for the special interest seats. I myself was a little upset when I was informed that as a Political Science/Spanish dual major I was ineligible to run for the Cox school of business senate seat. I could not understand why. Then I was informed that since I am not a business major I could not adequately represent the business majors (such as Mr. Hemming). That made sense to me because I have no idea what it is like to be a business student, although I am sure that Mr. Hemming (or which ever one of his friends was the one attempting to run for the Hispanic chair) knows exactly what it is like to be Hispanic. I am sure that they could tell you about Vicente Fernandez, Noche Buena, how it is that the “o” in my last name is supposed to be spelled with an accent (although it must have simply slipped his mind to type that in), and many other aspects of our culture. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am aware that there are plenty of non-Hispanics who have been around the culture and know it well, yet it would be ridiculous to allow people who have the wish to get rid of these special interest seats as part of their agenda, such as the YCT, to be the ones “representing” our community.

What Mr. Hemming fails to notice is that the purpose of these seats is not a racial matter but instead one of interest as is made obvious in their title of “Special Interest,” just like the Cox seats are set out for Cox students only because they are the ones interested in seeing certain goals reached for the Cox student community. To follow his logic, Mr. Hemming and his friends are asking for all seats to be open for anyone to run. Yet, he decides to include the racial factor as part of his discrimination claim, so then it begins to logically follow that what Mr. Hemming should be asking for is an Anglo-American Student seat. If you would like to start such an initiative, I would gladly join you in your struggle.

Later, Mr. Hemming states, “The only thing holding back those ‘under-represented’ minorities are themselves.” This shows me just how disconnected Mr. Hemming is from the Hispanic community. I use the Hispanic community as my example because it is the one that I am personally connected with and the only that I can speak about. I come from the Rio Grande Valley, which is about 90% Hispanic. My senior year (this was 2003), the regular textbook for my high school said that Ronald Reagan was still the president of the USA, which I’m pretty sure you know is not true. Now, I can see how this lack of resources is completely our fault and we are the ones holding ourselves back from being able to achieve a better life. I highly doubt, although I could be wrong, that Mr. Hemming has ever had to deal with any of this sort of resource shortages. It is obvious that he doesn’t understand that past discrimination towards minorities has had a great effect on the current minority populations.

Finally, I would like to extend an invitation to Mr. Hemming as well as the rest of the YCT members so we can openly discuss our different point of views. My alternate e-mail is homie34@hotmail.com, my phone number is 214-768-5250, and I live in Peyton Hall room 319, so you could just drop by anytime you would like to do so. I would like to tell you, Mr. Hemming, that discrimination occurs and will occur regardless of what is done. The question I would like to pose to you is whether you would prefer to discriminate in order to include or to exclude? I shall expect you to bless me with your presence sometime, Mr. Hemming. I leave the ball in your court.