Last week Chico State’s president generated a message condemning the actions of a few hateful people. It seems that some misguided person or group had defaced the campaign poster of a non-white candidate for student government. The behavior was deemed unacceptable, declared intolerable. Then, as 23 year-old Joseph Igbineweka, Chico State’s A.S. president who is from Fresno but is of Nigerian descent, was walking alone in the early morning hours of Sunday, he was attacked and repeatedly stabbed by one of two men shouting racial slurs. He sustained multiple stab wounds, one of them nearly fatal. It was only by chance that Igbineweka’s girlfrien
d was out of town and not with him, or a horrific event could have been much worse. On Tuesday, Chico Police Chief Mike Maloney referred to the incident as a “brutal assault” “characterized as a hate crime” by the Chico police department. On Wednesday, Chico Mayor Ann Schwab promised united efforts between the city and the university in addressing the attack and its future implications. It seems everyone is up in arms over what the general population wants to dismiss as a random occurrence. Why then did the Chico Enterprise-Record website have to remove the comments option from the e-version of the story due to hate speech? The voice speaking on behalf of tolerance must be louder than the intolerant. Which is why I chose to read Muriel Feelings’ Swahili-alphabet book jambo means hello to Scarlett. I’m loud. She’s loud. I figure that’s a good start.http://www.chicoer.com/advertise/ci_14912583?IADID=Search-www.chicoer.com-www.chicoer.com
http://www.amazon.com/Jambo-Means-Hello-Swahili-Alphabet/dp/0140546529
http://www.answers.com/topic/muriel-l-feelings
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