It is with sadness we hear about racial conflicts erupting in America and elsewhere. We think the racial divide is now occurring in the United States and elsewhere is very unfortunate, and have led us to make the following statement:

We condemn the violence and certainly condemn all those using race as a legitimate reason for exclusive rights of any kind. We condemn the Nazis, White Supremacists, Communists, religious fundamentalists and others around the world using violence as a substitute for intellectual discourse; fascists and anti-fascists are just opposing sides on a mirror, and neither will hesitate to use brute force to achieve their goals.

We also condemn those who want to remove historical monuments to disparage the impact of past events. Nothing good can ever come out of erasing history, even if it may seem as if they’re doing it for all the right reasons.

Why not instead look at the past with critical eyes, thus understanding how far we’ve reached from the times of slavery and inequality between all races? If one were to take down all historical monuments, rewrite all the books to favor our contemporary viewpoint, then we wouldn’t have a history to speak of, we would just be lost in a time loop without roots.

People said and did horrible things in the past, but that doesn’t mean we should erase our heritage just because we disagree. Should we censor the news from all the heinous violence, terror and starvation and live our lives unaware of all these heartaches? No. Should we condemn racism and gender inequality whenever we see it? Yes, of course, but never to such an extent that we rewrite history to suit our agenda.

Let’s put an end to racism by focusing on a person’s merits instead of skin color. We encourage all Unixplorians to stand up against radicalism in any form. No one deserves special treatment because of their skin color, gender, religion or cultural identity.