Saturday, January 30, 1999
There's no happy ending for MU story
BY KRISTA RAMSEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
To some stories, there are only bad endings. Such is the saga of Brad Allen and Nathaniel Snow.
This week's news, that the former Miami University students charged with posting racist messages on campus have pleaded not guilty, adds one more complicated, difficult manner in which this matter can end.
The first resolution is that the two men are telling the truth, and that someone has framed them.
This is a particularly ugly scenario, since it would mean a conspiracy by the university itself or the law enforcement units investigating the October incident.
Many people are eager to suspend all possibility of it, and it does stretch credibility. Mr. Allen's and Mr. Snow's fingerprints were found on the fliers. Still, black Americans have not infrequently been railroaded for crimes they did not commit, and sometimes by the institutions and officials sworn to protect them.
Would they spread fear?
The second resolution is equally awful — that the two, as leaders of black campus organizations,would be the authors of anti-black propaganda.
It seems impossible to imagine, two obviously bright young black men sitting down to construct racist images that would revile any sensible American. How would they perpetrate such ignorance, subjecting their African-American friends and classmates to exaggerated racial fear?
Unthinkable, yet most of us can imagine a motive for it. Ends are regularly overcome by means. When legitimate goals are slow in coming, their fiercest advocates sometimes twist rules to move the process along.
It is no excuse for the wrong Mr. Allen and Mr. Snow are accused of doing. If they are guilty, then surely it is both a crime and a sin. But it is also true that America and its institutions have never moved easily toward racial equality. In their best moments, they have slowly been persuaded by conscience and peaceful activism. In their worst, they have been lurched forward only by controversy and violence.
Has Miami University been too complacent? Were racial matters moving toward resolution there — or shuffled to the bottom of the pile until the news media and public descended? Did we, the public, care about these issues at all — at one of the state's most prestigious public educational institutions — until we were forced to visualize throw-back images of ignorant and malicious times?
Blacks under-represented on campus? If we doubt our general disinterest, let us examine our attitudes toward shrinking black enrollments in many law and medical schools across the nation. Mr. Allen and Mr. Snow may be guilty. It does not, however, mean that we are innocent.
A time for courage
Engulfed in such issues, the case could not have arrived at a happy ending. Still, this week's developments may have made it all worse.
The third possible resolution of the matter is that the two men did the deed, and continue to lie about it.
This would be bad judgment of a deeper degree. This would be a ruthless selfishness, the putting of one's pride, one's image, above not only the truth, but the feelings of one's truest friends and most loyal allies.
Surely Mr. Allen and Mr. Snow know that the entire university is wondering what to believe. They know this incident has created more suspicion, more distance, more reasons to divide along racial lines. Most of us doubt that, guilty or innocent, this was ever either man's intention.
And so the case rests, not in the legal renderings of a courtroom, but in the quiet recesses of two young men's conscience.
If they are innocent, let them press their case forward with zeal.
If they are guilty, it is time to show the courage their family and friends say they possess.
The courage to stand as men, and leaders. To take responsibility. To write a decent ending to a sad and sorry tale.
Krista Ramsey's column appears on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202.
Krista Ramsey's column appears on Saturdays. Write her at the Enquirer, 312 Elm St. Cincinnati 45202.
RAMSEY ARCHIVE
