OPINION & EDITORIAL
Minority coverage inaccurate
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by Letters to the Editor
Friday, February 3, 2006
About a week and a half ago, I received a call from Mr. Andriy Pazuniak in order to have a phone interview about the People and Posse programs on campus. Being a Posse scholar, I agreed to the interview. I was under the impression that the article was going to focus on the students in the programs and their achievements on campus. At least, that was the impression the interview questions led me to believe. On Tuesday morning some of my classmates asked me about the quote. It was at this time that I read the article. The first thing that I noticed about the front-page article was that I had been misquoted in the large fonts. Whereas the article states: "the stereotype I hear from my peers is, 'Oh, you're a minority. That's the only reason you got in.' It's a huge misconception on campus." In reality, I said "That's the only reason you got IT." By "it," I was referring to the Posse Scholarship. Most people don't understand that we develop many skills and qualities. People often just see race and believe that they know everything about us. That is not the case. As scholars, we have worked hard to achieve what we have to become part of this campus. The other statement that I disliked was how the programs were described. For example, the article describes the Posses as "[a group] of gifted students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds." The Posse mission is to "identify, recruit, and train students leaders from public high schools to form multicultural teams." We come from all over the city and surrounding areas and we do not have 'similar backgrounds,' as the article states. Each Posse Scholar comes from his/her unique background that has created him/her into a leader. We have come to the university as part of Plan 2008, however, our unique characters have impacted this university in astonishing ways. The title of the article is "Plan 2008: breaking through racial barriers," yet the whole article focuses on race to justify enrollment into this university. Furthermore, this article may suggest that minority students do not meet the same requirements to get into this university. As this newspaper is read by a large portion of the student body, it is your responsibility to be accurate with your information.
Sincerely, Gerardo Mancilla Senior, University of Wisconsin
Anonymous (February 3, 2006 @ 9:19am):
Well said by a former cornerstone resident of the Deuce.
Anonymous (February 5, 2006 @ 6:58pm):
Were there cornerstone residents in the Leper wing of 2nd floor Chadbourne (west wing)? It does seem like the Mancilla's accomplishments in Posse warrant the Deuce's appreciations as well as the whole campus's. Way to represent Chicago and the Deuce.
