I don't know how this topic changing even happened, especially since the last mentioning of Afrocentrism was on page 1. So before Jamie (or whoever) closes this debate forum, I want to express that I have never seen so much outright anger about a children's story. If this child was learning how to make sounds of the alphabet and his mother told him that the letter A always makes the sound heard in apple, we would not be having this discussion.

Why? Because we would all think it was stupid to debate whether a child should know every specific sound the letter A makes in different sentences when he does not even know how to read.

So it's obvious that the anger does not come from a misrepresented story, but from the anger (or threat, or what have you) of race itself. 40 years later and race-baiting and -hating is still in full swing. Yet, no one can figure out why Affirmative Action is still needed. However, stepping from my personal opinions, it seems obvious that if a story about a little child learning that many minorities helped create our modern day country - or for that matter, a 9/11 statue of different colored faces in memory of ALL the heroic fighters - can create such anger and hatred then we are far from over.

Why Black History? Because we have a long way to go.

What anger and hatred?

I've been to the website. And then even had the fortune of going to the link it supplied.

www.martinlutherking.org

And I see it ias anger and hatred.

There are certainly people that cannot debate this issue intelligently. There are certainly people of all races that express hate and bigotry. I think on this forum we are above that. The Little Theo story certainly seems rather harmless on the surface. The key question is what is the purpose of this story. To be honest with a little editing I think this would be a very positive story. Bigotry tends to beget bigotry. I see why eurocentric history would lead to afrocentric history. I see why individuals like Jeffries exist. I see why there is a market for his bigotry, I don't think universities are doing their students, or their alumni, any favors by accepting it. The fact is what people are taught when they are young tends to stick with them. Feed them lies and half-truths when they are young and they are more likely to accept them when they are old. What predisposes college students to ingest the "ice people" theory?

No, I am angered that a story like this would be so full of lies and could still be accepted by a mature, intelligent individual! I'm not even going to get into an affirmative action debate here, this topic has drifted far enough!

And this story is not "about a little child learning that many minorities helped create our modern day country". It teaches that blacks invented many, many things that they did not, and includes no other minorities to speak of! How does this teach diversity?

And the statue for the fallen fire fighters has less to do with race than it does with healing. If a statue is to be erected as a memorial to all of the fallen heroes from that day, why not use a fictional idea? To use the most famous image from the tragedy with the people involved changed for the sake of political correctness is a bit obscene. I suggest creating an original scene not based on real actions or real individuals from the event rather than changing the individuals from a real scene.