My name is Dylan Wann, and I am a junior at ACU, meaning that this February is my third chance to experience Black History month on campus. The purpose of this letter is to express my strong disappointment and confusion with Friday’s Chapel presentation.

The vignette of this year’s Black History Month production left me, and a good number of my peers, questioning the validity and overall purpose of such a presentation. Though it was very creative and well performed, what exactly was it that was being accomplished?

Unfortunately, I get the distinct impression that every February I must feel guilty and serve my subsequent penitence for being a Caucasian, middle-class American. This underlying sentiment seemed to be typified by Friday’s performance. I walked away feeling as though I was somehow targeted for being a white, racially-biased bigot, though I am nothing of the sort.  Though I am a Welsh-Irish-English mix, with ancestry drawing from tobacco plantation owners in the Carolinas and southern Kentucky, I have never owned slaves myself nor tried to somehow oppress the African American population of the U.S., even in my youthful ignorance.

Nevertheless, I am a follower of Christ, called to love my fellow man, despite any prejudices I might have. I believe that my lifelong efforts to achieve such a goal are good enough for man and for God.

Racism itself stems from those darker, more deep-seeded evils that plague the heart of mankind and taint all relations among humans – namely, prejudice and an innate fear of the unknown.

Let us understand and attack these deeper issues that confront us all  instead of being blinded by our obsession with the plight of one ethnic group versus another. Let us follow Christ’s example of love and prejudicial blindness. Let us love without regard.

Dylan Wann
sophomore environmental science major from Torrington, Wyom.