After reading "Racial chill spurs quiet brain drain" (front page, Sept. 25), I recalled my own experience coming to the Twin Cities in the mid-1970s and attempting to complete a graduate degree, find work in the midst of a recession and develop my professional career. Nothing about this was easy, even for a white guy from New England. As someone who enjoys all the advantages of white privilege, it falls to me to comment on the rather patronizing attitude taken by the authors of this article. I mean really, how many corporations can actually create a complete cultural experience for people of color? And if by some chance this were even possible, who among us (yes — me, too) would take it at face value?
The reality of the work world is a brutal struggle for individual survival in an exploitive environment where the institution or company holds all the power. Hiring and firing is as cavalier as it is ever was, despite the crocodile tears shed by human-resources consultants. The shortage of skilled workers is a myth. There are plenty of highly skilled people available who simply won't put up with the low pay, stupid managers and toxic culture of large companies. My sympathies go out to all people who face this environment every day, including people of color, LGBT and other cultural minorities. May you find a more comfortable situation wherever you may choose to live and raise a family.
George Hutchinson, Minneapolis
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I'd like to tell the professionals of color interviewed in the article on the quiet brain drain that they're not alone in their situation, and it's far from new. My mother, father and I moved here in the 1960s when my father was transferred for work. We knew no one. In all those intervening years, except for a relatively short time when my mother-in-law was still alive, I don't recall ever being invited to a native Minnesotan's home for any holiday celebration. If my parents and I or my husband and I celebrated with anyone, it was nearly always other imports to the state, and most often at our invitation. I know others (also not of color) who have felt the same way. I don't claim to begin to understand all that people of color face moving here from elsewhere, but I can tell you you're not the only ones not invited to join the insider's club. It can be lonely on the outside.
Lynn Lucking, St. Paul
SEXUAL ASSAULT ON CAMPUS
The approach colleges are taking is something short of justice
The front-page story regarding colleges' crackdown on alleged assaults reflects a terribly flawed and ugly process ("Colleges' pursuit of rape cases brings pushback," Sept. 25). The premise put forth by schools that they do nothing wrong by branding young men as rapists and expelling them without a legal process is laughable. It is a rape of the accused's name, and a paean to political righteousness.
The assertion that the often-confused sexual relations of college-aged males and females should be classified as a monstrous crime, without evidence other than "she said, he said," sometimes months or years after an encounter, is the equivalent of a witch hunt of the first order. And like the witch hunts of old, leading the way is the government. Washington doesn't want a legal process to ensue if an accusation by a female against a male is made. Can you imagine the government wanting other major crimes such as murder or kidnapping handled "on campus" without involving the court system? But the government insists schools circumvent the legal approach when accusations of rape are made, and the awful attitude toward men this reflects is grotesque.
Some "advocates" argue that there is such a terrible epidemic of males attacking females on campus that only the most Draconian response (read circumventing the legal process) is needed. Apart from the question of whether such an epidemic exists, the argument is made that this isn't a replacement for reporting to the police; it's a parallel option for survivors based in civil rights — rather than criminal — law. But apparently it is a replacement, and it is only the woman's civil rights that matter. Don't schools and advocate organizations trust our legal system? Or is it they don't trust the legal system to find someone guilty of the ugly crime of rape, since they can't as easily control the process of establishing guilt or innocence?
The sooner men are treated fairly, the better for women. As those outside of a college or government setting will more often understand, justice denied for one is justice denied for all.
