There have recently been numerous letters concerning the anti-racism protests at Penn State.

These letters, presumably by whites, accuse the African-Americans of propagating their own oppression with their method of separation. Assimilation into white society, these letter writers would have us believe, is the path to empowerment.

As a white person I must respond to such thinking. Firstly, how dare we tell them what to do!

Europeans traveled to Africa and under the auspices of civilizing the "natives," destroyed nations and kidnapped millions of Africans.

Those who survived the trip to America were forced into slavery. Today, the majority of African-Americans continue to live in perpetual poverty in a vicious system that denies them self-determination.

Why do some insist that African- Americans play a game whose rules are stacked against them from the start? The notion of "We know what's best for them" is the epitome of an egoism and paternalism that we must resist.