Chino Wilson's (column) has elicited the response I was afraid (and knew) it would. Cries of Sensationalism! Ignorance! and Reverse Racism! have arisen. If one looks hard enough, however, there is much truth to be found in his (column).

I am writing in defense of the truth in Chino's (column), not necessarily Chino's (column). Chino is mainly guilty of using the mainstream media to inform with a sledgehammer when readers are used to being gently spoon fed tepid swill.

Chino's thesis indicts the government in a conspiracy to kill every African-American and uses the AIDS epidemic and the drug problem as evidence. Now, if there is no conspiracy, as such, the government has at least passively supported the decimation of the African-American community by these two forces.

Since the beginning of the AIDS crisis, the blame for the virus has been focused on persons of African descent. First, AIDS was supposedly to have been brought over by Haitian boat people.

Second, once the virus was found to be similar to one found in the African green monkey, speculation ensued to how the virus was transferred from an animal reservoir to the human population. These two assertions effectively rendered impotent any attempts to educate the African-American community concerning AIDS.

With viscious claims -- like the ones mentioned -- circulating, to recognize that AIDS is in the community is tantamount to accepting the blame for AIDS. Thus, the AIDS problem has not been effectively addressed in the African-American community. This has led to the highest incidence of new AIDS cases to be in the low income African-American population.

Now for the government's role: AIDS was hardly considered, and AIDS research funded, until the virus moved outside the African-American and gay communities. Only once it affected the white, heterosexual population did AIDS become an important issue and warrant an effort to eradicate it.

Drugs, especially crack, have always been associated with the African-American underclass. The government claims to be waging war on the drugs that are ravaging our cities (at the expense of international law, it seems).

The government's war mainly targets drug production and importation. Returns have largely been dead bodies. To suggest as one Opinions page commentator has that the action such as the invasion of Panama will help "stop the flow of drugs into our country" is ludicrous.

It has been almost two months since the invasion and I have yet to see the headline: "Cocaine Availability Down! Invasion of Panama Responsible!" If the government truly wants to end the drug problem if it would focus on the reason why drugs such as crack are used: to temporarily escape the grim and depressing existence of the inner cities where abject poverty is the rule and any sort of opportunity to escape is nonexistent.

Perhaps the government will also realize why people deal (and shoot competitors): a quick buck to be had where no buck can usually be had. If the government wants to end the drug problem it should not, as Bush proposed, erect fences around low-income housing, but eliminate the need for low-income housing.

Chino raises an interesting point concerning the recent, racially-motivated letter bombings. Those responsible say they will send a bomb every time an African-American man rapes a white woman.

However, statistics show that the majority of interracial rapes are committed by white men against African-American women. This fact, and its suppression, is indicative of the racism that permeates our society and the role the mainstream media assume in perpetuating the status quo.

Was this fact ever interjected in an article concerning the motive behind the bombings? Not that I can remember; the media are more comfortable propagating the common notion of African-American men raping white women. Disappointingly, Chino's (column) simply advocates further bombings ...

Although I do not support violence in most instances, I do believe violence in self-defense is justified. Unfortunately, the African-American community has always been in and is in a position of self-defense.

Instead of constantly deriding their methods and calling for unity-in-the-struggle (ineffective at best, patriarchal and coercive at worst) or simply blaming the problem on a few individuals, perhaps we whites should act upon the African-Americans' just demands: a nations where rights, opportunity and respect are not based on the color of one's skin.

I have yet to see such a nation.

One last note to Chino: you won't make it in the "real world" media. The reasons are two fold: your writing contains more truth than people are willing to believe and you have yet to learn the gentle art of rhetoric.