By Lynne Funk and Mike Walbert

Over the last four days, The Daily Collegian and its editors have been flooded with nearly 50 e-mail messages, fielded multiple phone calls and spoken with numerous readers in person, all in regard to Kris Ankarlo's column ("France, the French, 'fruity' French hats next in America's bullseye") that ran Thursday.

Because of the reader outpour, we would like to address the issue personally.

For those readers who were personally offended by Ankarlo's column or simply didn't understand it, the column was intended to be satirical. It was meant to show how a large number of Americans view the French, and how ridiculous it is that some people actually think this way.

With the outrageous content and blatant silliness, one can see Ankarlo doesn't want freedom fries and the ultimate demise of France; he wants the American public to snap out of its pompous, do-right mentality.

However, some readers did not get Ankarlo's point. Some didn't recognize the sarcasm in his writing. Understandably, sarcasm in print is often times more difficult to grasp or identify.

Ankarlo used the idiocy of bigotry to expose the idiocy of bigotry. What more effective exercise of expression could he have used than the words of bigots themselves? Unfortunately, sarcasm is dangerous in a medium so black and white, as newsprint is.

Sarcasm is saying the opposite of what you mean and relies on voice to be effective. If the voice -- the intonation -- is not heard by the receiver, then the words themselves can convey the exact opposite of what the writer is intending.

That very misunderstanding has happened in this situation. Some readers didn't take that same understanding of what Ankarlo wrote.

Despite several e-mails labeling Ankarlo as "hateful" and "ignorant," his column was a great piece of writing, with a very interesting, yet important and clear message.

It was obvious during the editing process that Ankarlo was being sarcastic. We knew he was meaning the exact opposite of what everyone else has seemed to take away from it.

What's troubling to the Collegian is the large number of readers criticizing Ankarlo's content by using the argument of, "What if it was about African Americans, Jews, etc.?"

There is a deliberate reason for that argument to be invalid.

French people have not -- at least not in the way other people, specifically minorities -- been persecuted. The French people have not been the subject of brutal discrimination for decades. The French have not been put through horrible conditions, with 6 million of their people killed for simply believing in a religion.

But somehow, as Ankarlo's column was meant to read, the French have become a target in some Americans' minds. Maybe it was the French government's opposition of the war in Iraq. Maybe it is because people in this country seem to play "follow the leader" a bit too much, sipping on their "American Vanilla" coffee.

The Collegian has printed about 30 columns by Ankarlo, and we know his personality and writing style very well.

Most newspapers across this country have the same columnists write on the same day. This is for a reason; readers should look for Joe Smith every Wednesday. He should be there to spout off his opinion every Wednesday -- whether you like it or not -- because it draws you into his world, and you get to know and understand what his type of journalism is all about. Taking this into account, we really like Ankarlo's type of journalism.

A quick search on our back issues of Ankarlo's previous column topics would give the reader a clear idea of what he stands for.

And now, we stand behind his column because we believe in the power of words and Ankarlo's point.

Ankarlo's columns will continue to appear each Thursday because we know his ultimate goal is not to upset French people, but rather to show our readers the power of words. His style of writing just hit a few people the wrong way.

We challenge all readers to look at the opinions on this page a bit closer. Get to know your columnists, because this semester they really do have interesting things to say.

Lynne Funk is the Collegian's editor in chief. Mike Walbert is the Collegian's opinion page editor. Their e-mail addresses are LynneFunk@psu.edu and collegianletters@psu.edu.