Editor’s note: This letter is in response to “Fliers at pro-life rally spark controversy,” published in Thursday’s Daily Lobo. The article is about controversy created by pro-life fliers which depict “a Native American medicine wheel in the background, and the phrase ‘Today an Indian boy was killed in the Indian way hey ya hey.’” Kiva Club members perceived the fliers as racist.
Editor,
To Samantha Serrano (director of Catholic Apologetics Fellowship and Evangelism, or CAFE) and Lane Bird Bear (president of Kiva Club): It seems to me that the controversy existing between your organizations has stemmed from a mere lack of effective communication. Based on my reading of Thursday’s front page article, it is my understanding that as president of Kiva Club, Mr. Bird Bear, you want to hold CAFE accountable for posters that you believe “negatively target” Native Americans. However, according to you, Ms. Serrano, a man unassociated with your organization brought in the posters, and as soon as you realized their depictions, you immediately had them taken down throughout campus.
I have a proposition for each of you: Mr. Bird Bear, I invite you to ask yourself whether you would want the Kiva Club to be held accountable for an unassociated person who chooses to post signs throughout campus that exploit Native American pride to the point of implied discrimination against other cultural groups. Certainly not. I agree with you that your “culture and identities can’t be misappropriated to further their … political agenda anymore.”
However, I also don’t believe this has ever been the intention of CAFE; the organization simply wouldn’t make sense if it were.
As for you, Ms. Serrano, in the article you are quoted as saying, “We had a gentlemen who was not associated with our group who wanted to come along, and he had some signs he had made … we didn’t look at them initially.” As the director of an organization, it is your responsibility to ensure that promotional materials brought to you by someone who wants to “help” are in no way misrepresenting the organization. Had he chosen to hang the posters around campus of his own accord, it would have been out of your control. But he came to you with the materials, and therefore they should have at least been closely examined. After all, the posters could have been much worse.
In conclusion, Ms. Serrano and Mr. Bird Bear, I encourage your organizations to acknowledge this “controversy” as one simply caused by miscommunication instead of seeing an opportunity to further distance your organizations from each other. It is apparent to me that both the Kiva Club and CAFE are extremely passionate in promoting their purposes; both demonstrate the strength students can create through campus organizations that will further allow our University to thrive.
Sean Ritchel
UNM student
