On March 22, the editor-in-chief of the DU Clarion, the University of Denver’s campus newspaper, Kiana Marson, wrote a shocking op-ed expressing her anger towards white people.  In her op-ed that she wrote 4 days after FBI Director Christopher Wray publicly stated that the killing of six Asians in the Atlanta massage parlor shooting did not appear to be racially motivated, Marsan accused all white people of being racists and falsely claimed the killing of Asian workers at the massage parlor was racially motivated. “I couldn’t walk past a white person without shaking,” she wrote.

Kiana Marsan

Here is a sampling of Marsan’s racist rant that would never have made it past the editor if she were a white person making the same hateful accusations about minorities.

Dear white people,

On March 16, a white supremacist opened fire in three Asian massage parlors in Atlanta. He killed eight people—six of whom were Asian women—in what he described as an attempt to “eliminate his temptations.” Later, the sheriff’s department would excuse the massacre as the culmination of one man’s “bad day.” 

What would make you care? Should I describe how once the shock wore off, I didn’t think my tears would ever dry? Should I tell you how I waited for everyone, then anyone, to see my pain and was brutally disappointed? Or, do you want to know how everything seemed brighter and louder the day after, that I couldn’t walk past a white person without shaking on my way to work? 

Take my sadness, anger or fear—whichever will be easiest for you to swallow. You cling to your fragility because it assuages your guilt. 

Before I bare my heart open, I know how you will respond. Your face will contort into shock, discomfort or pity. Either consciously or subconsciously, my stories will confirm the assumptions you have already made about me. When I am sad, I have all the emotionality of a woman. When I am angry, I am the angry person of color. When I am afraid, you wonder why I make “everything about race.” Without my permission or consent, my identity as a Filipina woman will be warped to fit your stereotypes. 

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It is the unabashedly racist of you who frighten me most. You become violent, deadly and incessant; your hatred of us is visible. You kill Asian massage workers because you cannot reconcile your attraction with repulsion. You shout “yellow” at a group of Asians during a candlelit vigil for our murdered in what was once Denver’s Chinatown. You proudly participate in white supremacy. 

But it is the subliminally racist of you who inflict the most cuts. You engage in microaggressions, use racially-coded language and deny that silence is violent. You are administrators who attend a support space and—being the only ones who feel comfortable and safe enough to turn your videos on—flood the Zoom call with your whiteness. It will remind us of your privilege and power as we grieve. 

You are my friends, coworkers and professors; you exist everywhere, and I am still afraid. 

How afraid is Ms. Marsan of white people?

A trip to her Facebook page reveals a smiling Marsan surrounded by ONLY white people. The only 3 public photos on Marsan’s Facebook page feature the editor-in-chief of her campus publication with a group of ONLY white friends. It’s curious that the young smiling woman, who, in her own words, says she “can’t walk by a white person without shaking” with fear, with a group of ONLY white friends, would place herself in harm’s way.

Ms. Marsan is a perfect example of the product of a broken education system in America. Students are not being taught about how America is the freest and diverse nation, with more opportunities for all citizens, including minorities than anywhere else in the world. Instead, they are being taught to hate America and refuse open dialogue with those who disagree. Students are being taught in public schools, colleges, and universities that the best way to react to someone who holds an opinion that doesn’t fit into their narrow progressive views is to mock and shame them, leaving students like Ms. Marsan with a black eye, when she discovers she can’t shame her friends for their white skin, while simultaneously posting photos of herself smiling with them on her Facebook page.

 

 

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