Nell Irvin Painter, "To the Editor," Daily Californian, 9 March 1961, p. 9.

From the issue dated June 28, 2002
by Nell Irvin Painter

Three of the ideals that have brought condemnation to the Muslim movement are black supremacy, race before country, and total separation of the races. The supposed antithesis of this spirit is to be found in the intellectual Negro of the campus, who can talk objectively about race, seemingly without bitterness. Yet what Negro can wholeheartedly condemn the Muslim doctrines, realizing that white supremacy has been an operating European policy since the fifteenth century, realizing that his whole peculiar history has been one of separation and race before country, imposed by the white majority? For this majority to criticize the Muslims is hypocrisy.

I see in myself and in my friends that the frustrations of the uneducated are felt keenly by the intelligentsia. I see it in men like Richard Wright and James Baldwin, who both left this country. And I believe that the Africa championed by the Muslims will profit from our loss of educated American Negroes sickened by the "American Way of Life."

Nell Irvin,

Sophomore, Art

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