The forum participants initially struggled with the emotions that Jerold presents: the oppression through racism he and other African-Americans experience daily. While these white, middle class students were able to empathize with Jerold, they were also made uncomfortable by their membership in the group which benefits from racism: white people. In the following transcript, TJ in particular struggles with what he perceives to be an intellectual incongruity between Jerold's condemnation of the racism directed toward African-Americans and the blanket indictment of "White devils." Note the contradictions in TJ's remarks here:

TJ: Because we are descendants of the people who [created racism]...we're not the ones who did it. To lump us in with the ones who did it because we all have white skin, because of the color of one's skin, is still doing the color thing, as far as I'm concerned. And that, for me, is racism. His feeling of anger is absolutely legitimate, and we can't deny this person the right to feel angry. In a way, the question he is asking, 'Why shouldn't I hate?' -- that isn't even a legitimate question. The overall tone I got should have made me feel uncomfortable, and it did make me feel uncomfortable. I would still maintain my impression of the piece is still that it's a very racist piece, but I didn't think it was a bad piece and I'm glad I read it.

Bill: To say that it isn't me but my ancestors who did it is taking a real ... because it's taking the perspective of racism as individual, personal actions, rather than as systematized institutionalized racism. It isn't just individual acts of slave owners and people like that, but the whole system.

Jim: The hate started on our side. There are the qualities of a person inside, like whether they accelerate racism, how they feel about others. And there's visual outward qualities like skin color. You can't see inside , can't tell if someone has racist qualities inside, you can only see the outside, we all share the same color of skin --white -- the white sign of the oppressor.

Scott: We don't realize how oppressive we are: buying [caucasian] skin-colored bandaids instead of boycotting them. We are oppressors when we don't notice things like that.

TJ: I agree that racism is probably perpetuated by white people; that's probably a true statement. But it's wrong to be prejudice because of someone's skin-color, that because of one's white skin color that person buys [those] bandaids and supports the system.

Bill, Scott and Jim all try to interpret Jerold's ideas in terms of institutionalized racism. They are making an important point, which TJ understands, but TJ needs to work with these ideas on a personal level, too.

Anthony: Is the author also asking, 'Why shouldn't I be racist?'

Dave: This piece didn't bug me at all. I agree with TJ, but racism is also a systemic thing and within minority communities. You know 'You're not Mexican enough' or something like that. I appreciate JW's honesty in giving his opinions.

Kate: Internalized racism?

Bill: You don't know if people buy into it, the power structure, but the fact is , whether they buy into it or not, the fact is you have the privilege whether you want it or not. You still have it and whether you agree with it or not, you use it. Look at us. We're all here at the university, and we got here because there's an unequal power distribution that says white kids go to college and most black kids don't. You know, I feel sort of close to the point of view of "Why shouldn't I hate?" because of the passage of Amendment 2. I'm asking myself a lot of the same questions, because I feel war has been declared on me, so why shouldn't I go buy a gun and go down to Colorado for Family values and start shooting people. Why shouldn't I hate? It's real easy to get caught up in fighting your own...

TJ: We're talking about responsibility and guilt. Your color is an accident of birth. It gives me a lot of responsibility because I've been empowered by society to use that power in ways that can maybe break down that whole power system. But I don't feel guilty about it. Guilt is one of those things like hate. It eats me up inside, so I refuse to feel guilty about what my ancestors have done, even though it hurts me a lot to know my own ancestors did these things and I am descended from those kinds of things. But I won't play that game.

Anthony: So what do you do with that knowledge, though?

TJ: I'm struggling for...One of the most profound things that's happened to me occurred after I watched the movie Boyz in the Hood. I felt really drained after it. I cried a little bit during the movie and I felt just like.... As I was walking home I was really upset and there was this guy going through the dumpster behind my house and I felt like, 'God, I gotta do something about all these things going on in society that seem to be wrong, but I don't know what to do.' But there was this guy going through the dumpster, and I asked him if he wanted to come inside and maybe have a sandwich -- and I really hurt his pride. And I felt like I wanted so much to do something and I didn't know how to do it. It was such a terrible feeling. And I cried for about 2 hours from it. And so ever since then I've been trying to figure out the things that I can do about it. That's pretty much why I'm in INVEST and why I do the things that I do -- is that I'm trying, and I'm really not very good at it yet, but I'm a lot better than I was. And I'm actually giving most of my thinking time to questions like this. I have a long way to go, but at least I know that I have a long way to go.

TJ's story show how he has moved from talking about Jerold's essay to talking about his own desire to respond appropriately to the issues Jerold raises. (As does his confusion about how to do this.) He tries to distinguish between guilt and responsibility: he is not guilty but he is responsible for doing something about the racism of his ancestors. However, TJ does not make it clear how guilt and responsibility are different from each other.

Finally, TJ's narrative reveals something very important about his confused and contradictory response to Jerold's essay.

TJ treats the man going through the dumpster much as he treats Jerold's essay. He thinks he feels empathy, but it is really sympathy. The gap between TJ's life experiences and those of the man at the dumpster is so great that TJ can do no more than treat him like a guest. They don't "belong" together. While TJ probably sincerely wanted to help this man, he does not know how. He resorts to the typical solution of governments and religious groups: the handout. The handout only accentuates the difference between those who are able to give and those who must only receive. While TJ and the others may condemn the system which destines some people to be slaves and others to be masters, what position anyone has is indeed "an accident of birth". Perhaps he cried for two hours because on some level he knows that he is indeed living out the legacy of his ancestors. While TJ may be able to choose whether he wants to be a kind overseer or a cruel overseer, he cannot choose to not be an overseer.