Dear editor,

I’d like to respond to Calvin Hulstein’s letter printed in the Dec. 5 edition of the Chimes. Indeed the cases in question are both extraordinarily complicated, and the racial identities of the involved parties serve to further complicate especially the public response to them.

You are correct that the death of Gil Collar was a tragedy of police violence, but the difference between his death and Michael Brown’s is that it was not another death in a pervasive pattern of police violence against young white men.

It did not reinforce a legitimate fear in the hearts of white parents that their white sons would be far more likely to be victims of police violence.

A wise colleague at Calvin once pointed out that when someone tells you that his leg hurts, you cannot disagree. You may not be able to feel his pain, but it is real to him.

Your letter to the editor was read by students of color at Calvin as an invalidation of their real pain, fear and frustration. I don’t believe that this was your intent, but your words have compounded that pain.

My participation in the solidarity walk was out of care for all those impacted in the Ferguson community, but also to show solidarity towards my brothers and sisters in Christ here at Calvin whose experiences are repeatedly invalidated.

Noah Kruis ’03, Interim Director of the Service-Learning Center