Philip N. Henry: The ivory tower view

I am not sure I grasped the point of Anna Brown’s May 24 Point of View, “Wise thoughts, poor writing.”

It appears to me that Duke professor Jerry Hough exercised his freedom to engage in dialogue on equality. His views were not supported by respondents.

Clearly, it was a mistake to casually compare the absorption of Asian-Americans and African-Americans into the alleged American melting pot. If the universe Hough drew his sampling from is the Duke University campus, he has obviously deprived himself of rich data available even in the Durham community.

Possibly, he should visit a homeless shelter, volunteer in an after-school program, visit a prison, tour the many sweatshops around the country where Asian-Americans labor and take note of their living conditions.

Clearly, he provided stereotypes from his perch in the ivory tower, and, I agree, he should not be called a racist for that. Nonetheless, I invite him to take a plunge into the real world to see the fallacy of his comments.

This story was originally published May 30, 2015 at 1:00 PM with the headline "Philip N. Henry: The ivory tower view."