In the Oct. 24 Kernel article, “Fight breaks out at Tolly Ho, five hospitalized,” although only three comments were posted online about the article on the Kernel’s website (dozens of comments were posted on various other websites about the incident), all of the comments had something to do with race — and two of them echoed the kinds of racist ideas that are not only holding this university back, but also the country.

Part of one comment said, “I dont know if anyone noticed but in the tolly ho video there is not a white person there. And to these idiots from detroit…stay there if you can(t) control yourselves and actually act like civilized human beings. Detroit is a crap hole for a reason.” It’s not clear what caused the fight, and Tolly Ho refused to comment to the Kernel on multiple occasions so we cannot cite information, but it is unfair and racist to blame the cause of the fight on what race the people involved were. Blaming an incident like this simply on a physical trait is just a lazy and ignorant way to address a problem.

Also, UK and the city of Lexington have been making efforts (like the World Equestrian Games) to bring new events and new people to the city, and UK has been doing this in an attempt to bring more “diversity” to campus. Telling people from Detroit — or any other city from another region for that matter — to “stay there” is not the kind of talk that will make people feel welcome to Lexington.

No one should judge an entire city’s (or race’s) population based off of the actions of a few people.

If UK students or Lexingtonians really want to increase their diversity (which is necessary for a full education), comments or thoughts like the ones made on the story are not the way to accomplish this goal. The actions of those few people who caused the fights do not represent the large populations of Detroit, Cleveland or Chicago.

Instead of making counterproductive and unfair comments, people need to step back and ask themselves productive questions, and then create dialogue about why anyone would even feel the need to make those racist comments in the first place — and then, they need to ask themselves what needs to be done to get rid of those angry thoughts.