Ethnicism

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I strongly resent the anti-German nature of S. Allen Counter's letter in response to Harkensson's movie. Mr. Counter seemed to be obsessed with the image of the inherently evil German. Why does he repetitively mention that Fran Hosken is Harkensson's German companion? I have never encountered a German woman with this name, but that is irrelevant to the subject matter discussed here. Whether Harkensson's assistant is German, Jewish, black or Russian is not important.

Moreover, Mr. Counter offers more polemic and unqualified statements to his readers. He claims that "the German filmmakers seem to have a preoccupation with this sort of thing." I believe that Mr. Counter is not qualified to describe Germany's filmmakers as a group of weird intellectuals that are primarily preoccupied with obscene topics. Most connoisseurs of the new German film scene would disagree with Mr. Counter's erroneous statement.

I would also like to know whether Mr. Counter inspected Ms. Hosken's passport to verify whether or not she was German or Scandanavian.

Concerning the controversial subject matter, I am more than willing to support Mr. Counter's protest against tasteless and racist films, but I am unwilling to support his tasteless and racist criticism of Germany's filmmakers. Harkensson's film can foster prejudice against the Afro-American people but Counter's polemic references to Germany and its people will generate the same sort of prejudice that he is trying to prevent through his arguments. Florian W. J. Homm '82