Believing that people, though sometimes stupid, are basically good on the inside has made going through life a little easier for me.

Believing when someone hurts or offends me, they truly might not realize how what they said affected me, has made me a more forgiving person.

And believing there is a difference between being racist and being unaware has made me realize The State News has a problem.

On Monday, we ran an ad for a sorority’s self-defense class. It read, “This guy may be on your campus. Would you be prepared if you met him while walking at night?” The problem - the drawn picture that ran as a mock wanted poster was of a minority male. There’s nothing too sinister about him; I wouldn’t cross to the other side of the street if I saw him coming. He just has dark hair and skin.

I don’t see ads before they run; they’re handled by advertising, while I mainly work on the writing side of the paper. But when I saw it Monday my stomach flipped. And I asked myself the same questions people have been asking me, some in angry phone calls. How did this happen? Who approved this? And didn’t we realize how poor it was?

No, we did not realize. I’d like to say I would have stopped it had I seen it. But I didn’t and those who did simply didn’t realize that it shouldn’t have run.

It was insensitive, it was offensive and it was wrong.

It should not have run and I apologize.

But I can’t blame advertising - editorial has had similar lapses of sensitivity.

I’ve been at The State News three years, and we always have the same problems: We have a ridiculously low number of minority staff members, we can’t cover every event and sometimes we make mistakes and don’t realize it.

But Wednesday, on one of the phone calls I received, I was called a racist and told my newspaper was racist.

Unaware, yes; racists, no.

And while I’m probably taking this more personally than most of the staff, I think I have good reason.

I’ve only had one reporting position at The State News - minority affairs. I did it for two semesters (Fall 1998 and Spring 1999), and I’d like to think I was pretty good at it - at least the source relations.

My first encounters with Rodney Patterson, director of the Office of Minority Student Affairs, were