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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 1970)
Editorial Panthers a reaction to political racism “A fire rages in the hearts of Black people today...”, writes Eldridge Cleaver, a fire which will bring either “...total liberty for Black people or total destruction for America.” Most of White America, in trying to ignore the stark message of Cleaver’s words, prefer to point to minority leaders such as Julian Bond, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm and Carl Stokes as worthy examples of “minority group political power.” Yet, three years after the death of Martin Luther King, and with a pathetically small number of minority leaders making it within the system, America must wake up to the fact that Cleaver’s analysis is closer to reality. Now means now, not tom moor row, and a few are not enough. More and more, the Panthers and other groups such as the Brown Berets are in the forefront of the political movement against racism. They have taken that vanguard position because they define “total liberty” as Cleaver does—“the absence of artificial restraint on the activities and actions of Black people...total absence of any blocking to all benefits of the economic and political system.” The reaction to their position points out the hard core of racism that has infected our institutions. Vice President Spiro Agnew has called the Panthers “a completely irresponsible, anarchist group of criminals”; U.S. Assistant Attorney General Jerris Leonard has said “The Black Panthers are nothing but hoodlums.” Harrassment by the police and unjustified arrest of Panthers in cities all across the country have become a fact of life. Yet the American Civil Liberties Union, in a study of Panther arrests, has concluded that, “seldom have these charges held up in court.” Obviously, the danger to the status quo the Panthers and the Brown Berets represent is far greater than that of minority leaders within the system. The reaction to them is a measure of their correct analysis of the racist state we live in. George Goodman, a young Black assistant editor of Look, has best defined the reasons for and the power behind groups such as the Panthers; “For an increasing number of Blacks, the foremost reality about this country is White racism. To co-exist instead of trying to overcome, Black America (would be cultivating a racism of its own.”) Thus, political organizations such as the Panthers reflect the realities of American politics. Normal politics is racism. White America must realize that we face a revolution, no matter what. Either we will overturn the corrupt and racist political system that the Panthers have been created in response to, or we will have the terrible battle in the streets that Cleaver warns us of. It would be better to accede to Cleaver’s demand for “Black power for Black people, Brown power for Brown people, Red power for Red people and X power for any group we’ve left out.” Letters Athletic department survey If the Athletic Department’s survey finds that the majority of students voting indicate their desire for a maintenance of the existing program or even an extension of it, there may well be for those who voted this way a feeling of contentment with existing values due to a timely rein forcement. However if the Athletic Department’s feeling mirrors this then they are making an error. The very need for the poll reflects the wind of change which is being pointed out regularly in the national press and is sometimes highlighted at the local level. It is not the lack of validity in the con struction of the questionnaire that is of paramount importance, nor the necessarily biased method of data collection. One word or two would not be inappropriate at this point however; the questions asked are basically whether we should maintain the program, expand it or eliminate it. The efforts of the ASUO have not been to eliminate but to reduce the financial expenditure, perhaps then an extra category offering this alternative would have produced a less loaded questionnaire? However if you as a student voted to maintain or expand the program perhaps you did so out of a lack of awareness of how you are being short changed by a structure which has little to commend it educationally and which does little else for you except carefully nourish in you the desire to become a spectator. If you are an alumni how do you feel? Had you had a chance to vote you might have voted to maintain the present level of athletics. You have been promised a winning team for years Each season begins full of hope and is swiftly reduced to despair. Tins organization you support financially. Maybe you would answer by pointing out that you did this not for vour own benefit, but to benefit the university, to help students through school perhaps? No! The athletic program is a business, a nationwide business with you as the consumer and the athlete as the goods. At Oregon it would seem that the dividends are low! Perhaps you still see it as a charity, helping students through school, and also enabling them to participate in a worthwhile physical activity? On the first question ask yourself whether these students are the most needy and how many of them are there for the money expended-7 On the second question ask yourself how the Athletic Program compares with the Club sports program which gives in terscholastic'athletics to more people in more sports at one fiftieth of the cost. The latter combines both business and charity. So next time students, you fill in a questionnaire or alumni you sit in the stand, ask yourself whether you support this program for your own gratification or because you really believe that it gives maximum benefit to the maximum number of people or even perhaps it gives maximum benefit to anybody? Iain E. More Grad. P.E. Leave the leaves Every year about this time I see men around campus who continually rake leaves. They rake them from the lawns and sidewalks into orderly piles that remain in the gutters or are picked up and piled somewhere else, out of sight. This practice has bothered me for some time, for I cannot understand the reasoning behind it. Can it be that dead leaves are ugly? To the contrary, it is only when the leaves have died that the vivid changes in coloring, which make them truly beautiful, take place. When they fall, they not only hide the grey concrete, but the peppered effect on the lawns is very colorful. Can it be that they kill the grass0 This seems unlikely when one considers that leaves were falling on grass long before men were raking them up It is, in fact, the most natural place for them to be. Do they somehow make the campus untidy? Again, I think not. Of all the things that fall on lawns and sidewalks around here, leaves are the last things I would consider as litter. Also, I have yet to ob serve anyone avoiding sitting on the ground because there were leaves on it. Finally, what happens to leaves when they are raked up? They are either a) piled in the gutters, where they will clog the drains when the rains come, b) piled somewhere else, out of sight, or c) burned, contributing to an already deleterious pollution problem in this city. Therefore, 1 should like to ask whoever is in charge of Raking Leaves at the University (I am sure there must be someone'. Why does it have to happen, year after year after year? Would not it save time and money having these men doing something more constructive. Terrel Teinplenian Psychology How it’s said I have long suspected that what is said in a student newspaper matters less than how it is said. The Emerald has convinced me of this truth. Editorial contempt of the ASUO mentality is so great that we are lectured on which things are bad, namely racism, the war, repression, and bombing of buildings. Then we are treated to a display of “how to slip a cause over on the know-nothing students,” as the Emerald wraps its drive to shut ROTC classes in the flag of Academic Freedom. I will give them some credit—the Emerald learned of the EMU addition plan a day before I would have, but they didn’t hear that Carson quad would be a victim of the expansion. In the end, I ask only this: that the Emerald give me more news to evaluate events with, and less opinion of what my judgment should be. Doug Couch Liberal Arts Letter erroneous After the Ducks’ victory over U.C.L.A. (for which they should be duly commended), your comic staff wrote about the smell of roses. This was followed by an erroneous letter in the October 19 edition. Erroneous because it wrongly (and belatedly) predicted Oregon’s defeat at the hands of Idaho. However, the rest of the letter seems accurate. To quote your October 2 edition, “U.S.C. is so good few teams feel depressed if they can hang within 20 points.” And Oregon State is always tough against Oregon. One thing is certain, those teams won’t be beaten by predictably returning every kick up the middle and never using fourth down. I’ll be rooting for Oregon, but the chance that they’ll win both of these games seems about equal to the chance that it won’t rain on either game. Allen G. Tobin Physics Middle America
