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