Letters
Lethargic fans
It isn’t true that the fans in Mac
Court are the best fans anywhere.
Their behavior this last week
proved them to be as fickle as fans
can be.
As long as the team really had
things moving their way, the fans
were great — enthusiastic, sup
portive, vocal. But as soon as the
tables turned the fans just stopped
contributing. I found it very sad
when the band played the fight
song during the last quarter of the
USC game: with the score tied
and less than two minutes to play,
the fans wouldn’t even stand for
the fight song. Every player on the
court was working his tail off, and
the crowd couldn’t even rouse it
self to do more than clap lethargi
cally.
I believe that if the home crowd
won’t support their team, that
team may as well play all their
games on the road. And support
isn’t just booing UCLA’s free
throws, either — it’s also yelling
encouragement when the Ducks
are down by ten and doing their
damnedest to catch up, helping to
generate the electricity that inten
sity and concentration bring. It’s
when they’re down that they really
need us!
The best fans around? If crowds
were rated the way basketball
teams are, we’d make a far worse
showing than the Ducks made in
the Pac-8.
Becky Beaman
Senior, Math
Good photo,
bad caption
My compliments to Patrick Sul
livan for his fine cover photo of the
Feb. 23 Emerald. The picture was
taken at Kiai!, a martial arts de
monstration produced by the
Asian American Student Union,
and showed Albert Li, a black belt
in Tae Kwan Do, mid-air at the
instant his kick connected with
three pine boards.
The editorial staff is due some
criticism, however, for the poor
taste and judgment displayed by
the caption “Chop-chop” across
the bottom of the photograph. The
-opinion
Del Monte recruiters here
Submitted by Timothy Shorrock
for Clergy and Laity Concerned
Graduate student, Asian studies
Today Del Monte Corporation, the
largest fruit and vegetable canner in the
world, is recruiting on campus. This article
is to focus attention on Del Monte’s role in
Southern Africa, its involvement in cash
cropping, and its exploitation of workers
both in the United States and in the Third
World. The presence of Del Monte’s re
cruiters underlines this campus' coopera
tion with multinational corporations, inter
national capital, and apartheid.
Del Monte Corporation has annual
sales of $1.5 billion and has operations in
21 countries and 17 states in the U.S. All
of the land controlled by Del Monte is not
being used for growing crops which di
rectly feed the local population, but for
growing cash crops for export to the U.S.
and Western Europe. This creates a de
pendency in the Third World and rein
forces underdevelopment; food must be
imported from the U.S. and becomes, in
Earl Butz’s famous words, “a weapon,
one of the principle weapons in our
negotiating kit.” One of the countries
where Del Monte exploits the people and
the land is Namibia.
In violation of a United Nations decree
banning exploitation of Namibia’s re
sources as long as South Africa illegally
occupies it, Del Monte fishes sardines
from Nambian waters and ships them to
the U.S., where they are processed into
cattle fodder and cat food — while Nam
bians suffer from malnutrition and protein
deficiency. Del Monte’s South African op
erations, along with many other American
financial and industrial involvements, help
to sustain the system of apartheid. The
extremely low wages paid to African
workers, $37 per month in the Nambian
fishing industry, make possible the huge
profits of Del Monte and the other corpora
tions involved in Southern Africa.
Del Monte also controls large areas of
land in Mexico, the Phillipines, Puerto
Rico, and Guatemala, for growing export
crops such as pineapple and bananas. A
major reason for its involvement in these
countries is the presence of a cheap labor
force under the control of repressive gov
ernments reinforced by American military
aid. Del Monte is a close ally of President
Marcos; when moves towards limiting
American ownership of land were made in
the Phillipines Senate in the early 1970s,
Marcos came to the rescue with martial
law, with restored American ownership
rights.
In the United States, Del Monte has
consistently fought workers’ demands for
better pay and working conditions. As ag
ricultural workers have become more
militant, however, the corporation has
simply shifted its operations to areas like
the Philippines and Mexico.
Lately, Del Monte has come under at
tack for its practices. Last year several
shareholder resolutions condemning the
exploitation of labor and use of cash crop
ping were filed by stockholders at the
company’s annual meeting in San Fran
cisco, and they have been the target of
marches and boycotts in several cities
around the U.S. Del Monte’s response
has been to defend its operations in
Southern Africa and the Philippines as
“on the cutting edge of social
reform...Capital investment in a country
such as South Africa provides a higher
standard of living and employment for
the people there.” (San Francisco
Chronicle, 9/26/77) In an in-house docu
ment printed in a Del Monte public rela
tions journal, Del Monte spokespersons
are urged to “Take the offensive...If ‘ob
scene profits’ are the issue, let’s not try to
justify our God given right to obscene pro
fits! Let’s tell the American people why we
need profits...And then let’s tell them why
we need more profits — to do a better job
and to build an even better standard of
living for all Americans.”
It’s time to question Del Monte’s com
mitment to a decent standard of living for
Americans and Third World peoples. It’s
time to question a system under which
basic human needs, such as food, are
subject to the inequities of markets where
price, quality, and quantity are controlled
by a few. It’s time to question why the
University offers legitimacy to recruiters
from corporations like Del Monte.
J
wordchop-chop has no meaning
in contemporary Asian American
culture. It is largely a white con
struct, a manifestation of the
image white Americans have of
Asian Americans — in short, a
stereotype, and a demeaning one.
Webster’s New World diction
ary attributes the word to Pidgin
English. It is a language which
evolved in the historical frame
work of colonialism: specifi
cally in the exploitation of Asian
peoples in the construction of the
California railroad and of the
Panama Canal, and in the mines,
farms, and factories of the Pacific
rim. The implication is that Pidgin
English is used with and by a race
too backward to learn Standard
English and hence inferior to the
white race which does use Stan
dard English. In this context, not
speaking Pidgin was regarded as
being uppity. (Of course it was
never at issue whether white em
ployers of Asian laborers should
learn Asian languages.)
The Emerald’s gaffe is espe
cially ironic occurring as it does in
conjunction with an event in the
Multi-Cultural Historical Sym
posium. The week-long celebra
tion of cultural pride and racial
identity was designed to heighten
awareness of the contribution to
American history and culture by
minority races. The Emerald owes
itself some research in ethnic
studies and owes to all Asian
Americans, particularly the mem
bers of the Asian American Stu
dent Union who produced Kaiail, a
profound and abject apology.
Debra Luttrell
Senior, Fine Arts
Out of context
In a letter to the Emerald (Mon
day 27 February) Dan Todd states
that the Bible has become “...a
lamp unto his feet, and a light unto
his path." (Quoting Psalm
119:105). The contents of his let
ter, however, indicate the con
trary. Instead, he merely picks and
chooses verses capriciously to
support whatever strikes his
fancy.
Todd cites Ephesians 5:22, 23
“Wives, submit yourselves unto
your own husbands, as unto the
Lord. For the husband is the head
of the wife...” as meaning that a
wife should submit to whatever
cruelties a husband contrives.
Todd’s specious premise is that
these verses sanction whipping
his wife with a saw chain!!! Yet he
conveniently ignores the full con
text of verse 23: "For the husband
is the head of the wife, even as
Christ is the head of the church:
and he is the saviour of the body.”
In whipping his wife with a
chain, Todd has chosen to ignore
the injunction of Ephesians 5:25:
Husbands, love your wives even
as Christ also loved the church,
and gave himself for it." Even
more to the point are verses 28
and 29 of the same chapter: "So
ought men to love their wives as
their own bodies. He that loveth
his wife loveth himself. For no man
ever yet hated his own flesh; but
nourisheth and cherisheth it, even
as the Lord the church."
Thus the Biblical model of wives
submitting to husbands is within
the context of a relationship in
which the husband emulates the
love that Jesus Christ has for the
church. Christ’s love for the
church is so boundless that he wil
lingly gave his life for it. There is no
higher model of true love for one’s
wife than this. Todd is stretching
credulity to infer that Ephesians 5
sanctions gutter level behaviour
on the part of husbands.
Todd goes on in his letter to tear
still more verses out of context in
an effort to show that the Bible
requires wives to approve their
husbands committing murder and
rape. Again, Todd ignores the
clear letter of the Word in favor of
obfuscation. If the Bible is truly his
lamp and light, then how can he
honestly ignore the injunction of
the Ten Commandents? Exodus
20:13, and 14 clearly state: “Thou
shaft not kill. Thou shalt not com
mit adultery.”
Todd has attempted to be
clever in satirizing the Bible. How
ever, such a purportedly humor
ous attack on scriptural integrity is
at best superficial. At worst, it is
intellectually dishonest. The hon
est skeptic must admit that there is
no way short of a contrived,
twisted reading to make the ob
noxious assertion that the Bible
condones murder, rape, and
cruelty to one’s wife.
Anyone can play Todd’s disre
putable game of pulling verses
from their contextual moorings. A
simple example would be to say
‘‘The Bible says ‘there is no
God.’ ” Yet the full context of that
statement is found in Psalm 14:1:
“The fool hath said in his heart,
There is no God.” Quite a differ
ence!!
Melvin Rollema
Third year law
Misquoted
I would like to correct a crucial
error reported in Monday’s
Emerald. I said that while many
Jews believe the reason women
traditionally are not called to read
Torah is they may be ritually un
clean due to menstruation. This is
absolutely untrue — it is a folklore
myth.
Traditionally, women are not
called to Torah because of a dis
cussion in the Talmud dealing with
the question of community honor,
not with ritual uncleanliness.
The significant issue I tried to
raise in my talk was the way in
which these myths are used to
socialize men and women into li
mited roles. The first step in
changing those roles is exposing
those myths.
Rabbi Laura Geller