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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 26, 1995)
EDITORIAL r Simpson coverage lacks news value Avoiding the O.J. fiasco has been the law in Emerald country this year Without exception wo have banned stories about “the trial of the century." On occasion one has slipped in without the knowledge or approval of the editor, but for the most part the Emerald has gono without the Juice. Now that things are moving along at a pace just a tad bit faster than a snail's we think the time has finally como for us to confront the mockery of justice this trial has become. Actually, we don’t want to editorialize on O.J. *s guilt or innocence, because we ere among the few people left on Earth who still believe the courts should decide that one We would like to talk about some quirks things that are allowing this trial to compete with the president’s State of the Union Address for ratings. From all outward appearances everything about this trial has news value. The press is reporting on every thing from Marcia Clark’s change in hairstyle to the now IBM computer on Judge I-a nee Ito’s desk. They are even reporting about other reporters. There are so matt) satellite true ks outside the counhouse that if you threw a raw chicken up in the air it would In* cooked before it hits the ground. people touring Beverly Hills are making o I'« man sion and Nicole Brown Simpson's townhouse a tourist attraction Everyone who ever mot the counlt^is writing a book about his or her experiences w 11h them. Ami all of them are gaining instant celebrity for it Even O.J.’s neighbor’s cleaning lady is getting in on the action, it 4s like those people on Oprah who say "1 knew (insert mass murderer’s name here) when he was young lie bought M*Ms and I put it together, You know: M&M. mass murderer." And what's up with the defense? If we were paying those legal bills wo would at least insist that they play nice with each other. W« know a few two-year-olds who act more i iviliz.ed toward each other than F Law Bailey and Robert Shapiro. What w>e can’t seem to Figure out is why this is sliii garnering so damn much of the public’s attention Is there actually someone, besides O.J. and Nicole Brown Simpson's friends and relatives, who reads every darn one these articles? Will watching this trial make us bet tor people? The answer to both of these questions is probably no. But it doos give us a release from our daily grind. And that is what this trial has become, a fantasy, arid escape. What no one seems to grasp is that this is not a football game. O.J. is not going to emerge from this a hero regardless of the verdict. And neither will we as a society remain unscathed. Even in earnest jest wo are harming ourselves by making jokes about this or by ignoring the real societal issues that this case seems to be bringing up Oregon Daily »Q non fcvX**»* Thtt (Wpon fWy l <s put*ah«rf Mc*>d*y ttvo«ugt> f radfey tt* ***** y#*' ttMMMftty *n-d Thu»«Jay ng lb-* Hamnett by tb« Oftdy EmfriM) KjCAtfeng Co , Inc at V>wo«vT, ©4 Oregon f ugtsr*. Otsgcn f h# f tfvaapftr*)enfty o» rUfw»»Vty at, 300 a* l‘*t> IMon *r*3 .•« a me.-gsu o* Aa#ot**t*d Th* fimritf «* pr*mtoa property TTve <a*>L*w*<* tgmovil Of uM of pAper* i* pffMHKUMMl by imm CdttOf tn Ch** Kiy Sa*o wwraytou Conor Editorial Editor Maw* Art Editor Eraalanca Editor ftefcfcMB f Vmv*» Ml* tort Baft*'***’ mcaff of Spom E dSUx SupptomOTt* EdMOf Night f dttof Meo*cc« Mown Om twMz Tn*U» to* Awovton* C Aaaoctata cdnom * * -t+*ai<ch van Carp. .Vi***"* uc*amm*n4 Act***** MUr- ««*•■>* |Owm<a* Co»»«wn^ T <<!*«> SrrKtr-, h+ghe* £AettanfAdmtnmttwbon N«wr* Staff Sjon-o Aafeury Amy CoM«t», Pat Oafe. 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Jaw*H»» Hoiawt Clayton Y** itowvoom Buko«m Offk.9 546-5511 346 5512 Atfvutn.ng M6-3712 ClMliHW A(N«r«»Wvg MAU<3 (AUPO»NiA <u(?vrvt0 FIW$ (AUPOBNiA fjffViVtD OUFCWNXA $URV!VCO FLOODS SO LON6, CAllPCRNlA ■ OPINION Single mothers attacked, vilified Kvery generation is plagued with social problems From det ade to dor ado. certain prob lems explode, larger than life, and i apture the national atten tion, only to be upstaged by another "new" s<x tat dilemma The nature of these problems remains relatively the same What changes from year to year is the scapegoat: It's because of the illegal immigrants, it's because of women's lib, it's because of the Irish, it's because of the Jews The newest national scape goat is a surprising one to find on the receiving end of the wrath of many a politician, preacher and American < itizen. The war is on against the sin gle mother Crime, poverty, illit eracy. drugs, unemployment It's all the single mother's fault The single mom, sucking up the wel fare, is single-handedly respon sible for destroying American family values. She is sending this country into a spiral of shame Whether this idea has been perpetuated by media, politi cians or public sentiment, the new right political movement (and plenty of those off it tally not on the right) is targeting the single welfare mother for leg islative punishment Newt Gingrich seeks to cut off aid to poor single mothers and put their kids in orphanages In Oregon, Hep Kevin Mannix, l> Salem, smelling the nation’s thirst for single mother blood, has proposed a preposterous bill to the Oregon Legislature that would deny single women the right to he artificially inseminat ed l doubt either of these mis guided plans will ever make it to fruition, hut the politicians ore showboating to the public; showing them that they mean business in this new war on the enemy of family values, and the public agrees Punish the single mother —- both socially and tinaiu ia 11\ to hull her solo reproduction. Single motherhood — when you're talking about the 15-year old girl in the ghetto or in some small rural town working on her second child — is an enormous problem It puts the life of both (ixm Fokmw ^ parent and child in jeopardy. It's probable that neither will r»« eive a good education or get a decent, well-paying job, which in turn makes both of them like ly candidates for government aide, or in the worst case-sce nario. a grizzly government sta tistic And certainly something needs to he done But nothing will work until we realize that single motherhood is one symp tom of a lot of huge problems: lack of edu<ation. poverty, insti tutionalized racism and self esteem. While politic wins are racing to penalize single morns for lean ing on the welfare system, no one is looking at the reasons why 14-year-olds are having kids, and why many of these young mothers and their kids become public assistant-addicts. The young welfare mom lives in poverty She prolrably hasn't finished school, and now that she has a child, she probably never will, as there aren't too many programs that allow her to take her kid to school, and she certainly can’t afford day c are. Her child grows up in poverty and falls into the same cycle. Maybe if at school, this 15 year-old mother had learned almut birth-control, or had been offered free birth-control and easy access to it. she never would have got pregnant Few impoverished teenagers get pregnant on purpose* But politicians, while trying to eliminate young, single moth ers. are shooting themselves in the foot by blocking birth con trol education and distribution in middle and high schools. And teenagers continue to get themselves pregnant Some young women have babies so that they can have something to love, someone who will love them bark.. It's a pathetic reason to have a child, but not nearly as pathetic ns the state of the self-esteems of these young women who have n babj because they have nothing else to do with their lives We have to look at the reasons why in our society, when a 15 voar-old hoy dreams about his future, he dreams of playing bas ketball or !>eing a pilot or a cop. hut when his female counterpart dreams of her future, she can’t see past her birth canal. It’s very easy to vilify these young women To think that they are having more kids just to collect more benefits. Anyone who thinks that has never spent a day with a baby — chasing, fussing, feeding and worrying. It's easier to blame these people, who at the lowest rung of the political ladder have little means to fight back than it is to try to fix the real problems at the root of society's ills The government will continue to bully single moms, and try to legislate the lives and bodies of all women. Single moms will continue to receive the blame, though last time I checked, it takes an egg and a sperm to make a baby Hut the enemy is Single Mother, not Absent Father. 1 haven't heard much out of any politician's mouth about the problem of Absent Dads, the missing half to the single parent equations The deadbeat-dad legislation targets fathers who are legal custodians of their chil dren. And I'm pretty sure missing fathers will never be a part of this equation, nor will they be taking the blame for the death of family values Plenty of people in Congress, and elsewhere in this country, are perfectly happy to have a reason to castigate women. All those people, who were opposed to that lOfiOs. counter culture thing called women's lib. are now getting some revenge. Today's scapegoat is the sin gle mom Tomorrow's scapegoat may lie the liberated woman. Gayle Forman is a columnist for the Emerald.
