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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 16, 1995)
VIEWPOINTS EDITORIALS OPINIONS LETTERS TO THE EOITOR Million Man March may widen racial gap ■ OUR OPINION: Th. ■ could strengthen black communities but weaken America m the end Today thousands of African-American nmn will join together in the Million Man Man h in \\ ashing*.n I) (. Tlw demonstration promises to t>o a sviiiIkj! of IjI.ii k male solidarity and empowerment designed to alter the course of the nation’s African-Amerir an communities. In a time when America's him k inner cities have become drug-dealing war zones, unemployment among bla< k men is high and black men are eight times more likely to be mur dered than white men. the march would seem to be a powerful step toward j>osi Hve change. Hut the march could cre ate more problems than it solves. that Farrakhnn’s agenda lo reestablish biat k men as family breadwinners and i ommunity leaders will in? achieved at the expense of him k women, pushing women b«u k into domestic servitude and financial dependence on men In addition, while Far rakhan has said part of his mission is to stop domestic violent «> in African Ameri can communities and lift the burden of family and com munity leadership from the shoulders of him k women, he absolves black men of the culpability for those prob lems. The march, he has said, will Ih* an "atonement" tor black men who continue the “abuse of women that our slave masters put in motion." Domestic: abuse is not race specific however, and if blai k men teemed wife-beat ing from slave owners, so did the white sons .and grandsons of those owners. As such. Farrakhan's mov sage of ‘ atonement" is based on a transference of blame. Black men continue to battle racism that is rein forced by media images that portray them as drug dealers and criminals. However, black male empowerment cannot be achieved at the expense of subjugating women or blaming whites Atonement requires men to ai cept responsibility for their actions and then i hangothem The Million Man Marc h event holds a golden oppor tunity to strengthen black communities, hut it will fail if Farrakhan anti his sup porters achieve their goal by strengthening the walls of gender and race that divide <mt . oiintrv. Man;h organizer and Nation of Islam leader lands Farrakhan has been i riti cizod for Iceing racially divi sive. sexist, anti Semitit and homophobic. His presence at the helm of the event has raised more than a few eye brows, not the least of which have come from Afrit an American women. I'he Nation of Islam has come under attack for its misogynistic stance on women’s issues and for repeatedly seeking to estab lish dominance over black women. 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H»?P*J 1*54;^ .• v '..».*• W»1 *r Ti>- W.-“ri,!4ftS j»»«nr Mmi t-<mi :-u-*':y-••••** f»9#«»0* WV* - **- - , tor* , 4vi»* t;4 r v» - tf> »tr .-* 4 * , ^ !*i* K->jM W...-'-S Wk; '4."'U C*< S VT**n*y >;v ';4*t* ' I >'• A V ••«»-»*** '4 !>-* ■ ^ ' c**rvv>-, Clmift*C t*i* t^«n*i ’Wtaj# 0»*tr*fc8ho* .*** JePmiV x*« t jiflg arrv'cs* M4 )M2 ft** *«ts 0*t«« 34*551; CliU * r0 fttf«*f1ive8 34*4343 ON k: CK\*tireas conference^ bo\uTf°n$ 2 parents for eVer-y child, V3 get the Sapfort fjo rgore th^rs X <,vd$ per so we ll have a placet To Ofo\si up on wfu. voeocv AS^fD Vo^/ University’s top priority is not teaching Why do som« University officials feel compelled to lie alxmt or gloss over the real causes behind many of the problems students faix*' Assertions made by Rand Stamm, parking program coordi nator, about campus parking (ODE, Oct. 9} is one example Stamm claimed that there were more spaces reserved for faculty and staff than for students lie*ause more faculty and staff live too far from the University to walk, ride a hike or the bus Hull' There are 17,121 students and approximately 3.000 faculty, administration and staff at the University If only 20 percent of the students live away from campus, then there are at least (.400 students who need parking versus fewer than 3.000 combined faculty and staff The 20 percent figure is conservative if vou consider that more than 5,300 students art* at least 25 years old arid art* less likely to list* on campus than younger students The number of lots where students can park and the number reserved lor only faculty and staff are about even However, faculty and staff art* allowed full access to all student lots, park ing along 13th Ave is limited to faculty, staff and visitors, and the few metered spaces avail able to students near the EM!1 and Mac. t.ourt ore freouently “hooded” to provide parking for special visitors COMMENTARY The firs! priority of n teaching university, after survival of course, is to transfer informa tion from the collet tive-knowledge database to the students. The first priority of a research" university is to expand and improve the quality of data in the database. At a "research" university, faculty career advancement depends primarily on the quality of the faculty members' research and the amount of money, usually In the form of grants, they vmi\ generate. As soon as I understood that professors are primarily paid to do research and not to teach, 1 appreciated even more the effort many of them make to provide a high quality learning experi ence. I tan sympathize with professors who am toned to teach oven though they have no inter est in or ability to do so, but that doesn't excuse the University from selling sue h sub-standard classes to students, nor does it excuse the delib erately d«* eptive pnu.tu.es the University uses to t over up its shortcomings Why doesn't the Ihillrtm explain the signify • am e of being a research institute versus a teaching institute? Could it be tiiat enrollment would drop if more people understood the dif ference? Those yollow bags covering the meters are infuriating and insulting. t*sp« iallv when the spai es go unused for most of the day Those bags speak far more eloquently than Stamm ever could I "hey proclaim to the world tliat students are at the bottom of the University's food chain and that the few crumbs grudgingly thrown to them am be withdrawn at any time for any reason It took a while to an ognize this oligarchic pis king order, but a;, noon as 1 understood the condition it was easy to see the cause. Students are transients, or migrant workers if you prefer They provide the permanent resi dents (faculty, administration and staff) with income, an excuse to solicit more funding, free labor and a gene pool of applicants who want to become permanent residents. Don't take my word for this Look around Start by reading the University's 'Statement of Purpose" inside the cover of the Undergraduate and Graduate Bulletin 1 came here with the foolish idea that the pri mary role of the faculty was to teach 1 failinj to read the fine print, ft says. The University of Oregon is a comprehensive research institute and the only Oregon member of the Association ol American Universities ! didn't understand this distinction until 1 had several long tulks with some of my teachers. Why are the course descriptions for 100-level, foreign language classes deliberately mislead mg-' 1 he dt*« riptions say the courses art* 'intro ductory level" with no prerequisites, but a stu dent without prior experience with the language will find it almost impossible to keep up lkm t take my word for it; check the number of students who drop these classes during the first few weeks. Three people 1 know dropped Spanish 101 How many more were misled into taking these introductory c ourses, were forced to drop and now have to pay $10 and live w ith a W” on their transcripts? it makes sense for the University to put forth a pleasing package to its customers, hut w hen life altering and career decisions are being made, an unpleasant truth beats a sugar-wrapped lie. When a member of the faculty or staff con sciously hides the University's ugly warts beneath a veil of misinformation or outright lies, it diminishes the integrity of the entire Universi ty It also makes it harder to remove those warts and to provide students with a fair level of cus tomer service. Larry Haftl. a senior majoring m journalism, is a columnist for the Emerald
