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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (March 10, 1997)
T EDITORIAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Steven Asbury MANAGING EDITOR: Thom Schoenbom NIGHT EDITOR: Thom Schoenbom EDITORIAL EDITORS: Ashley Bach & Brian Diamond i m III: % _J m \ \ \ ' ' _J __ editorials, letters, commentary and perspective NEWSROOM: (541)346-5511 DISPLAY ADVERTISING: (541)346-3712 BUSINESS OFFICE: (541) 346-5512 CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING: (541) 346-4343 Only communication can solve the problem of racism No matter where in the country, talking is the key to repairing the ills of racism Racism is such a dirty word. In today’s world, it is probably the dirtiest word in the English lan guage. Those who have been la beled as racists have a very diffi cult time coming clean. There is so much about racism that is un clear, but the only way to make it clearer is to talk about it. Race has been a burning topic on campus for a number of years. Is it because the students and fac ulty are unable to “honor diversi ty”? Are the ethnic student unions just making a lot of ran dom noise? Difficult to say, but if no one was talking about race and race issues, then we surely would have a major problem. People who know me have heard these stories a number of times: how I spent three years en trenched in the deep South of Columbus, Mississippi: how I went to three schools in those years and made the important dis tinction between which ones were private and which were public. I think it is only after some distance and maturity that I am able to fully appreciate the magni tude of the social issues I was faced with. Columbus is one of the many towns in the South that relies on busing to integrate the schools. After my eighth grade OPINION year, the school was split down the middle with some kids be Erickson -u ing bused to one school and the rest to an other. My freshman year at S.D. Lee High School is one I’ll never forget. The school was 80 percent mi nority groups and overwhelming ly African American, thus making me a part of the actual minority. School elections and activities were a racially divided sight to behold. There was a black home coming court and a white home aoming court. Elections for most :alented, likely to succeed, witti est, etc. were all divided between alacks and whites. The class officer elections were die only ones that had racially aombined ballots and the majori :y of the officers elected were white. If we assume that the white Kids vote for white kids and the alacks for black, that doesn’t work aut mathematically. I suspect that i majority of the black kids didn’t vcAe. A friend of mine suggested :hat “when you don’t feel a part of :he system, you don’t feel the aeed to participate.” Very wise. There were a lot of things that went down at that school that still aonfuse me about conflict be ween the races. And to say that anyone could leave that atmos phere without some prejudice and confusion is to tell a bald 'aced lie. That was in 1990. Since the public school system n the South left — and probably still does leave — a lot to be de sired, my parents and I agreed :hat I was getting zero education. We decided that I would try the arivate school, Heritage Acade my, that was about two blocks away from where I was attending. Looking back, 1 see very dis tinct lines between the social classes. There was the upper class that consisted of old, pre-Civil War money; the middle class that I feel was made up mostly of the military families; and the lower class, who were black. Heritage Academy was as snobby as old money could get. The year before I attended Her itage, its rival private school, Em manuel, had forfeited a football game against the school precisely for the reason that they had a black quarterback. Although it did make the local news for a day or two, the subject eventually be came just a piece of the town’s history. At the end of my sophomore year there, we had elected the school’s very first black student body president. That was defi nitely headline news, and you can bet that there were some par ents who were not too happy about it. The point I’m getting at is that no one ever really talked about racism. You simply could not get a discussion going about race and equality in that town. The people in power didn’t care and those that were vocal about change were few and faintly heard. Racism appears on many differ ent levels. Racism can be in-your face or subtly ingrained in thought processes and actions. I get the message that the ASUO was trying to send by roping off the basketball seating section, but I think it’s even more important that the incident happened. I thank whoever allegedly yelled epithets at the opposing team. It is a reminder that the struggle of equality and understanding is not over. If we forget, then we have been ignoring the problem, and if we are ignoring the prob lem then we aren’t talking. And without talk, the wounds will never heal. Amanda Erickson, a senior ma joring in journalism, is a colum nist for the Emerald. Her views do not necessarily represent those of the paper. Code Function Enter CG Change grades 24 SP Send pizza 77 DC Destroy computer 32 GE Graduate early 43 HL Hit on Duck Call lady 45 U2 Buy concert tickets 82 FU Register complaint 38 EP Eliminate parking fines 37 LT Lower tuition 58 PH Professor’s home number 74 CR Change residency status 27 IMP Change major to pass/no pass 67 PC Prank call Frohnmayer 72 AO Attendance optional 26 CX Change sex of operator 29 EA Erase account balance 32 OC Order clone 62 XX Duck Call: The dirty version 99 TC Terminate call 82 TD Terminate Duck Call 83 WC Switch background 92 ^ music to Wu-Tang Clan V/ CHRIS HUTCHINSON/SmenM LETTERS Game of life I was truly disgusted to see Bill Sizemore in your “Win ners” section on page 2 of the Feb. 24 Emerald. This man is not only responsible for the re cent property tax caps that have caused sickening cuts into edu cation funding, but has also not paid his taxes! A recent article in the Register-Guard went over the late/unpaid taxes that Size more has on his “numerous properties.” It’s one thing to own a home and be concerned about the property taxes of your land and having money for your family. But to be well off enough to own numerous prop erties, then bitch about the property taxes you need to pay on all of them, and then not pay it, truly deserves a “Loser” standing, not the “Winner” that you so narrow-sightedly gave Mr. Sizemore. Mike Braden Chemistry Editor’s note: There seems to be some confusion about the “Winners/Losers" section. Sub jects are placed in their respec tive categories based on events in their own lives. For example, Sizemore was placed in the “Winners " column because his manifesto, Measure 47, passed in the polls, he has broad na tional support from taxpayers and may be making a run for governor. Regardless of our opinions of him as a person, Sizemore is “winning"at life. Modern maturity Those cartoons aren’t racist, they “made just about everyone look dumb.” Does anyone else see the fallacy of this statement by Jonathan Collegio in his let ter to the editor [ODE, March 3)? I’ve heard people say more than once, on and around this campus, “I’m not a racist, I hate everyone equally.” This seems to be the line of thinking that Mr. Collegio is following. Just because the Looney Toons made fun of everyone doesn’t make them any less racist. Lati nos, Asians, Native Ameri cans... they were all represent ed in less than favorable ways, specifically playing on stereo types white Americans held about those groups. Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam did not rep resent Caucasian people as a whole the way the occasional race-based characters did. Hunters or pirates or cowboys were represented, but not the entire Caucasian race. I agree that we should be able to use these cartoons as focal points for discussion as long as we are willing to call them for what they were: racist in their depictions of people of color. How mature do we need to be in letter-writer Jason Fahrion’s eyes before we can deal with the racism in cartoons? And when we are mature enough, does it mean that we’ll be able to brush it off as just a cartoon as he seems to be suggesting? You should feel embarrassed by the racism in these cartoons! Not because you’re not mature enough to deal with it, but be cause at one time it was OK to make cartoons like this, and we still laugh at them. I will never forgive the prejudices of the past. Instead, I will use them to try and show my son the igno rances of the past and why we should strive to be above that. Robert Wasson English
