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Managing Editor:
Michael J. Kleckner
Editorial Editor:
Julie Lauderbaugh
Assistant Editorial Editor:
Jacquelyn Lewis
Beauty pageant sends wrong message
By Julie Ann Matonis
U
T
here she is, Miss America.
There she is, your ideal. The
dream of a million girls who
are more than pretty can
come true in Atlantic City. For she may turn
out to be the queen of femininity.”
Stop. Back up. That is what the lyrics to
that song really say? What kind of symbol
does that make Miss America? Last week in
Atlantic City, N.J., Miss Oregon Katie Har
man was crowned the 81st Miss America.
The pageant went on, despite the recent ter
rorist attacks, because pageant officials
hoped the show would be a reminder of
American spirit and patriotism. It was a
lofty goal that fell short of expectations be
cause the telecast focused on gimmicks and
glitz, at the expense of the 51 contestants
and the American public.
The pageant was created in 1921 to pro
mote the true American way — making
money. Hotel owners along the boardwalk
needed a way to attract tourists after Labor
Day. Of course, to do that, females had to
parade around in bathing suits.
Thankfully, some of the barbarity has di
minished as the pageant has evolved.
Scholarships have been offered since 1945,
and pageant officials stopped giving out
the contestant’s measurements in 1986.
But in our culture, skin sells — and even
helps raise ratings. Making money in tele
vision is dependent on ratings. Higher rat
ings lead to higher advertising revenues.
Reality TV is the latest ratings block
buster. Hoping to capitalize on that suc
cess, the Miss America pageant incorpo
rated elements of “Survivor” and “Who
Wants to Be a Millionaire.”
Contestants “thrown off’ the telecast
(aka, not one of the top ten) were put in a
room with microphones as they watched
the rest of the pageant.
What is even more aggravating was the
pageant’s focus on reality TV during a time in
our nation when all the public sees is reality
on television. You can’t get more real than
firefighters mourning their fallen colleagues
or a husband listening to an answering ma
chine message from his wife while she was
trapped in the World Trade Center. It is a slap
in the face when Miss America tries to be
more “real.” Or as real as you can get onstage
on national television in an evening gown
and plastered-on smile.
The Miss America Web site says the pag
eant has “reflected ideas about national
identity, community and moral standards, as
well as beauty, femininity, and the roles of
women.” If the pageant was really about na
tional identity, there would be more minori
ty representation. Of this year’s contestants,
three women were African American, one
woman was Asian American and one
woman was Hispanic. Not a very accurate
picture of the composition of the United
States.
If the pageant was really about uphold
ing moral standards, viewers would not
have to sit through song-and-dance rou
tines and gawk at women in two-piece
bathing suits as they parade in high heels.
That is not relevant to moral character, nor
does it demonstrate leadership ability. If
the pageant was really about the roles of'
women in society, there wouldn’t be a
swimsuit competition to begin with. (My
mistake, they’re calling it poise and fitness
these days.)
Despite the pageant’s questionable stan
dards, the contest went on in times of war.
During World War II, pageant officials re
fused to cancel the event, saying it
strengthened the American spirit. This
year’s pageant attempted to do the same.
Since the pageant itself did not accomplish
the swell of patriotism it intended, let’s hope
the new Miss America has better luck during
her reign.
There she is, and she is not moving out
of the spotlight.
Editor’s note: Katie Harman, Miss Ameri
ca 2002, is from Gresham and is the first
Miss Oregon to win the pageant.
(U-WIRE) FORT WORTH, Texas
Copyright ©2001 Daily Skiff via U-Wire
Letters to the editor
Sexist columns create rift between sexes
I am writing in response to the column “Thumbs
up to life alone before marriage” (ODE, 10/2). As a
married male student, I was offended by the colum
nist’s remarks. I disagree with the analysis of relation
ships between couples living together and a seeming
ly loose bond between a couple that is in their
situation for pleasure and subservience rather than
the love and trial.
The comments about men and their relationship
goals are sexist and wrong. To imply that the primary
reason men want a relationship that must be proven
rather than just given to marriage is based solely on
“free” sex and having a maid at his beck and call 24/7 is
patently absurd and goes against the very essence of 100
years of “Women’s Lib.”
If a person continues to carry on in a relationship in
which their partner expects them to do things that are
against their philosophy, then they need to leave the
relationship; something, I might add, that could be
discovered the first days of living together rather than
in matrimony.
It is a disservice to the columnist, women and men
to use stereotypes and statistical information to back
up sexism. Hateful groups have claimed that black
males are more prone to violence than white males,
and there is statistical “evidence” to support their
opinions. Does that mean their claims are true? The
reason there is a rift between the sexes is because of
comments and support for sexist comments — like
the columnist’s —by both men and women.
Dan Isaacson
senior
political science
We don’t know Knight’s motives for giving
Instead of pop “psychologizing” Phil Knight for his
motives of support, as Andrew Adams did in “Always
after the bottom line” (ODE, 10/3), maybe Knight gives
simply because he is grateful. Oregon track coach Bill
Bowerman lent Knight, then an average Oregon runner,
start up money and let him market his waffle shoe de
sign. The rest is history. The University of Oregon, for
better or worse, is largely responsible for Nike. I am
grateful that Knight has a sense of history, even though
some students apparently do not.
John O'Brien
Eugene
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Peter Utsey Emerald
Columbus Day
celebrations
must be ended
Guest Commentary
KRTFORUM
By Ward Churchill
(KRT)
On Oct. 12,1492, a lost ship’s captain
stumbled upon a Caribbean isle, there
by revealing a whole “New World” to
Europe. Christopher Columbus was
half a world away from where he thought he was
when he hit the beach on “Espanola. ” The “Great
Navigator” reported to his employers in all serious
ness that he’d located the biblical Garden of Eden.
One of Columbus’s first misdeeds was to kid
nap a hapless group of the island’s native resi
dents, carrying them off to Spain, thus beginning
the transatlantic slave trade.
It was after his second voyage that things got real
ly ugly. Returning to Espanola in 1493, Columbus
was no longer the “simple seaman” his apologists
present. He’d been named a Spanish viceroy, ap
pointed governor of the island and held the military
rank of admiral. In his official capacity, he quickly
established the “encomiendo,” a system of forced
labor imposed on every “Indio” in his domain.
The rule was that the Indians would be worked
until they died, which they did in great numbers. No
one really knows how many Indians perished dur
ing the years Columbus held sway Bartolome de Las
Casas, a priest who became the first European histo
rian of the Americas, was on Espanola at the time.
He estimated there were 3 million native people on
the island when the Spanish arrived. More modem
and scientific demographers have offered figures as
high as 8 million. Either way, there were barely
100,000 survivors when Columbus departed in
1500, and even those remnants were extinct a few
years later.
The record is also replete with accounts of
Columbus presiding over the wholesale butchery
of the native population. Sometimes the killing
was undertaken to “enforce the law” or “send a
message” about who was boss. Often, it was done
for sport. Sometimes, religious motives were ap
parently involved, as in the practice of roasting
alive 13 Indians at a time the number—signifying
Christ and the 12 disciples — on Easter Sunday.
Ultimately, the European invasion and the con
quest and colonization of the New World con
sumed more than 90 percent of the land therein
and with it, well more than 90 percent of the in
digenous population. That translates to more than
100 million human beings. To say that a holocaust
of such dimension is unparalleled in recorded
history is to understate things dramatically.
It is one thing to be the inadvertent beneficiary
of Columbus’ legacy. It is quite another to cele
brate it. But this is exactly what happens on
Columbus Day every Oct. 12. It’s as if the Ger
mans had been victorious in World War II and
had decided to conduct triumphal parades each
year to commemorate the “achievements” of
Adolf Hitler or Heinrich Himmler. One can well
imagine the reaction of the Jewish community.
American Indians view celebrations of Colum
bus in precisely the same light and for essentially
the same reasons. Polemics about the First
Amendment and how Euro-Americans are only
displaying a “legitimate pride in their heritage”
when engaging in such activities do nothing to re
deem the situation.
Nobody can undo history, of course. The past
cannot be changed. Equally true, nonetheless, is
that the past can be understood for what it was
and that the resulting knowledge can be used to
facilitate healing.
In this regard, ending the celebration of geno
cide, which is Columbus Day, would seem an
excellent place to start.
Ward Churchill is professor of ethnic studies at the University of
Colorado. © 2001, Ward Churchill. Distributed by Knight
Ridder/Tribune Information Services.