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Tuesday, April 2,2002
Editor in Chief:
Jessica Blanchard
Managing Editor:
Jeremy Iang
Editorial Editor:
Julie Lauderbaugh
Assistant Editorial Editor:
Jacquelyn Lewis
Editorial
Equality turns
hypocritical in
slave labor suit
(U-WIRE) STORRS, Conn. —
The recent filing of a lawsuit in a Brooklyn
federal court highlights the hypocritical
argument upon which the claim for slave repa
rations is based. Activist Deadria Farmer-Paellman
filed a lawsuit seeking billions of dollars against three
corporations that benefited from slavery before the
Emancipation Proclamation. FleetBoston Financial,
railroad firm CSX and the Aetna insurance company
have all been named. Farmer-Paellman has promised
to name more than 100 other defendants. She filed
the suit on behalf of 35 million African Americans.
Her claim is that the three companies were either
built upon the assets acquired through slave labor or
profited directly from it. The lawsuit, according to
the Associated Press, alleges that CSX, formed in
1980, has roots in slave labor resulting from rail
lines built by slaves that are still utilized today. It al
leges that FleetBoston Financial descended from
Rhode Island Bank, founded by John Brown, who fi
nanced the bank with profits earned through the
slave trade.
These actions, and the claims upon which this
suit is built, are tantamount to nothing more than a
racial witch hunt. Proponents of slave reparations
argue that repaying living African Americans for the
horrible injustices of crimes committed more than
140 years ago is a necessary step in correcting the
atrocity that slavery was, and the legacy of hate it
undoubtedly carries with it. In reality, it does noth
ing more than draw further lines of division between
those people advocating reparations and those op
posing them. Farmer-Paellman is basing her claim
against people living today and on the culpability of
others who have been dead for one and a quarter
centuries. This does not advance the cause of further
equality for African Americans; it serves only to
segregate the population further by pushing the
blame onto living people who did no wrong. This
claim is based on nothing but skin color and a weak
historical connection to the ugly institution of
slavery. As such, it is harmful and not helpful to the
plight of the African American communities that are
still suffering today from the racism that undoubtedly
continues to have an insidious effect on the quality
of their lives.
In order to truly make things equal, we must erase
racism as much as possible and provide all citizens
with the same opportunity for upward mobility.
Activists like Farmer-Paellman must be proactive
and work toward creating a world in which equality
is the standard. What she and her supporters are do
ing now is attempting to punish people who are not
guilty for a crime they had no part in. This is racist
in the sense that she is holding people responsible
based on their affiliation with a company and the
color of their skin. This creates more racial walls
than it breaks down. This makes Farmer-Paellman a
hypocrite, as she is an African American activist. In
order to help other African Americans, she should
not use racism against whites as a tool to stamp out
racism against minorities. In no way will winning a
lawsuit for reparations and punitive damages help
underprivileged minorities achieve anything but
temporary and minimal financial compensation.
Racism is a terrible, awful reality of our world, as
slavery once was. In order to stamp out the effects of
each, society needs to embrace policies that are not
founded in racism, as Farmer-Paellman’s is.
This editorial is courtesy of the University
of Connecticut’s newspaper, the Daily Campus.
Letters to the Editor and Guest
Commentaries Policy
Letters to the editor and guest commentaries are encouraged.
Letters are limited to 250 words and guest commentaries to 550
words. Please include contact information. The Emerald reserves
tie right to edit for space, grammar and style.
Many students suffer from ‘bipolarity’
here’s a sickness afflicting uni
versities worldwide, a form of
_1_ bipolar disorder where the stu
dent body’s collective mind is severely
split. Oregon is by no means immune,
and may be among the most afflicted by
this seriously retarding condition.
This illness is partly the cause of the
traditional teaching approach in higher
education. For four years, most students
are inundated with books and lectures
that inevitably converge on a very partic
ular (although unstated) political ideolo
gy —the one preferred by key members in
the department in which the student is
majoring. Such inundation must eventu
ally affect the outlook of the student. Ad
vertisers and Ivan Pavlov would surely
agree to this. So would educators,
whether they’ll admit to it or not.
While bipolar disorder is a hemispher
ic dysfunction, it has nothing to do with
holistic verses linear differences in the
brain. My position is “right”-wing facul
ties do little or nothing to ensure that their
students are adequately exposed to ideas
that critique certain aspects of business.
Conversely, liberal arts schools tend to
produce twisted forms of “left”-wing in
doctrination that encourage an absurd
bias against a vast array of mainstream
concepts like the “corporate elite” and
“globalization.”
In both cases, the so-called ideal of de
Guest Commentary
Mark
Grant
tached education becomes muddled with
partisan propagation. Little wonder one
half of the collective mind dismisses the
other as a “bleeding heart” or “tree-hug
ger” while that side regards the former as
“uninformed” and “self-centered.”
Thanks to bipolar disorder, we have
legions of “practical” students coming
out of business programs with no seri
ous training in concepts like corporate
stewardship, ethics or environmental
concerns. This is dangerous for society
and the planet. Likewise, many educat
ed in liberal arts receive no apprecia
tion of what good the free-market econ
omy brings. Only after the university
has pocketed all the student loan mon
ey do these “informed” types start real
ly learning about things as basic and es
sential as compound interest, after they
leave school.
This is something anyone in the edu
cation business should feel embar
rassed about. But they’ll try to sell you
the idea that nonengagement is really
all about freedom of thought.
Yet bipolar disorder is ultimately im
posed upon students via a collabora
tion between faculties and administra
tions — and these groups have nothing
to lose from the ongoing mess they cre
ate. The party most responsible is the
administration. They could do a lot
more to ensure that your education dol
lars are better invested — if they had the
balls to take a serious look at what’s actu
ally being taught in classrooms and its
residual effects.
Some quick remedies for BPD:
Make all students study business the
ory for at least one year. This should be
essential because our cultural orienta
tion is fundamentally rooted in free
market values.
Make all students explore the effects
that politics has on the free market,
from the microcosmic level of office
politics on to the regional, national and
international levels.
Finally, for every course that engages
any sort of social commentary, let a pro
fessor holding the opposite view teach
the last two classes of the course, alone.
Then let there be a town hall debate
with mandatory attendance. This will
elevate the quality of teaching on all
sides, as surely as it will expedite “real”
learning.
Which is something bipolar disorder
actually retards.
Mark Grant is a 1985 graduate of the University
of Oregon. He lives in Victoria, British Columbia.
Steve Baggs Emerald
Letter to the editor
Financial aid regulation disgraceful
John E. English’s recent letter is sure to draw a
lot of feedback (“Druggies don’t deserve financial
aid,” ODE, 03/18). It is so easy (and even gratify
ing) to criticize absurdities as great as English’s that
I suspect many will respond.
The fact of the matter is obviously that the regu
lation, which makes some students ineligible to re
ceive financial aid if they have a former drug-relat
ed conviction on their record, punishes only those
of a lower economic standing. For example, a for
mer murderer who can afford to pay for his/her
education out of pocket has no problems to do so.
Further, it “punishes” in the most inane way con
ceivable — denying education.
If we truly think denying education is an
intelligent punishment, all individuals who have
had previous drug convictions should be forbid
den from attending a university or college. This is,
of course, equally ludicrous.
Personally, I would like to see this financial aid
condition removed and those responsible for it
fired. It is a disgrace to students that those
responsible for our “higher education” could
possibly have been so short sighted.
William Moglia
senior
German and international studies
CLARIFICATION
The article
“Comedo
with Me"
(OOF, March
18), should
have identified
Myungji
University
as a university
in Korea.