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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, December 8, 1967
'Proclaiming' human rights
Like so many other things that should be year-round affairs instead of one-day or one-month celebrations, "Human Rights" is being commemorated this week by proclamation of President Lyndon B. Johnson.
In fact, the whole year of 1968 has been proclaimed International Year for Human Rights—this, by the United Nations General Assembly commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
No matter how many laws man imposes on himself, each individual is born into this world with certain unquestionable "rights."
The United States recognized this fact long ago when the founding fathers adopted the Bill of Rights as an amendment to the United States Constitution. This one amendment is the most important of all—even more important in many aspects than the Constitution itself.
But human rights was not won or established with the signing of the Bill of Rights.
For years, there was a definite extra amount of "rights" reserved for the noble and upper class—the "society" of the new nation. And women and rights weren't seen as compatible for many years—the last bits of discrimination because of sex are still clinging in modern society.
The newest "rights" to be fought for are those of the Negro and other minority groups.
This movement has indeed been one of the slowest of all—beginning shortly before the Civil War when some people began to realize that the ideal of freedom and the reality of slavery were in no ways compatible.
Abe Lincoln's much heralded Emancipation Proclamation is often used as a landmark in the Negroes' fight. But, in truth, the proclamation was as much without teeth as it was idealistic. His ideas were great, but, unfortunately, unenforceable.
So for many years, the Negro had a paper declaration of freedom—that freed him from slavery as such but also put him at the mercy of those he was freed from. The burden of survival was so great that for decades the Negro was unable to do much besides simply live in the most mean way.
That was until the Negro began to get his bearings and want those promised "rights" of equality and opportunity. The problem still exists . . . in the ghetto . . . in the Deep South farm . . . on the University campus.
And, alas, proclaiming a "Human Rights" week or year won't do a thing about the situation. Only the American people working as a unit can do this . . . and that means a lot of work by a lot of people. "Human Rights" cannot be proclaimed; they must be practiced and lived.
— The Daily Texan University of Texas
"If Those Damned Civilians Would Leave Us Alone We Could Wind Up The Whole Thing"
Kansan movie review
'Sir'a bad 'Chips'?
By Scott Nunley
By Scott Nunley
Sidney Poitier has already received one outstanding film vehicle this year, "In the Heat of the Night." Perhaps, in making "To Sir with Love," Poitier was expecting more than his share of Hollywood luck.
As cinematography and sound track, however, "To Sir With Love" is not a total mistake. One sequence in particular is evocative—the use of still shots and the title song to create a museum outing. Even here, though, the obvious family nature of this film forces pat and sterile word pictures. "Contrived" earns its unpleasant connotation in the worst moments. And the repeat of Lulu's fine song at the movie's end is an abominable plea for sentimental tears.
The film's basic emasculation of the novel underlies the failure of "To Sir with Love." While "Up the Down Staircase" was able to concentrate on a very individual personality, "To Sir with Love" trips into the refuse of old teacher-student cliches left around from "Mr. Chips." This is more than merely a lapse of artistic honesty. The danger is that the viewer may actually believe the set of values so sentimentally prescribed for him.
In his East London classroom, Mark Thackeray discovers that there is little sense in attempting to complete the standard education of his students. Not only do they lack previous preparation, but literature and mathematics seems hardly relevant to their approaching lives as lower-class husbands and wives. In desperation, Mark abandons the textbooks and initiates a series of guidance counselling sessions.
Letters to the Editor
This is fine, for sentimental fiction. A strong, well-integrated personality with uncommon common sense, Mark is able to remake his students' lives in a semester. Step by step he provides them with the moral and ethical guidance that their society had failed for 16 years to provide.
Not only does he not encounter a sizeable number of failures, his success is that of a god or a pygmalion.
But the student who expects his teacher to be priest and parent will be bitterly disappointed in his education. And the teacher who expects to remake every flawed life he encounters will never accept the small but vital improvements he can accomplish.
Paperbacks
As a message movie "To Sir with Love," has less than nothing to say. The viewer (age seven to 70) who can weep unashamedly at the film—and then promptly forget it—will have made the most of his investment. But the serious devotee of Sidney Poitier will have to wait for another vehicle of the power of "In the Heat of the Night."
If "To Sir with Love" were not so carefully controlled by director James Clavell for the "family audience," it might have said something valuable about the reality of teaching in a slum school. If all the loose ends were not so neatly packaged, the viewer might have found an insight into race relations in modern London. If the students themselves were not so casually dropped with a "they all lived happily ever after" shrug, the film might have commented honestly on living an East End life.
THE YELLOW ROOM, by Mary Roberts Rinehart (Dell, 60 cents); GUILTY AS HELL, by Brett Halliday (Dell, 59 cents); THE HOMICIDAL VIRGIN, by Brett Halliday (Dell, 50 cents), and GUNS ALONG THE YELLOWSTONE, by Bliss Lomax (Dell, 45 cents)—Mystery, tough guys, sex, and shoot-em-up. We range from the old-fashioned story of Mary Roberts Rinehart, who was writing novels in Teddy Roosevelt's time, to the tough guy stuff about Mike Shayne.
McCollum residents object
To the Editor:
It seems that some residents of McCollum Hall are disturbed and embarrassed by recent public displays of affection there. A far more concerning thought, however, is what this embarrassment actually represents. According to Emery Goad and his cohorts, P.D.A. is a lewd and immoral act that must be curbed. This week I was curbed.
Last Monday evening I was watching television with one arm around my girlfriend (obviously "undue physical contact") when a staff assistant (dressed) in a mini-skirt no less!) told us to "sit in a more appropriate position or go to a more appropriate place." I suppose the "more appropriate place" is the back seat of a car which everyone seems to enjoy very much. You have to display any kind of emotion in the back seat of a car because love, or anything that suggests love, is filthy, disgusting and repulsive to others. What the residents' embarrassment is is really an overwhelming sense of guilt. They are so hung up in their pseudo-morality that any presentation of reality is unbearable traumatic. How about the parents' embarrassment? Don't they send their children to the university largely for a social experience just like daddy had? Gross hypocrisy!
Goad is quick to affirm that only ten per cent of the hall population choose not to conform to the suppressed, frustrated norm of private display of affection. Goad's comment is a fine example of typical American thought. That is, ignore the minority because they are either wiedos, Negroes or, God forbid, normal.
The proposed crackdown, encompassing all-night illumination of the lobby and constant supervision of the stairwells by McCollum Hall storm troopers, strongly brings to mind Orwell's sexless society of 1984.
It is indeed alarming that a society which can blindly rationalize an immoral war and blatant discrimination cannot tolerate public displays of affection.
Walter F. Riker
New York City junior
To the Editor:
- * *
We the undersigned, residents and officers of McCollum Hall, would like to express our disagreement with the article appearing in the University Daily Kansan of Dec. 6, regarding public displays of affection in our dormitory.
The article quotes our president as having said that ten per cent of the residents are involved. This is a gross exaggeration. Ten per cent would indicate that some fifty couples are participating. Actually, there are approximately ten couples involved and it is usually the same couples who are repeatedly participating in such activities.
We feel that this misrepresentation of the facts gives an unfavorable and inaccurate picture of
McCollum Hall and of coed living in general. The article itself may cause more embarrassment than the P.D.A.
Bob Quagliano,
treasurer
Shelley Bray,
NYC
treasurer
Shelley Bray,
AWS representative
Steve Smith,
publicity chairman
David Garcia,
AURH representative
Jim Hays,
secretary
Sharon Martin,
IRC representative
Ron Harper,
intramural chairman
Patty Cronin,
women's president
Diane Davis,
women's social chairman
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Fred Schone
Darrel Corson
James Zeller
John Kohl
Cindy Connellly
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