4A • THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
MONDAY,APRIL 15,2002
4
864-0500 free for
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about
to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com
Eric Borja should go ahead and change his name to Eric Bor-ja or Bor-jas, so then all the idiots on campus wouldn't sound like such idiots for mispronouncing his name.
disobedience.
I just'really think it's funny that KUinated said it's not the greek party, and they just dropped a bunch of candy off at our sorority, and they're hiring the Flannigan's Party Bus to take all the greeks to go vote together. Maybe I'll wear my Delta Force pin on the bus.
This is for the people who are dissing the art students in Free For All. Those guys work for three days straight on their art project, and if they're lucky after all that work and sleep deprivation they go to class, and teachers and students rip it apart — B+, B-, maybe.
I was just watching the movie White Men Can't Jump, and I would just like to say that movie is totally ludicrous, because I'm 5'8", and I can just about dunk a basketball. Thank you.
Just like the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Chenowith's Past is here to haunt the Free for All.
--disobedience.
This is to the bitter and pathetic dorks that called in dissing the art students. If you fancy yourselves as being so smart, why don't you try outgrowing the attitude that art is always frivolous. No one is guaranteeing you a job either, and I guarantee that my G.P.A., social-economic status and I.Q. are already higher than yours. So why don't you eat my dust?
disobedience.
Yesterday you guys had the best quote ever and the worst one ever of all time. The best: when greeks and hippies are different from each other. I don't know about all that, but wear sandals, are really concerned about their appearance and both really weak minded. The worst: the pancake. Lose the pancakes. All right?
图
It's been 45 minutes, and my TV is still static. I had to miss Kids in the Hall, because of you guys. Screw you.
To the person that called in about greeks and hippies being weak-minded. First of all, a weak-minded person is one who believes in stereotypes and likes to judge people they don't even know, and secondly, when did wearing sandals become just a Greek and phreek thing? My grandma wears sandals.
disobedience.
It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood on the 1300 block of Ohio, except the cable is out, which means no Trading Spaces, and they made my block look ugly with offenses and restrictions, and there a bug on me. At least lunch was fun.
Man, between the Hari Krishnas and the Student Senate people it's a wonder that I ever get to class on time.
I would just like to say that my life sucks now that baseball is on ESPN during the day. God, it's going to be a long summer.
Since when did the Free for All become conservative, Republican, fascist Nazis?
disobedience.
Me and my roommate have discovered that the Ouija board is a very complicated and masterful game. It's all about the way you position your hands.
My name is Sara, so what else do you need to know: Stuff about my family or where I'm from? None of that matters, not once you've come across the ocean and cut yourself loose, something dangerous.
Skipping class is cool. You want to know what else is really cool? Crib.
Why is it that the one campus organization with a greek letter is anti-greek?
This is to the person that stole my bike from 1743 Ohio. Too bad you left your Kwik Shop cup, because they're taking finger prints off it.
I just wanted to let financing majors know that if you're taking Business 510 next semester you should take Business 649 instead.
--disobedience.
I already voted so please,please,please no more fliers. Thank you.
disobedience.
This afternoon the KUlned mascot dog defeated at the Snow bus stop. A KUlned representative cleaned it up with a UDK but didn't quite get it all. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
I wish one of the Student Senate coalitions on campus would start a campaign to stop people from spitting on my sidewalks.
--disobedience.
I have an answer to the financial woes of KU. Instead of raising tuition let's start enforcing our littering laws by fining smokers who litter our campus with their nasty cigarette butts.
Happy Pride Week, everyone.
TALK TO US
Leita Walker
editor
864-4854 or waakterikansan.com
Jay Krail
Kyle Ramsey
managing editors
864-4854 or krail@kanan.com. and
kansen@kanan.com
Clay McCuistion readers' representative 864-4810 or cnccaction@anasan.com
Amber Agee business manager 864-4014 or adreirector@amans.com
Kate Mariani
retail sales manager
864-462 or
retailseals@kansas.com
Kursten Phelps
Brooke Hesler
opinion editors
884-4810 or kghepls@kansan.com and
bheleps@kansan.com
Malcolm Gibson
general manager and news
adviser
687 or mjglbson@kansam.com
Matt Fisher
sales and marketing adviser
864-7665 or mfisher@ kansen.com
884-7667 or mgibson#
Matt Fisher
By the Numbers
$1,100,000
Annual amount that Unilever's acquisition deal with Ben & Jerry's requires it to donate to "social change" groups.
Amount of its donation last year given to the Ruckus Society, which trains activists in civil disobedience.
3 in 5
Source: Ben & Jerry's Foundation
Chances that a U.S. senator has received campaign contributions from Enron since 1997.
Percentage of the 145 lawyers in the offices of Houston's U.S. Attorney who were recused from the Enron case in January.
100
Source: Center for Responsive Politics and the U.S. Attorney's Office
+67 Percentage change since 1980 in the number of births of twins in the U.S. each year.
PERSPECTIVE
Source; Center for Disease Control and Prevention — From Harper's Index
Percentage change since then in the number of births of triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, and sextuplets.
Please hear me loud and clear, I speak for myself, not my race
From the first day of class, I knew my moment would come. The moment when I would have the class' total attention, whether I wanted it or not — my moment as the token minority.
COMMENTARY
minority. In my case, whenever the discussion turns toward race relations, that's my cue to give the black perspective. Although I would never ask anyone else to represent his entire race, people take my opinions as though all Africans Americans think alike.
As a minority student on this predominately white campus, I daily resist the pressure to become that token minority—that person that by her presence makes everyone else feel they're more tolerant or enlightened than the next.
Alexzia Plummer
opinion@kansan.com
I am not the litmus test for racial consciousness. Just because I work at the newspaper doesn't mean it's more open-minded than before. Just because someone is my friend doesn't make them exempt from believing stereotypes about African Americans, females or even Nebraskans. Using the excuse, "I'm not prejudiced because I have a (fill in the blank with your minority of choice) friend," doesn't prove anything. I have all kinds of friends, but that doesn't mean I can't be misinformed.
formed.
After my moment in the token spotlight, I'm supposed to smile and try to blend in. The funny thing is, sometimes people only want to hear what I have to say at their own convenience. If I
talk too much about multicultural issues, then I look like a diversity junkie filling a quota.
I didn't expect the walls of ignorance I would face when I arrived at this institution of higher learning. I didn't know that I would be asked the same hair and skin questions I've been answering since I could talk. (Yes, my skin does get darker in the sun, and no, I don't wash my hair every day.) If people don't understand simple things like personal hygiene, how can I expect them to understand more critical diversity issues?
Although curiosity is healthy, I'm tired of African-American culture being viewed as a hip vacation spot. People ask about me going to an African-American church like it's the circus. Why is my form of religion viewed as some exotic entertainment source?
And people try to impress me with their knowledge of hip-hop culture. It's like me telling every white person I meet that I have a Creed CD or that
I've watched Friends. Or it's like me telling every Latino person I meet, "Hey, I've been to Coco Loco, so I have something in common with you." That's ridiculous.
It's hard to get to know someone when you already have preconceived notions about how a person should be. I'll admit that I also routinely restrain myself from accepting silly assumptions. I've found that ignorance stands in the way of people becoming true friends.
So what's the ideal situation? I certainly don't want people to feign colorblindness and disregard my culture. I also don't want people to approach me with a thousand preconceived notions. (For the record I can't play sports, my dancing ability is not genetic, and not all African Americans know each other.)
Americans know each other. I try to appreciate another person's race and culture but not to let his background control my expectations. I try to step outside of my own experience and attempt to understand someone else's perspective. I hope other people will do the same.
The optimist inside thinks that if students on this campus just discussed and acted on multicultural issues, the University would become more diverse. With my mere column, I try to cut away at our collective ignorance.
Of course, these are just my opinions.
Plummer is a Bellevue, Neb., sophomore in journalism.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
COOPERATE ON TUITION
Dear editor:
The Kansas Board of Regents is most appreciative of the collaborative effort being made by the students, faculty and administration with regard to tuition and the application priorities of those funds. This is the first time that such an inclusive process has been used. I hope it will be a model for the future.
the future. These are challenging times in the state. We urge that all Kansans interested in higher education contact their state representatives and senators to plead our case for tax increases to assure the progress made in recent years is not lost. Bad times are not forever, but the proposed budget cuts could be felt for decades. We must not harm our progress toward our long term goals by such drastic short-term thinking and policy.
The Board of Regents will be
speaking throughout the state on the crippling policies and lack of courage by many legislators who fail to stand for education with their votes. The Board will soon start a campaign called "Put Kansas Education First." It will center around a revenue enhancement package that will recover the budgets for Regent partners.
Clay Blair
Chairman, Kansas Board of Regents
DON'T BLAME Q AND A
Dear editor,
Self-loathing points for Shaun Bryant ("Queers and Allies perpetuates myths, stereotyping of gays on campus," March 29) in attempting to whisk himself away to Hypermasculine Land, but a greater deduction, I'm afraid, for bashing the very sort of organization that over the years has made it possible for him to make a ridiculous and ill-founded
vaunt across the opinion pages.
Queers and Allies had its genesis in 1969, and though its principal aims have changed with the fading of the years, its meaning has remained constant. That is, that the rallying voices of an unfairly marginalized population can, and do, cut through the blood-red veil of hatred. But it takes cooperation, and naysayers like Bryant have been no less cowardly than history's various flavors of homophobes and idle leeches on activism's progress.
activist's program
I don't agree with his suggestion that Queers & Allies would have one believe that gay men or lesbians are all the same. It's beyond me why he would even think to include an assertion so baseless
We don't manufacture such imagery. We never have. Through much of the '90s we worked to make the American dialogue a much more fair one, and things have without a doubt become better. We worked to push through an anti-discrimination ordinance in Lawrence, and things have become better.
better.
Today we continue to squash the kindlings of ignorance whenever possible. But we also have several support organizations in the hope that we can make things better still.
Sexual orientation is no easy deal, regardless of social acceptance, and to disregard this is callous.
All of us express our happiness and our displeasures in different ways; we sport bumper stickers, we wear buttons, we swing our wrists and snap our fingers, and we each contribute to the infinite swirl that is human behavior.
There are stereotypes and there are anti-stereotypes, and what's so impressive about Bryant's attempt to make a derivative stereotype out of such a pointless lack of humor?
Chase Richards McPherson sophomore