Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Lindsey Henry, Editor
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Tuesday, March 17, 1998
W. David Keith / KANSAN
Overheard
The following comments are excerpts from the Student Senate listserv. All students are welcome to subscribe to the list and may do so by calling Mike Walden, student body vice president, at 864-3710.
quit avoiding your responsibilities to students of color, or you lose your Senate seat next year. We're ready for political action and we will no longer be silent.
I don't think that greek bashing is politically motivated. Rather, it's the release of built-up frustration and tension. Bashing the greek system wouldn't get anyone anywhere politically. It's even more ridiculous when you consider the number of greeks likely to be running with Delta Force.
Simply put, the Greek system is the most effective living group on campus in getting its members involved in University of Kansas activities. For that it should be commended. What should be condemned is the way that elections operate. Code violations of the highest order I don't give a darn about Travis Harrad advising, it's vote fraud that concerns me), sign stealing, car flipping, public nastiness, etc. This is all created by the coalition system.
The actors in the system all are behaving rationally...it's the system that is at fault.
Maybe that's what needs to change more than anything. If we want to truly de-politicize Student Senate, maybe it will take wholesale change. All I know is that the coalition system is keeping things from getting done.
Sam Pierron CLA&S senator
quit avoiding your responsibilities to students of color, or you lose your Senate seat next year. We're ready for political action and we will no longer be silent.
I am deeply disheartened by the lack of critical thinking on this Student Senate listserv. Or rather, the resistance by our greek-friendly senators to think critically about the system they are involved in. As a non-greek constituent and senator, I have every right to criticize the system.
You seem to think that because I have never been in the system that this excludes me from criticizing it. I see this as another feeble attempt to silence those with differing opinions.
There have been a number of arguments raised to reinforce the idea that "greek bashing" does not belong on the Senate listserv. While I will concede that perhaps we shouldn't prejudge all greeks, I also think that my postings were taken entirely out of context and I was misquoted. I never said all greeks were racist, sexist, and classist. I did say that the system was.
Someone also raised the point that there are a large number of minority people who rush in the white Greek system. Thereby implying that it's our fault that we aren't represented in the white Greek system. Once again, I think this is a failure to look at the complexities of race on this campus. As a student of color, I can confirm that many of us feel unwelcome on this campus. We experience racism in both subtle and overt ways every day. People seem to think that racism doesn't exist on this campus, when in fact, the reality is that it is demonstrated in every fabric of University culture. Proof of this is seen in Rock Chalk Revue. Moreover, the refusal of those in the system to listen to the voices of students of color is indicative of how far-reaching the racism exists.
I realize that this is a blanket statement, but I have yet to see any effort on the part of greeks to really listen to how the Native American Student Association and other students of color feel. All you have to say is that you aren't racist, classist and sexist. Prove to me you aren't, because all I have seen so far is to the contrary.
These are real issues that our constituents are confronting when they decide to vote in the elections. People talk about how we are further dividing Senate by greek bashing. I ask, how can you ignore the divisions that already exist? What is more, how can we ever come together unless we begin to talk about these divisions? Trust me when I say this: Unless the greek system makes major efforts in the very near future to change its politics toward students of color, they will lose their vote. We met last night to discuss how we will be handling these issues in Senate and with the administration. What it comes down to is this. Either you deal with these issues and
Rochelle Votaw CLA&S senator
--ideas and the world of everyday living, I have seen many ghosts during my time at the University of Kansas.
How did we go from the Native American Student Association vs. Rock Chalk Revue to where we are now? This is not "critical thinking." This is pure hatred among very different groups of people for many reasons, non-greeks not liking greeps, everyone have choices to make that best suit them. If students want to be a part of an organization for whatever reasons, they are entitled to do that. Everyone does not have to think like everyone, everyone does not have to believe what everyone else believes in. As long as everyone is given the same opportunities there should be no problem. Now greek life is not for everyone, and if it's not for you, why do you care about the people who are grecks?
We are all screaming unity, but damn it if we follow through on it. For a bunch of college students that are supposed to be the educated bunch, you guys have no idea what the hell is waiting for you once you graduate and step out into that place called the "real world". If you cannot get along with others at the University of Kansas, then what makes you think you will get along in society? What happens next is we have this continuous cycle of hate against hate and it produces a lot of nothing. A quick example:
Native Americans have a very rich culture that everyone should be able to enjoy, but instead they're outside the Lied Center protesting in the cold.
And on the flip side, Rock Chalk Revue and Greeks have given a lot to the Lawrence community and they're being treated as if they're the Ku Klux Klan. What positive effect is going to come out of this? None whatsoever.
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"Nine out of 10 politicians are knaves who maintain themselves by preying on the idiotic villains and pathetic hopes of half-wits." —H.L. Mencken
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Seek understanding and end cycle of insensitivity
Perspective
An African proverb says, "If you see a ghost, scream; if you don't scream, the ghost will eat your voice." As a writer whose eyes are focused both on the world of
Donato
Fhunsu
 opinion @ kansan.com
The latest ghost to appear unsettled many people last week. Its name was the 49th annual Rock Chalk Revue. The鬼 had two heads: Alpha Delta Pi and Lambda Chi Alpha. In the name of tradition, it put on a macabre dance called, "Don't Drink the Water." The dance sent
a cuff to the memories of the people in the land, and the people screamed.
When I heard this, I, the sorcerer, decided to wield the magical power of the word on behalf of the people. I took my fetishes, went up to the world of the dead and the unborn, and inquired of the ancestors in these terms: How can people whose roots lie elsewhere know what hurts the indigenous people and why it hurts them?
however, because the people's screams seemed to lack power, the dance proceeded anyway. One of the inventors of the dance told the people in the land, "We never intended any malicious intent with this show," and the dancers also said they did not feel the skit was in any way offensive and there certainly was no intent to put down the indigenous people.
"Only by communicating the pain and showing where it lies," the ancestors answered.
"We have done this many, many times," I replied. "It is only through constant reiteration that people learn, and these things must be said again and again," said one of the ancestors. From Mount Oread, they opened the scrolls of human history, and my heart tightened.
As I looked, I saw the horrors of the sin of superiority complex. The so-called superior people went about "discovering" the so-called inferior people. They forcibly took the lands upon which the native people dwelled, killed their men and children, abused their women and put those who remained in places called reservations.
expectancy. Some called it the Aquarian Age, while others simply called it the New Age. It was new because during its time, the feminine principles and the values of the heart would begin to hold greater sway in the consciousness of the human race. The voice of all the minorities in the land would be elevated rather than subjugated. Because they have suffered and know how to suffer, they must emerge to help teach a suffering humanity the values of compassion, selflessness, receptivity and love. The goal would not be the establishment of a system of rule by the minorities advocating minority superiority or retribution for past grievances, for this only would amplify the existing cleavages between the diverse groups of the land. True and lasting societal transformation could be brought about only by the establishment of a state of consciousness which steps beyond the old structures and rejects the old antipathies in which one race, one nation, one religion, or one sex is considered superior to another. Rather, the coming new world order would be anchored on an acceptance and appreciation of the inherent differences and the contributions which each individual and each group could make toward the greater good of humanity.
In other parts of the land, they did the same things. However, because the people there were good at working the land, the superior people caught them and shipped them down south to till the land. They traded them like property in open markets. They stripped them of their religions, customs, languages, bonds. They divided them only in ways that would allow the conquerors to best exploit the resources of the land. The people of the land toiled and cried out, for their pain was excruciating. Yet, the spirit in them was indomitable, and caused them to sing songs of freedom.
As I looked ahead, I saw not far away something fast approaching. The general name for it was "the 21st century," and everybody waited for it with a growing sense of
I looked again and I saw a paradoxical thing. It was called change and it included many of the ways of the so-called primitive peoples, but only this time these same ways had become "scientific." All of a sudden, everybody in the land was living in a Global Village and using the World Wide Web — just like the spider webs that fascinated the native children in the bushes. The power of touch, which the native mothers always knew, was suddenly "discovered" at the University of Miami School of Medicine's Touch Research Institute (TRI), and seekers from Duke, Harvard, Princeton and other places flocked to the TRI to study this "discovery." I saw the same thing happening to breast feeding, music, dance, medicinal plants and many other things the indigenous peoples did naturally.
I realized that at the University of Kansas real progress could be made in these and many other areas, for the general benefit of all, if the dignity of the minorities was respected, their wisdom was valued, and their contributions were actively enlisted. And with the cooperation of Haskell Indian Nations University, I saw the Lawrence community transformed for the better.
As evening fell on Mount Oread, and the moon came out, an owl sang: "We learn only from experience, and only by making up our minds not to repeat past mistakes." With a sigh, I made a final incantation over my fetishes and prayed that the spirit of sensitivity would visit the inhabitants of Rock Chalk Revue, in particular those of Rock Delta Pi and Lambda Chi Alpha. I prayed that they would show goodwill and officially apologize to all the wounded hearts of the land so that, healed as a community, we could travail together to give birth to a brighter tomorrow.
Phunsu is a Lawrence graduate student in French.
Feedback
I am writing in response to Harley Raliff's column, "They choke once more. Are we surprised?" To say that Roy Williams and his team, which went 35-4, choked is an unfair statement. How many coaches in America can say that they have averaged more than 27 wins per season during the past 10 years? True, Williams has yet to win a national championship. However, if he fails to attain this goal, will we consider his career a failure when it is all said and done? Rather than chastising a coach and his team for losing when we did not expect them to, perhaps we should look in the mirror and think about how lucky we are to have one of the best basketball coaches and one of the elite programs in America.
Harley Ratliff too harsh on Williams
It is unfair to call a coach a "choker" just because he has not won a national championship after 10 years. John Wooden needed 16 years to win his first title at UCLA, and Dean Smith needed 21 years to win his first one at North Carolina.
Brett Schoenfeld Prairie Village junior
Rock Chalk Revue section without merit
An entire section of The University Daily Kansan devoted to Rock Chalk Reveue?
I can only assume you will print this letter since there is very little to comment on in the Kansan these days. I have noticed the opinion letters dwinkle down to a trickle. Does The Wonderbread Daily News ever wonder why?
Christi Barb Kansas Union employee
Perhaps it is because there is nothing provocative enough to inspire a response.
The Kansan is jam-packed full of information that appeals to the full range of students on campus, as long as you're interested in Student Senate affairs and Greek goings-on. Yes, those are valid, interesting events, but there is so much more. Because the majority of the paper is devoted to events by non-minority groups, the Kansan has now earned the more appropriate name of The Wonderbread Daily News.
Refresh my memory with some facts. How much space, if any, was devoted exclusively for the Asian-American Student Leadership Conference, any of the events for Black History Month, or any of the numerous lectures, conferences and events sponsored by the many minority organizations on campus? I must have missed their exclusive sections of the paper. The Native American Student Association is planning a writers conference in April, I'll keep my eyes open for that insert.
My name is Joe Don Waters and I am the vice president of the Native American Student Association at Oklahoma State University.
I support the KU Native American Student Association and the Black Student Union and the protest of the Rock Chalk Revue. The groups have legitimate grievances concerning the questionable material in the skit "Don't Drink the Water." We, as Native American students, encounter racism and cultural insensitivity on a rather frequent basis on our respective campuses. Consequently, we no longer will stand for these racist traditions that "our" universities allow to be perpetuated in university-related events. The sad part of this story is that there are people who do not see the racism and insensitivity the skit perpetuated. Furthermore, the students that utilize skirts can use their own culture and traditions to meet their comical ends. They do not have do this at the expense of other cultures.
In closing, the actions and opinions of a few does reflect poorly on the University of Kansas. NASA and BSU should be complimented on their campus awareness and involvement. Ultimately, Native American students across America can be only proud and supportive of KU NASA for standing up for what is right.
Protesters right at Rock Chalk Revue
Joe Don Waters
Vice President of the Oklahoma
State University Native American
Student Association
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