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Thursday, April 22, 1993
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
IN OUR OPINION
Lecture series demands student support tonight
Tonight, KU students can enjoy a very special pleasure as two renowned speakers take the stage at 7:30 in Allen Field House. Attallah
Shabazz, daughter of Malcolm X, and Yolanda King, daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr. will demonstrate their skilled and dynamic talents in what will be an extremely informative and entertaining evening.
Shabazz and King are coming to KU as part of the Student Lecture Series. Still very much in the formative stages, the goal of the series is to bring prominent speakers to the campus annually.
Trying to obtain a prestigious speaker, however, is an often arduous and expensive task. Overseeing the effort is the Student Lecture Series Board, a joint committee comprised primarily of SUA Forums committee members and student senators. One of its primary tasks is to gauge interest of the student body regarding various prospective speakers.
Another endeavor of the Student Lecture Series Board is to eventually achieve a permanent alumni endowment for the series. This, though, does not appear to be a possibility in next two to three years. Fortunately, due to a long list of sponsorships from University organizations and local businesses, the board was still able to afford to contract King and Shabazz.
These groups cannot always be counted on for financial support, though. Thus, until the lecture series is endowed, it must be financed primarily through Student Senate. This past year, the lecture series almost lost support from Senate. Let this not be a worry next year. By attending tonight's lecture, students cannot not only enjoy a once in a lifetime experience, they can also prove to a newly elected Senate the importance of having speakers of Shabaaz and King's stature visit the KU campus on an annual basis.
KYLE KICKHAEFER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Reader turns to Bible in search of some answers on homosexuality
On Friday, April 9, the topic of what the Bible says about homosexuality was addressed. I too, would like to address what the Bible says, not only about homosexuality, but about God's relationship with us.
1 John 4:8 (all verses from New American Standard Bible), "The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love." *John* 3:4. "Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness." Romans 3:23. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 6:23. "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." *John* 8:10. "And straight up, up Jesus said to her, 'Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?' And she said, 'No one, Lord.' And Jesus said, 'no I condemn you; go your way. From on sn on us'." Matthew 22:37-40. "And he said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is the great commandment and foremost commandment. The second is like it, "You shall love your
neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the prophets.
Genesis 1:27, "And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."
Genesis 2:24, "For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." Mark 10:6-9: "But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one; Consequently you are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." Corinthians 7:3-5: "Let the husband fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does, and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time that you may devote yourselves to prayer and come together again lest Satan tempt you because of your lack of self-control." Isaiah 40:8, "The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever."
Marshall Yin Naperville, Ill., junior
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According to the March 29 issue of Newsweek, the multicultural debate has a new component — "white male paranoida" — which is the anxiety increasingly felt by the white male as he is confronted on all sides by discontented minorities whose time has come.
Multicultural debate sparks anxiety among white males
There is little question, given the emergence of the "men's movement" and the popularity of conservative demagogues such as Rush Limbaugh, that white male anxiety is coming into play as a significant factor in the multicultural debate, but the assertion that it is an unwarranted, self-serving paranoia starts showing a little transparent against the backdrop of increasingly hostile attitudes the white male must face.
After realizing there are apparently tens of millions of minority members out there who revel in the fact that they metaphorically get to "watch us die," and after hearing not so metaphorical suggestions by rap artist Souljah and her likl that it time to kill some white folk, the artist white male seems a little less like paranoia, a little more like a socially relevant self-defense mechanism. Ask Reginald Denny about paranoia.
One female trucking industry executive quoted in *Newsweek* derides white male executives as lacking "the emotional capacity that it takes to qualify as human beings. The one good thing about these white, male, crewed vehicles is the they're growing old. We get to watch them die."
This anxiety has further roots in what I call the continuing demonization of the white-male in pop culture. The current compulsive obsession with the rhetoric of victimization provides a wide forum in which minorities can voice their discontent, invariably accompanied by the text of the opusque "One that look no further than talk show television and its rampant Oprah-ism for substantive evidence of such masu-thrope.
GUEST COLUMNIST
On the pop culture front, Al Bundy and Homer Simpson do to white males what Amos 'n' Andy and Al Jolson did to Black males — create shallow, comical stereotypes that obscure individual character and affront an entire segment of society. Refusing to acknowledge the hostility and disrespect directed at white males as forms of racism and sexism
DOUG FISHBACK
flouts the ideals of equality and codifies cultural double standards.
Not that white males have not had a taste of double standards already; the multicultural explosion has been accompanied by a slippery logic that works to undermine the white male while negotizing his right to complain.
As a white firefighter quoted in Newsweek rightly points out, Blacks in a group are activists; whites in a group are racists. Take as a further example of "multilogic" this item from a graduate school application, which asks for race and gender data and then offers a not-so-reassuring assurance that "this inquiry is to facilitate a diverse student body. Since the student discriminate on the basis of race, ethnic origin the answer to this question will not influence the university's decision on admission."
The same double standards that lurk behind that university's semantic tap dancing surface not only in the world of jobs and tenure; they also pervale current cultural debates. It is common to highlight "Black History Month" or "Latin-American History Month" as a more visually sane, sceptical can be celebrated "German-American History Month" or "White Male Week." This is because ethnicity
— that hot cultural commodity — has effectively been defined as existing in opposition to the sphere of the white male. This move has been quite a cultural coup, but it is time to challenge it. It also requires cultural valuation that acknowledges the unique ethnic identities of all members of society.
The pat response to this argument is that Western culture is de facto white and male and therefore does quite well on its own without being promoted. What concerns me, however, besides the fact that this statement is becoming less valid as minorities open more space for themselves in "mainstream" culture, are the political implications of allowing some cultural and ethnic groups into the multicultural spotlight, while suppressing explicit articulation of the importance of white Euro-culture. Such a campaign works to make of white culture more background phenomenon, aggravating cultural fragmentation.
The problem as I see it is that the multicultural debate invariably is couched in oppositional terms, in which the elevation of minorities is predicated on the denigration of the white male. Discontented minorities should realize, however, that by couching debates in either/or terms of "our interests versus their interests," ignoring the ideals of mutual benefit, they increasingly force the white male to extreme positions. And if white males are forced to choose between their own welfare and that of others, quite frankly I can not envision too many of them who would not opt for the former — not in this economy, anyway. And let me suggest as benignly as possible that it probably is not in the interests of minorities to force white males to make that choice as long as they occupy most of the primary positions of power in this society.
Fortunately for us, the history of multiculturalism still is young enough to be rewritten without the themes of antagonism, backlash and continued fragmentation. To do so, however, requires us to unlearn the oppositional terms in which we have debated so far — with little productive result. We must, if we are to see a truly multicultural America, learn to voice solutions that are based on mutual benefit and ideals in which all can take part. No matter how good it feels at the moment, ultimately the demonization of the white male promises to engender no more justice and harmony than did segregation law or the pre-suffrage era. Walt Whitman's forebodings for late nineteenth-century America are just inexactly today; how could he have known that he would go right to the heart of the multicultural debate when he wrote, "the fear of conflicting and可共合ible interiores, and the lack of all continually hamms me?" We are left with the problem of rectifying those interiors; let us hope it does not take us another one hundred years to succeed.
Doug Flishback is a Lawrence senior major ing in English and Journalism.
STAFF COLUMNIST
U.S. history should tell American Indians' tale
Last week as I watched a documentary about the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, I learned parts of U.S. history that I never knew.
Like most students in the U.S. school system, I always have believed that I knew U.S. history — the Civil War, Vietnam, Watergate, the Constitution and so on. One period in history that is famous, or infamous, for most people is the turbulent 1970s.
Most history courses cover the civil rights movement, the feminist movement and the anti-war movement of the 1960s but not the American Indian Movement.
A movie taught me that AIM took over the Bureau of Indian affairs' in Washington and told me exactly why Leonard was so powerful. life's worth stories is at least worth words.
Why did I learn this aspect of U.S. history until I made a personal effort to do so? I wonder.
Obviously, these events draw attention to the systematic denise of the American Indians. Would any proud American want to admit to students that the U.S. government took part in that?
I have the right to know about U.S. history, and American Indians and their culture are part of that history. However, I realized that my lack of knowledge was based not only on incomplete education, but also my world view.
Like most people, I view the founding of the United States as persecuted. Europeans coming here and creating a new life and culture. Famous people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson come to mind.
Even after studying American-Indian culture, I still limit my view of U.S.
During the weekend, I saw an eye-opening bumper sticker. It read: "America was built on the graves of Indians." How many non-American Indians even give that a thought?
To many non-Indian people, Ameri-
can-indian culture is silver jewelry,
powwows and headresses. We think
nothing of the non-material value of
the culture. We do not think of the
indigenous people within our nation
that once existed.
Even with the American-Indian cultures represented in Lawrence, many of us never consider the history and culture of American Indians.
How many of us hear about Haskell
Indian Junior College or drive by it
without knowing one thing about its
significance and its history? Most of
us believe Lawrence's life ends at
Massachusetts Street.
We are reluctant to have people tell us that we should be aware of this culture or that culture. But we need that our way might not be the way.
Living in Lawrence does not require that we recognize Haskell or American-Indian cultures. Most people believe they already are forced to learn about things that do not affect them.
It is important to put U.S. history into perspective I learned about the European aspect of our culture and history. Then I learned about the American-Indian experience However, in reality the American-Indian experience historically came first.
Shelly Solon is a Wheeling, Ill., senior majoring in journalism.
1906 FM
THEY PUT ME OUT HERE BECAUSE
THEY DON'T NOW WHAT THE EFFECT
WILL BE FROM THE ROONEY KING
VERDICT IN
By Moses Smith