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Tuesday, January 19, 1993
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
IN OUR OPINION
King holiday remains important to society
Detractors of Martin Luther King Jr. Day claim the holiday is simply a product of affirmative action. Their cynical beliefs tell them it's a way to even out holidays between Black and white individuals.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day, though, was not established to honor a Black man-it was established to honor a great man.
Tackling racial conflicts, King created moral issues demanding national attention. When Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat on Dec. 1, 1955, King and his supporters immediately formed a boycott of the Montgomery, Ala, bus system. This event was merely a precursor to all that would transpire for the next 13 years.
King's campaigning for civil rights achieved its zenith in 1963. During the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963, King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. His efforts were well rewarded during the next two years with the passage of civil and voting rights acts, and as he won the Nobel Peace Prize in December of 1964.
However, King did more than lead the civil rights movement. He also was a man of unwavering conviction. Constantly surrounded and afflicted by violence, he refused to give up or to resort to violence himself. King did not simply preach the importance of peace—he lived by it.
In doing so, King paved a path that all oppressed groups, in their own quests for equality, could follow. He made people in the United States realize that a restriction of their basic rights need not be tolerated.
During his lifetime, King's numerous actions brought about a great deal of positive change. Since April 4, 1968, when King was assassinated by James Earl Ray, King's legacy has expanded upon this positive change and has instilled in people a broader sense of acceptance and a deeper capacity to tolerate.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day was first celebrated in 1986. Yet it took seven years for all 50 states to formally recognize it. This fact and the changing views of young African Americans perhaps signals a waning knowledge of and respect for the accomplishments of King. But Martin Luther King Jr. made an impact. The profound effects of his actions will leave few individuals untouched for many generations to come. Thus, his memory deserves to be celebrated.
KYLE KICKHAEFER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Car's bumper stickers show bravery, freshness
I am speaking of the temptation to compromise one's beliefs on particular issues in order to identify with either end of the conservative liberal ideology.
Yesterday I noticed a car with two bumper stickers on it. They read, respectively, "Homophobia is a social disease" and, "Abortion Kills Children." My heart went out to the brave owner of this car, not because I agreed with both slogans, but because this person had obviously transcended a dangerous trend which many college students, I feel, are prone to succumbing to.
Young people like us crave identities like a politician crowds votes. One needs to look no further than the bumper stickers of hundreds of other student vehicles to realize this. All too often it is too easy to convince ourselves into sympathizing with a certain case or cause in order that we may identify with the larger, yet more limited platform of the conservative or liberal "mindset."
Because of the duality expressed in those bumper stickers, the owner of the car that I mentioned risks being shunned by the same people he or she appeals to. Rarely, in my four years of college, have I seen anything so heroic and fresh.
Frank Hayde
Frank Hayde Prairie Village senior
KANSAN STAFF
GREG FARMER
STEVE PERRY
General manager. news adviser
Editor
BILL SKEET, Technology coordinator
GAYLE OSTERBERG
Business manager
TOM EBLEN
MELISSATERLIP
Retail sales manager
Sales and marketing adviser
JEANNE HINES
Editors Business Staff
Asst Managing Jutta Knuckle Campus sales mgrs Brad Brown
News Monique Guilain Regional sales mgrs Waxe Baker
David Mitchell National sales mgr Jennifer Perrier
Editorial Stephen Martino Co-op sales mgrs Ahsley Hessler
Campus KC Traver Production mgrs Ahmet Stumbo
Sports David Mitchell Sakney Laugh勃 Marketing director Angela Climber
Features Lynne McAdoo Creative director Holly Perry
Graphics Dan Schauer Classified mgr Jill Torney
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12. 31.42 The Law Department INVESTMENT MASS SCHOLARSHIP
Modern-day feminist attacks Limbaugh's 'feminazi' label
"Feminazi" is a new word that has, courtesy of Rush Limbaugh, made it into American vernacular this year. For those of you who have either not heard, seen or read of Limbaugh. He is a right-wing conservative, who delights in half-truths, racial and gender slurs and claims to be undeniably correct. Limbaugh has a radio and a television program, and his book is number one on the New York Times best seller list.
Feminazi is Limbaugh's slang term for the few women he feels have caused all of women's problems, i.e. feminists — especially outspoken feminists.
But over winter break I may have come to understand the reason for this revolting sentiment. I was sitting in my parents' living room one after
In the last year this word has been on the tip of many tongues, and those of us, who call ourselves feminists, have been disgusted and annoyed. To link women seeking equality with those who raped, killed and maimed millions of Jews is, to say the least, appalling.
STAFF COLUMNIST
noon, when the conversation turned (as it often does) from niceties to politics, religion, sexuality or some combination of the three. I began explaining my somewhat liberal-feminist point-of-view to my father. My mother, who burn her bra in the sixties but has since changed her ways, tried to explain to this man that his little girl was a feminist.
Dad gave me a characteristic blank stare followed by a sputtering denial of his baby girl's ability to be a f-fem-n-n-nazi.
Not Rush, Dad. Anyone but Rush. I lived through Pat Robertson, even Jimmy Swagget, but Rush Limbaugh. This was going too far. Fireworks
flew there were lights everywhere and in a bright flashing moment I understood. He was afraid. He was afraid he might have to trade places with me.
Now, if I get this straight, women,
according to Limbaugh and Dad, are
supposed to love to be what God
made us to be. And what did God
make us to be? Wives, mothers,
teachers, nurses, raped when our
countries are at war and lower than
men on the income scale.
Oh please, can we trade — who wouldn't want all of this and PMS, pregnancy, closely followed by menopause, too?
Trying to explain my stance to my father, while fighting my nausea at his terminology, I found myself overcome with pride. They can call us whatever they wish, but undeniably, we of the new feminist generation have large shoes to fill. We have a tradition to carry on. A tradition that women like Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf, Germaine Greer, Susan Brownmiller and Gloria Steinem have left for a new genera-
tion.
Thinking about these women, I began to calm down. Through the ages, whenever change has come, it has come at great expense and with great effort. Women have always been oppressed, but we have seen hard-won change. So it is to be expected that this would see women gaining power and they think this means their loss. This is the competitive attitude that feminists have been up against since the beginning of the women's movement.
If I were a man living a man's life in our society, I would not wish to trade places either, and I might even go so far as to any perceived threat to this security.
But who am I I kidding? I cannot imagine going to such ridiculous lengths to keep another human being down. I could never attack with such viciousness. I could never enslave torture, rape or murder, either. And I know no other feminist who could "Feminazi?" I don't think so.
I think I'm turning into my parents. This is not to say that I've become financially responsible or in any way interested in mid-size sedans. But where winter weather is concerned, I sounding more and more like the parental units every day.
Lisa Cosmillo is a Lawrence graduate student majoring in journalism.
Parental advice is sound on snowy nights
I noticed it right before break started. I had a weekend get-together, and one guest came in a day late. She drove through a snowstorm on a snow- and ice-covered interstate in the early hours of the morning. And she did so against my direct command.
STAFF COLUMNIST
I had told her to call the highway patrol before heading to Lawrence, and I had told her to stay home if the roads were bad. Well, she called, found out travel was not advised and came anyway.
So I sat, nervously counting the minutes until she got to my house. And when she got there, before I could yell at her for coming, she told me that not only had the roads been horrendous,
but that she had almost fallen asleep several times on the way. Tormenting me is like a sport for her.
To my credit, I have to say that wasn't always this upright. But in Fall 1991, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I carried a freezing rain on my car during a freezing rain.
I hit a patch of ice on a bridge and my car started sliding diagonally across the bridge. Then it started to spin, and I went nose first into the cement guard rail before sliding back across the bridge, and down an 30-foot embankment.
So now I'm a little overcautious.
But around here, you have to be cautious. I'm convinced that Lawrence thinks it's a southern town, and the people living here seem to, too.
Last night, a guy in a full-size Bronco buzzed past me going at least 50 mph through the ice and slush. If he had to stop suddenly, he never would have done that. And he was spitting slush all over the windbends of cars around him.
Although the main roads are sort of cleared, many side streets and places like, oh, say, the parking lot where I live, is still an ice mess.
What makes this worse is that in the past few days, several snow plows have been seen cruising around with their plows in the air. Word around here is that they were in search of snow-bound women. I personally don't know what they were doing, but I would have paid them to come clear away the three-foot snow drifts and sheets of ice surrounding my car.
But leave it to Lawrence to quit clearing before the cleaning is done $ \textcircled{1} $ especially when another storm is expected anime. ;
And now the city says it's low on salt and sand. We've had two serious storms, and the city's almost out of water. We have a winter as mild as last year's.
I've only lived in Kansas for the four- and a-half years that I've been in school, but even I know that if there's one thing you can count on where Kansas weather is concerned, it's this. You can't count on it.
So until spring rolls around, and I no longer have to worry about dangerously slick roads, I will continue to dole out parental advice like, "Call highway patrol before you leave," and "Call me when you vet home."
Just call me mom.
Julie Wasson is in a Springfield, M. senior major in journalism in the field, with senior
Mystery Strip
by David Rosenfield