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Monday, March 14, 1994
OPINION
UN I V E R S I T Y D A I L Y K A N S A N
VIEWPOINT
Resolution for senators to go to events good idea
Last week Student Senate passed a revolutionary bill. This bill requires senators who sponsor resolutions to finance events to attend those events. This is a praiseworthy step.
The number of cultural and informational meetings sponsored by the Senate is substantial. Although these events are intended to educate students, how many students can say they have attended even one of these events in their time at KU? It makes sense for senators who believe an event will benefit students to go to the event. Senators are supposed to represent the interests of the students of KU. If a senator thinks an event would be boring or uninformative and would not want to go to it himself, he should not sponsor a resolution to finance the event. It is the senators' elected duty.
People might contend that senators, being students and having tests as well as committee and Senate meetings, would be unable to attend all of the events they sponsor. However, only the senators who sponsored a resolution should be required to attend the event. Additionally, senators are given a leeway of six excused or three unexcused absences before disciplinary action is taken.
However, a problem arises in the enforcement of this resolution. No matter how noble this resolution is, without enforcement, it becomes meaningless. Senators' absences from events should count against them as absences from Senate meetings and committee meetings do.
Requiring senators to attend events financed by bills they sponsored is a progressive step, and Senate should ensure that the resolution is enforced.
DAVID ZIMMERMAN FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Punishment of rapists should be fair, effective
In an attempt to get tough on crime, Florida is forsaking the opinions of experts and coming dangerously close to abrogating some basic rights.
On March 1, a committee in the Florida Senate approved a bill that would give judges the authority to have twice-convicted rapists to be chemically castrated. The castration would involve injections of the birth control drug Depo Provera, which decreases sperm production and diminishes erections.
In the past, Depo Provera had been used primarily in extreme cases, after other treatments failed. It partially diminishes erections. Some of its side effects include weight gain, hypertension and hot flashes.
The Florida bill is being opposed by many groups. The National Organization for Women has said that research into castration has not shown it to be a deterrent. The American Civil Liberties Union also is against chemical castration.
More important, it is opposed by those who understand that rape is a violent crime. As Denise Snyder, executive director of the District of Columbia Rape Crisis Center, told the Washington Post in 1992, "Sexual assault is a crime of violence and aggression ... not the product of an uncontrollable sex drive."
Chemical castration won't eliminate the aggression which causes rape. It may stop the act of penetration, but the aggression will still manifest itself on another person. Other treatments, which get to the root of why rapists rape, should be closely examined.
No one would argue that rape is a crime that demands punishment. But running roughshod over individual's rights in an effort to punish the criminals helps no one. In fact, it hurts us all.
NATHAN OLSON FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
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We need a new way of thinking to deal with racism in the '90s
I do not remember segregation. My mother told me that when I was a year old, she pushed me in a stroller past a park with "Negroes Only" water fountains. It was a small town and a small park, with a gazebo, swings, and a jungle gym — the sort of complacent, white, middle-class place which, we are told, was torn apart by the fight over getting rid of those fountains.
I remember none of this. Yet I and others my age have lived with the residue of that fight in the form of the pernicious problem of "racism" which seems no closer to being solved now than it was 30 years ago.
You see the word "racism" everywhere these days. I find myself using it often — in discussions, in papers and in my columns. It is a natural part of my vocabulary, placed there without my knowledge or approval by those who built and tore down water fountains long ago. But I think it is time I re-examine my easy and thoughtless accusations of "racism."
Our conception of "racism" nowadays is like a light switch — either on
or off, light or dark, good or evil. A person either is a racist or is not. All white Americans think one way for one reason, and all African Americans think another way for another reason.
We inherited this light-switch racism from the 1960s. Back then it worked reasonably well. You could identify the bad guys with ease they were the ones with the German Shepherds and the fire hoses. Most whites thought all African Americans were inferior, and they acted accordingly.
Matters are not so simple anymore.
There no longer is any such thing as a monolithic "white America" or "Black America." Many African Americans oppose affirmative action. Most whites recognize that African Americans are not inferior and have suffered discrimination. Yet they often oppose federal funding for inner city job programs — because they don't like cities or they don't like the government. Some African Americans don't like federal job programs, either.
Who among these people is a "racist"? Who is an "Uncle Tom"? Which way do you flip the racism light switch? Careful now, because whichever way you choose may cost someone an education, livelihood or reputation.
The obvious answer is to get rid of this entire way of thinking. But many are unwilling to do so. These includes extremists like the Nation of Islam and the Ku Klux Klan. It also includes the leaders of our increasingly moribund civil rights establishment, who spend their days refighting old battles
and seem absolutely incapable of generating a single fresh idea. Above all, it includes many ordinary people who came of age during the 1960s and cannot transcend the outdated world view of their youth.
For all these people, light-switch racism is compelling because it generates a degree of comfort. There is a false glow of stability that comes from being able to identify the good and the bad with such clarity. Light-switch racism recaptures the moral certainty that came from removing the "Negroes Only" water fountains.
But I didn't have a hand in getting rid of those fountains, and I don't feel so certain about "racism." I doubt anyone my age really does. That is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it may be out of such confusion that new and better ways of thinking may emerge. At any rate, I plan to be very careful about who I call a "racist" in the future.
Brian Dirk is a Conway, Ark., graduate student in history.
United States must practice tolerance
The United States has to tolerate diversity if it's ever going to compete in a global society.
That's a message heard frequently from economists, educators and politicians. The fragmentation of American culture, however, may prove an overwhelming challenge to tolerance in a global society. Judging by the hate-crimes in this country, embracing diversity is a slow process.
The alleged homosexual harassment at Templin Hall is one example of the increasingly volatile cultural climate of this country.
COLUMNIST
The last straw came when the Ku Klux Klan staged a demonstration outside the complex. Rumor had it that the Klan threatened to burn down
In Vidor, Texas, last year, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cineros seized control of an all-white housing project after four Black families were forced out amid harassment and death threats. Black women reportedly faced sexist and racist comments by as many as a dozen whites, who would gather around them as they walked.
the complex if Black residents didn't move out of town. An all-white city of 11,000, Vidor was once the headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan. Today, it is a symbol of ongoing racism.
Last month, Attorney General Janet Reno sent mediators to Ovett, Miss., where residents have threatened to use violence to close a camp run by two lesbians. Camp Sister Spirit consists of about 20 women working to create an educational retreat on their farm. They plan to offer workshops on racism, sexism, family violence and the empowerment of women.
led by Baptist ministers, 250 of the town's 400 residents attended meetings denouncing the camp and its res-
idents. They have threatened legal action, including using cohabitation and sodomy laws, even building codes, to have the women drummed out of town.
Camp members have received threatening telephone calls and letters. They also hear shotgun blasts near their property at night. The most violent message, however, was the discovery of a dead female dog draped over the camp mailbox. It had been shot in the stomach, with tampons stuffed under its body. Camp members say the message was, "Get out hitches."
As college students, we're constantly bombarded with the fact that success will be harder for our generation to attain. Our most challenging obstacle lies on the economic front, we are told. But the changing nature of our society qualifies it as an emerging obstacle as well. It's no longer enough for U.S. citizens to simply refuse to accept someone they find objection-
Clearly, intolerance is not endemic to one community. Its growing prevalence begs our attention.
able. More and more they feel like they shouldn't have to tolerate them either. The fact that tolerance doesn't necessarily mean acceptance is a notion lost on these people.
For those who find some people unacceptable, the U.S. Constitution guarantees you the right to speak out. Enjoy it. But, if you find yourself unable to tolerate these people, you shouldn't act out against them. Because, the same Constitution that gives you the right to think, also gives you the right to exist as an individual unmolested. This right is universal.
Those calling for the United States to inch up to the starting line in the race to a global society, have tremendous amount of foresight. If we learn to tolerate each other, we can compete with the best countries in the world. Or, we can bicker about who is, or is not, an individual, and be left on the starting line. Unfortunately, the race may have started without us.
Greg Thonner is a Kansas City, Kan., in Journalism and sociology.
Legalized prostitution does not benefit women
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
This is a response to Allen Tiffany's column "Legalized prostitution benefits women." It is evident Tiffany is for the right to choose one's lifestyle, but his pro-choice stance blinds him to consequences that may follow a bad choice.
Prostitution does not benefit women; it degrades them. How is it possible, legal or not, for women to gain self-esteem by selling their bodies to thousands of men for pleasure? Tiffany charges that "old, Eurocentric, white males wish to keep prostitution illegal." to keep women down." It would seem to me that prostitution enslaves women to the whims of men and therefore keeps them down at the status of objects for sexual pleasure.
Prostitute are subject to giving away a precious part of themselves psychologically, physically, and emotionally to numerous strangers who only value them for sex. Where
is the esteem in this?
Tiffany also says that legalized prostitution would give prostitutes protection by police and the courts. If people obeyed laws forbidding prostitution, then there would be no prostitutes to brutalize and no need for police protection.
Tiffany further suggests that prostitution should be legal for women 18 years and older because "it seems probable that children would be exploited less often as prostitutes than they are now." Tiffany judges here that girls under 18 who are prostitutes are being exploited, but girls a year older (or at any age) are not being exploited. Moreover, Tiffany claims that there are "incredible profits of prostitution."
Tiffany values money more than anything else. He doesn't recognize that women deserve more respect than having to put a price on their bodies. I have to ask, Allen: Would you want your mother or your sister to be a prostitute? Would you want your girlfriend in Austin, Texas to be a prostitute? If you were a man at all,
you would cherish the women around you.
Jackie M. Strnad Belleville sophomore
Homosexuality not just about sex, is not a choice
As far as homosexuality being a "choice" you might be surprised as to how well Dean Hamer could argue against that. Hamer is a researcher at the National Cancer Institute who identified a genetic marker believed to responsible for homosexuality in males. If this research ends up being proven, then how can anyone "choose" which genes they will receive? Are a large number people with a certain gene superior to those who are different?
This is in response to the letter "Homosexuals do not deserve special rights," by Michael Terry (Mar. 3). Terry stated, "A choice is a choice. Homosexuality is not an ethnicity; it is simply the way a person chooses to have sex."
If most people in our population have brown eyes, does that make brown-eyed people superior by number? So will a hetero-gene be superior to a homo-gene?
Another statement Terry made was, "A homosexual male is defined as a man who has sex with other men, usually exclusively. Homosexuality is about sex,..." How is it Michael Terry knows this? Did he ask all homosexual males how they define themselves, and did they say it was only by their sexual activity? What about homosexual males who are cellbate? Are they not homosexual? If Terry isn't a homosexual, how can he decide it is only "about sex" or is just a "choice"? Is being a heterosexual just about sex? How do heterosexuals know they choose to be heterosexual? Because they didn't choose to be homosexual?
I don't know if you can choose your sexual orientation, but I know that you can choose to be ignorant.
Jonathan Nye Roeland Park junior