OPINION
The University Daily
KANSAN
April 26, 1984 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kaman (USPS 605-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stuart Finst-Hall, Lawrence, Kan. daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer session, excluding Saturdays, Sunday, holidays, and final periods. Second class postage paid at Lawnerville, Kan. 6004. Subscriptions by mail must be mailed to Lawnerville, Kan. 6004. Subscription students are it in Kaman through the student activity fee. POSTMASTER address changes to be indicated by a dotted line.
DOUG CUNNINGHAM
DON KNOX
Managing Editor
SARA KEMPIN
Editorial Editor
JEFF TAYLOR ANDREW HARTLEY
Campus Editor News Editor
DAVE WANAMAKER Business Manager
General Manager and News Adviser
CORT GORMAN JILL MITCHELL
Retail Sales Manager National Sales Manager
JANCE PHILIPS
Campus Sales Manager
DUNCAN CALHUHN
Classified Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
Racism still alive
Every now and then something happens to show how far racial attitudes in this country have not progressed.
In Chicago, a black family recently was forced out of an all-white neighborhood by harassment that included having windows broken, being insulted and watching their garage destroyed by fire.
The people of the quiet, middle-class neighborhood on Chicago's South Side do not realize that racial bigotry was supposed to have vanished years ago.
Apparently, some people saw the black family set up housekeeping in the formerly all-white neighborhood and with a racist air of superiority, decided that they didn't like the idea.
It was no matter that the black man renting the house, born and reared in Chicago, may have lived in the city longer than some of his new neighbors. Or that, he had done a great deal of work toward improving the political system by his work as a Democratic precinct captain in the city.
The black family did not make the decision to leave the neighborhood. Others decided for them.
If only a few were opposed to having black neighbors, surely the majority could have done something to let the man and his family know they were welcome.
Some may argue that it was only a few who participated in the events that led up to the man's decision to move his family out of the all-white neighborhood to a racially integrated part of Chicago.
Finding cause of AIDS
But if indeed it was only a handful of people, where were the rest of the neighbors who said they were not opposed to having a black family move into their neighborhood?
Government scientists announced Monday that they have successfully identified the probable cause of acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
Narrow views of a few ignorant people should not dictate who moves into the neighborhood on the basis of their skin color.
Robert C. Gallo, a National Cancer Institute researcher and leader of the government's AIDS research team, identified the deadly virus as a member of the same family as the human leukemia virus.
The scientists also announced the development of a blood test that can help physicians diagnose AIDS victims and can prevent the transmission of the disease by blood transfusion.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler said she hoped the blood test for AIDS would be widely available in about six months.
Heckler also said the blood test might prevent transfusion-related AIDS cases and infection of hemophilia.
AIDS primarily affects male homosexuals, intravenous drug
users, recent Haitian immigrants and hemophiliacs. Since the first detected case of AIDS in 1981 more than 4,000 cases have been reported in the United States.
More than 1,700 of the victims have died.
Unfortunately, the discoveries about the nature of AIDS probably will not benefit those individuals who already have contracted the fatal disease. However, the fact that scientists are on the treshold of controlling AIDS after only three years is phenomenal.
Surely, doctors, researchers and health officials such as Gallo and Heckler should be given great credit for attacking this fearful malady.
However, while delivering praise, we cannot overlook those individuals and groups, especially the gay community, who spoke out against AIDS.
They attracted the public attention that brought an allocation of research funds and eventually allowed this necessary scientific discovery to be made.
Search for world peace
Although fewer protesters turned out than expected, five recent days of anti-nuclear demonstrations in West Germany have shown the world that many people steadfastly refuse to give up the quest for global peace.
Doomsayers had announced that support for the peace movement had significantly waned. But the protesters proved that resistance to greater militarization by the United States and the Soviet Union is growing.
Although the protesters were demoralized last year when they could not prevent the arrival of U.S. Pershing 2 missiles in West Germany, to their credit, they did not crumble in abject defeat.
Protests were relatively quiet — only two serious clashes with police occurred during the five days of demonstrations.
About 600,000 people filed into streets and gathered in front of U.S. military bases last week to protest
the presence of intermediate-range nuclear missiles.
The demonstrators are to be admired for their tenacity in continually reminding the world that, however hopeless the goal of global peace may seem, it cannot be forgotten.
LETTERS POLICY
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten on one sheet of paper, double-spaced and should not exceed 200 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include his class and home town or place of residence. The Kansan also includes individuals and groups to submit guest columns. Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office, 111 Staffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
POPULAR METHODS OF TORTURE:
PARAGUAY CRAMPED CELLS WITH NO FOOD AND NO LIGHT
OYOA MANIA NEWS
UNITED STATES
UNITED STATES PROLONGED EXPOSURE TO PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES
COORS CONTROVERSY
One of the hottest tapes in the nation played here last week before a very select audience.
It's the tape of the now-famous speech that William Coors, chairman and chief executive officer of Adolph Coors Co., made to a gathering of minority businessmen Feb. 23 in Denver.
The press has been reporting that Coors made racially preju
MICHAEL
ROBINSON
Staff Columnist
diced remarks during the speech, but Coors has cried foul and filed a $150 million libel suit against the Rocky Mountain News, the Denver newspaper that first printed the charges.
The only objective record of the speech was a tape recording that was made by one of the members of the audience. The tape was played last week for the Student Milkman and the Mittee, which was considering calling for a boycott of Coors products.
I guess the only word that describes my feelings after listening to the tape is incredulity. I still can't believe Coors made the remarks in front of minority students and I feel he thinks the tape clears him.
If I were William Coors, I would bury that tape and make sure it never saw the light of day.
In his speech, he talked about how business and industry had suffered in Rhodesia since blacks had taken over.
Lack of dedication isn't the problem, he said. "They lack the intellectual capacity to succeed, is taking them down the tubes."
Coors talked about how he had gotten into trouble for using the word "wetback," but said he didn't know what the fuss was all about. He considered his father after he had stowed away on a ship from Europe to come to this country.
Strike one.
Strike two.
And then there was the one about how grateful blacks should be for the way they were introduced to America.
"One of the best things they did for you is to drag your ancestors over here in chains," Coors said. "They were afraid, ashamed of, but to be proud of."
Coors was referring to the great business opportunities we now have because we were dragged here. He urged those of us who were resentful about that part of our history to think about where we came from and the conditions there.
The implication was "who wants to be in dirty, smelly old Africa anyway?"
He goes down swinging.
Two company officials accompanied the tape from Golden, Colo. One of them was a fellow named John Seese, manager of a company that was the difficult job of explaining how the tape vindicated his boss.
"Bill does not speak from notes. He gets up and speaks from the heart," Seese said. "I know what Bill was talking about because I've heard him explain it."
It's too bad we don't know what he was talking about.
Seese's defense of Coors is that the man wasn't speaking in a racial context, he was talking about business and the business opportunities that the United States has to offer.
But we don't choose our words simply by chance. We select words and express ideas in ways that we're familiar with.
Seese acknowledged that Coors might have used "an unfortunate choice of words."
At worst, the words show William Coors to be the type of person who looks at people who wear because of the color of their skin.
At best, the remarks Coors made showed an incredible insensitivity towards minorities, not just the way we were brought here, but the way we have been "died in this great country of ours."
I don't know which he is, but in either case, he's not the kind of businessman I want to support.
Empty gesture made
At first blush, it's a black and white issue.
In response to racist comments made by William K Coors, chairman of the Adolph Coors Co., the KU Panhellenic Association did what was politically wrong and support a boycott proposal that would prohibit the organization from buying Coors beer.
At second blush, the issue again is black and white - it
HELAINE KASKEL Staff Columns
Staff Columnist
concerns not only the alleged racism of William K. Coors, but forces an inspection of the racial division that separates black and white sorority women at the University of Kansas.
Although the Panhellenic Association counts no blacks in its membership, it is safe to call the sororites under its jurisdiction "predominantly" white, because a few women of other minority groups have pledged Panhellenic sororities.
No racial restrictions are placed on women who want to go through Panhellenic sorority rush at KU.
But only those who have an overwhelming degree of naivete would say that any KU sorority — either black or white — presents an equal opportunity to both black and white women.
How many white women would be brave enough to go through rush in an all-black system? How many black women would brave the cover stares and the hushed comments that are frequently members of minority groups who dare to cross the racial barriers?
No one will admit it, but at KU black women are not eagerly accepted into Panhellenic Association sororities.
Conversely, there is no reason
The defenses of racially segregated sororites have been heard over and over again. rush is open to everyone; the blacks do not have to be shut out or vice versa, both groups have chosen to separate themselves
to think that the Black PanHellenic Council sororites are anxious to pledge white women.
But separate, inherently, is not equal. Separate is having the black sororites at KU marked in the telephone book with asterisks that mean "nonresidential" because they don't have houses for their members. Separate, at a University dedicated to broadening the perspectives of its students, is unconscionable.
A black woman and a white woman who are thinking about joining a sorority both have the same emotions, the same anxieties and the same hopes and dreams.
They both wonder whether their hair and their clothes will be right. They both wonder whether the will be accepted by their peers.
Even William K. Coors might admit that segregating sorority women is like selling the same beer in two different bottles.
But the one thing that black and white sorority women still don't have in common is the choice of sororites they join.
In spite of the progress toward equality that has been made in many facets of American life, KU sororites remain segregated.
The integration of KU sororites is long overdue. But it should not require a test-case drink from a segregated water fountain. Nor should it take the cereal once it took place, to a sake set and a front of the box to start the desegregation process.
All that is needed is a concentrated effort on the part of both Panhellenic and PanHellenic to merge their organizations and actively promote the integration of KU sororites.
A simple change in spelling — giving the names of both organizations the same 'h' — would be a nice start.
But until integration occurs, the Panhellenic Association's boycott of Coors beer is something like a Catholic giving up spinach for Lent — a nice gesture, but an empty one.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Loving your neighbor
To the editor:
I am a Christian at the University of Kansas who has spoken out against homosexuality or more
It is important to me that anyone who encounters a person practicing homosexuality love that person and have the same respect for them as they would anyone else.
I am now concerned that what I have written may have added to an already existing problem.
No matter what kind of sin we are practicing, be it lying, stealing, homosexuality  it is still sin
I want no misunderstandings, my goal as a Christian is not to change anyone's life of life no matter what.
My goal is to really accept and communicate Christ's love to them. But that does not mean agreeing with them. I want to distinguish between who they are and what they do.
We need to reach deep and find in our hearts a love for people that cannot be offended but is
Stories overlook issues
steadfast in its decision to remain pure, and if we can't find it there then we need to reach up and ask for it.
Daphne M. Fower
Free Environment and the Heritage Foundation.
To the editor:
Todd Nelson's articles on the Coors boycott (University Daily Kansan, April 11 and 17) did not acknowledge that some issues extend beyond the company made by the company's chairman, William Coors.
The Adolph Coors Co. has been the target of an AFL-CIO-endorsed boycott for six years, initiated after the company broke a 20-month strike by the Brewery Workers Union.
Coors has channeled its profits into several right-wing organizations including Phyllis Schlaffer and the American Chamber of Commerce.
The Coors Boycott Committee has charged that Coors also violated employee rights and basic human dignities with body searches and耳 detector inquiries aimed at harassing gay
2. Environment and the Heritage Foundation.
Joseph Coors' political ties with President Reagan recently have been questioned by Sen. Edward Kennedy who has called for an investigation of whether Coors used improper influence to prevent inspection of his Colorado facilities and received favored treatment from Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
The boycott against the nation's fifth largest brewery is succeeding. In 1977, Coors controlled 45 percent of the beer market in California; in 1983, it dropped to 16 percent.
The CBC gained further momentum from a February 1984 federal court ruling that dismissed Coors' $145,000 antitrust suit against the coordinators of the boycott.
The continuing success of this lengthy nationwide boycott depends upon consumer awareness and action. Even if readers could excuse the racist remarks of William Coors, there is a compelling case against the boycott and to stop the company's offensive, anti-gay, anti-union, anti-worker practices
Elisabeth Dykens
Lawrence graduate student