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Friday, November 10, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Despite election of Blacks, U.S. racial gap still exists
Don't be fooled by the outcomes of Tuesday's elections.
Although Blacks were elected to powerful posts in city and state governments nationwide, the fact that skin color was the emphasis of many news stories Wednesday morning proves that much territory has yet to be covered to close the gap between the races.
The voters of New York City for the first time elected a Black mayor.
The voters of Virginia elected L. Douglas Wilder governor. He is the first elected Black governor in U.S. history.
In Houston, a candidate who two weeks ago seemed a shoo-in for re-election to a city council post was voted out after reports surfaced that he had used a racial slur.
It is a sad commentary that the racial overtone drowned out the issues in the elections and that the election of Blacks to prominent positions overshadowed the fact that these were winning politicians who were able to build coalitions that boosted them to victory.
Why should we be surprised that Blacks can win election to powerful government posts?
Of course, such victories 10 years ago would have been unheard of. It is news that Blacks won Tuesday. The victories were a minor victory in the bigger battle for equality.
It may be tougher to see it, but the reaction of the press and much of the country to the elections was as much proof of the seeming ever-present disparity between races as the racial violence that has been on the upswing throughout most of the country since last summer.
These electoral victories have not been the first victories in the war for racial equality, and they must not be the last. Let them serve as a milestone on the road to realization of that dream.
Ric Brack for the editorial board
Lower capital gains taxes would boost U.S. economy
George Bush and the Republicans have raised the white flag on the capital gains tax fight and accepted defeat in a battle they could have won. Unfortunately, they abandoned good economic policy in the process.
The abandoned proposal called for a cutting the capital gains tax from 33 percent to 15 percent. The value of an asset is the present value of its future income. When the expected income from an asset increases, its value increases, and there is a capital gain. Anything that causes the value of future income to go up, including a decline in the interest rate or increased inflation, can produce a capital gain.
Opponents scream at the top of their lungs that a capital gains tax cut is simply a tax cut for the rich. This argument immediately derails the issue. The question is not how much the wealthy should be taxed; this can be solved by a change in the income tax rate. The question is how a particular form of income should be taxed, and the answer is that it is being taxed too high.
The current rate taxes gains generated by inflation and gains on stocks that rise in value because of retained corporate earnings. Gains from inflation are not real income gains and gains from corporate earnings reflect reinvested income that already has been taxed. Consequently, the capital gains tax is unfair.
Furthermore, the Department of the Treasury estimates that an 18 percent cut in the capital gains tax will increase federal tax revenues by $4.8 billion in the first year. Obviously a lower rate would boost the economy, producing more tax revenues and more gains.
It is impossible to ignore the benefits of a capital gains tax cut once the flaws in the opposing argument are exposed. It is not a tax cut to the rich, and it would provide substantial new revenues.
The Bush administration already recognizes the capital gains tax cut as sound policy. It should again take up the fight and persuade Congress to forget the rhetoric and slash the capital gains tax.
Daniel Niemi for the editorial board
News staff
News staff
David Stewart...Editor
Ric Brack...Managing editor
Daniel Niemi...News editor
Candy Niemann...Planning editor
Stan Dahl...Editorial editor
Jennifer Corser...Campaign editor
Eline Sung...Sports editor
Laura Huar...Photo editor
Christine Winner...Arts/Features editor
Tom Eblen...General manager, news advisers
Business staff
Linda Prokop...Businesses manager
Debra Martin...Local advertising sales员
Jarro Medford...National/regional sales员
Jill Lowe...Marketing director
Tami Rank...Production manager
Carrie Slaninka...Assistant production manager
Margaret Townsend...Co-op manager
Elof Huntend...Creative manager
Christal Doe...Classified manager
Jeff Meesey...Teamsheet manager
Jeanne Hines...Sales and marketing adviser
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Point of diversity not just a button
"Yeah, the buttons are cool. They really look nice on backpacks, but I think mine is in my dresser drawer. Neat colors, too. Everyone should have one."
Those of us who work on the Celebrate Diversity Committee have heard statements like this all too often. That disturbs us. It is not that the buttons aren't cool, of course. It is just that the buttons weren't supposed to be the focus of our campaign. We had a little more in mind.
Let me tell you a story of one person's reaction to Celebrate Diversity. Last month I was in the Kansas Union at the tables where the Covenant Confronting Racism and Prejudice was displayed. Buttons were given to those who signed their names in agreement with the non-discriminatory policy of the covenant. A big, tough-looking guy stopped to read the covenant (I have to give him credit for stopping, most people didn't even do that). After he finished, he scowled and announced, "If it wasn't for sexual preference, I'd sign it."
Besides his incorrect use of English, his attitude really irritated me. Apparently, to him there are acceptable and unacceptable forms of diversity in human beings. That is a dangerous way to think. For example, using his primitive line of reasoning, even the Ku Klux Klan could have a covenant. It would affirm the glorious and expressive diversity present within the bigoted, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, heterosexual community. That doesn't include very many people in this world. In fact, it does not include the guy who was so vocal in the
Warren Hauk
Guest columnist
Union. You see, he had dark skin, dark hair and dark eyes. To the Ku Klux Klan he is a second-class citizen or maybe even a second-rate human being, just as he obviously views gay and lesbian people. The difference between the two is only a matter of degree.
This is in direct contrast to an essential part of what Celebrate Diversity is supposed to mean. Each one of us is "diverse" in our own way. Diversity in race, color, religion, gender, sexual preference, age and ability are just the easier types of all aspects of human differences to see. To exclude any one category is not only to hurt that group of people. It also limits you and your opportunity to expand the knowledge and insight of being a human and living in a country that was founded on individual freedom and worth. History has proven that if we cease to value certain parts of human diversity, more people are suspect, and sooner or later everyone is restricted. The Jews were not the only target of Nazi genocide, Jews, gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals and political dissenters were all sent to death camps simply for being different.
extreme as the Ku Klux Klan or Nazi Germany, racism and prejudice are alive and well among us. And some people here at KU feel it every day. That is why Celebrate Diversity exists. We, as part of the Minority Affairs Committee of Student Senate, seek to make people more aware of their own attitudes and to help them educate themselves to be more open minded and sensitive to all people. Celebrating diversity requires a positive, progressive attitude of facing the prejudice and fear that we all, to some degree, have of people who are different from ourselves. It is actively eliminating our tendencies to stereotype and put down other people, jokingly or not. It goes beyond a cool-looking button and a bunch of words called a covenant. It means changing ourselves from within.
Even if the University of Kansas is not as
The Celebrate Diversity Committee will be sponsoring a series of forums that will address issues facing minority groups on this campus. The forums will provide information about, and an open dialogue with, minority representatives. The first of these is titled "Women and Sexism" and will take place at 7 p.m. Nov. 16 in Dyche Auditorium. Other forum topics will include ethnoviolence, homophobia, racism, ethnocentric and religious discrimination. If you can attend all of the forums, that is great. If you can't, we challenge you to choose the subject that you know the least about and make a priority of attending that forum. Then you will have taken an active step toward celebrating diversity.
> Warren Hauk is a St. Charles, Mo., graduate student.
We can play the waiting game, too
I was standing in line at the Moscow Airport, and I was nervous. It was six years ago this month, and all I wanted to do was to leave, leave, leave. In the map pocket of my blue parka, the zipper hidden by a flap, have my notes gathered during weeks of traveling and talking. There was nothing wrong or revealing in the wad of yellow, legal-size paper. There were no names or addresses of dissenters; all had been committed to memory. But I knew that there didn't have to be anything wrong for Soviet customs to seize documents. Every innocent article I brought with me was handled, inspected and probed when I entered the country.
Now the line was moving swiftly, and soon I would be out. Then, it stopped. I was right behind another member of our group, a newspaper publisher from Red Wing, Minn. Phil Duff was explaining that, when we arrived in Leningrad last month, customs had seized some of his books. He had been told that such literature was not allowed in the Soviet Union but that it would be returned when he departed the country from Moscow. Now, he wanted his stuff. I groaned inwardly. All I wanted was to get myself and my notes on the Aeroflot flight out. Forget about the books, man. Where did Phil think he was, Minneapolis?
The customs official, a woman, looked puzzled. Phil explained again. Trying to pacify the man, she said the books would be mailed to him. No, he insisted, he had been told they would be returned when he left the country. She called an official
from the next counter. No, he couldn't help. Phil showed his receipt to them. The two studied it. Ah, yes, they agreed. They would keep the receipt and be sure to send him the books. In that case, said Phil, just make a photocopy for him. I had to smile at that. As if the Russians, who license even typewriters, kept photocopiers around for the convenience of visiting U.S. citizens.
The other line was proceeding along. We waited. And waited. Then the official returned with Phil's books, all wrapped up with his name on them in a neat package. Almost every day I spent in Russia, I was surprised by something, but nothing more surprising than that. Phil took the books, nodded goodbye, smiled, and went on, as if he really had been in Minneapolis. I followed him, swiftly and smoothly, in a daze of disbelief.
In 1944, Raoul Wallenberg had volunteered to leave safe, secure Stockholm and attach himself to the Swedish legation in Budapest. As soon as he arrived, he began renting buildings, declaring them Swedish territory and filling them with hunted Jews. He put together a staff of 300 volunteers to feed, clothe and hide the fugitives. He
gave them special Swedish passports as fast as he could sign his name. "This is Swedish territory," he told an armed patrol that tried to seize his charges. "If you want to take them, you will have to shoot me first." When his passports were declared invalid by the Hungarian government, he warned of fictitious diplomatic repercussions, and the German authorities also criticized citizens' off deportation trains and out of death marches. By bluff, pretext and threat, he managed to save the 20,000 Jews in his custody.
Raoul Wallenberg must have breathed a sigh of relief when the Russians arrived, not knowing that they would accomplish what the Nazis couldn't. He was last seen Jan. 17, 1945, leaving for Red Army headquarters at Dobrecnet to get help. The Soviets defeated them in May 1945, and in 1967, when they announced he had died of a heart attack in Moscow's dreaded Lubyanka prison 10 years earlier.
But other prisoners have reported seeing Raoul Wallenberg alive and in reasonably good condition as late as 1975. He would be 77 today. Nina Lagergen of the Raoul Wallenberg Association in Stockholm believes he is still somewhere in the Soviet gular being held in isolation.
It took 45 years for the KGB to find Raoul Wallenberg's papers. Now, let them find him. They found him, but they haven't abandoned others; we are not going to abandon him or his memory. Phil Duff has the right idea.
▶ Paul Greenberg is editorial page editor for the Pine Bash (Ark.) Commercial.
CAMP UHNEELY
BY SCOTT PATTY