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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Tuesday, Sept. 24, 1985
Untamed discrimination
“Back of the bus”
"A woman's place is in the home."
"He's one of those."
All terms of discrimination that everyone has heard before. All terms that most reasonable folk take for what they're worth.
Not much.
We've come so far.
And so we see ourselves and our society as free of discrimination — or at least moving that way. We're pure or close to it.
Listen to the story of Simha Ruben, and it doesn't take long to realize how far we have yet to go.
Ruben, Lawrence graduate student, is neither male nor female. He was born with neither internal nor external sex organs.
He is asexual, although he says he tends toward the male role. He's also a human being.
Ruben has battled sexual discrimination for many of his 23 years
His story stands as a lesson for all. It shows how cunning the Animal of discrimination can be.
It lurks in corners of legal forms and job applications. It crouches in the shadows of the minds of the unthinking — and even those who pride themselves in having open minds.
Just when we think we have the Animal on the run or perhaps even beaten, it leaps out — and embarrasses us.
So it is with Ruben's storv.
maze of bureaucracy before receiving an exception from signing a small card at the post office should embarrass all Americans.
As well should other forms of discrimination — obvious and not so obvious — that still lurk in our society.
Almost always, the world isn't as black and white as we think it is. That's why we have colleges, universities, books and churches.
Sometimes, we don't use the tools of learning to their fullest.
The results? Racist groups, sexist jokes and religious nobberv.
They educate us, open our minds and show us that the world doesn't look entirely like the neighborhood where we grew up.
Ruben's story is one of the tools left for us to pry open our minds an inch or two further.
In Ruben's case, it's applications and legal forms that ask: "Check the appropriate box: Male or female."
It will take more than a high fashion music video to cut it in prime time.
My Emmy Vice
Divestment is the best way for foreign countries to shout their outrage at apartheid.
Take the fabled "Miami Vice." It lost to "Cagney and Lacey" as this year's best television drama. The winner appeals to a thoughtful audience. "Miami Vice" is mind candy.
The state board overseeing the pension system for state government workers has
It's an example of how far we still have to go before we chase the Animal out from its last corner, it's last shadow.
Last week, the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System board approved divesting $23 million in pension money from U.S. companies doing business in South Africa.
Pressure point
But Vice's stereo soundtrack and fast-paced action will continue to attract loyal viewers, even without a credible plot.
"It's not 'Would you please divest?' but 'divestiture now,'" LaDale George, chairman of the Student Senate University Affairs Committee, said recently about a proposed resolution that comes before the full Senate this week.
The resolution instructs the Senate to demand that the Kansas University Endowment Association divest from businesses doing business in South Africa.
The proposal, a revival of legislation put forth last year, realizes the need to strike hard at apartheid, South Africa's pernicious system of racial segregation.
A country, and to a lesser extent, a university, that thinks a weak constructive engagement policy will attack government-sanctioned segregation in South Africa, turns an apathetic check to a festering problem.
taken its run at apartheid. The Endowment Association should be next.
Disvestment turns the financial screws on South African businessmen. They, in turn, apply pressure to President Pietter W. Botha and his stubborn government.
With death tolls growing daily, children whipped in the streets and respected leaders tossed in jail, most black South Africans doubtless would agree: Any economic hardships would be a bargain price for justice and liberty.
Divestment's opponents say the tactic will hurt black South Africans more than it will South Africa's government.
Many are fond of comparing South Africa's apartheid to America's legal and cultural segregation of blacks.
Perhaps if other countries had taken harder lines against the crimes of slavery and Jim Crow laws, America would have dismantled those peculiar institutions long before it did.
The University Affairs committee knows that the push for divestment must intensify.
Rob Karwath Editor
Editor
John Hanna Michael Totty
Managing editor Editorial editor
Lauretta McMillen
Campus editor
Susanne Shaw
General manager, news adviser
Duncan Calhoun Business manager
Brett McCabe Sue Johnson
Retail sales Campus sale
Megan Burke
National/Co-op sales
John Oberzan
Sales and marketing adviser
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Reagan trims foes' sails on sanctions
WASHINGTON — There is a maneuver in sailboat racing in which one skipper pulls ahead by cutting off the supply of wind to his opponent's sails. It can be risky, but done right, it wins races.
Stealing his opponents' wind is what President Reagan did on South African sanctions.
By lifting some of the least punitive elements of the sanctions bill passed by the House, which the Senate also will most likely pass, and putting them into an executive order, the president managed in one stroke to defeat, or at least delay, congressional action against the Pretoria government and to demonstrate that it is the White House, not the Congress, that makes U.S. foreign policy.
Arnold Sawislak
The advocates of tough action against South Africa, who had been working all summer to draft legislation with more bipartisan appeal
United Press International
to withstand a veto, had the skids greased to beat down a Senate filibuster, pass the bill worked out by a conference committee and, by all signs, override an expected presidential veto.
Reagan's action left them dead in the water.
Senators on whom they had been counting for support against adamant White House refusal to budge from its soft approach to South African apartheid defected the moment the president acted.
Many were Republicans who had no real stomach for a fight with their own president and Reagan gave them a reason not to get into one.
There is little disagreement that Reagan moved because he was going to take a licking on the sanctions bill.
By imposing sanctions under executive order, Reagan succeeded in asserting his control over foreign policy, was able to select the action he considered least objectionable in the bill — a kind of back door item vetσ — and retained control over the actual action that will be taken against South Africa. That includes the right to suspend the sanctions when he decides sufficient progress has been made. It is a good bet that would be less than the congressional critics of apartheid would be willing to settle for.
That's just one of the reasons the congressional sanctions faction was so hopping mad about the executive order.
The other, and some think the most important cause of the anger, is that
Reagan very neatly cut off their wind in a race they thought they were going to win.
There is a final consideration here. It is possible that sanctions, whether imposed by Reagan or enacted by Congress, already are irrelevant.
The South African government began looking for some way to take the wind out of its opponents' sails even before the U.S. sanctions were a certainty and found that its efforts — even moving toward abolition of the hated "pass laws" — were not materially easing the explosive situation.
Ever since the last Russian czar was deposed, scholars have noted that entrenched governments that offer reforms in the face of impending revolution often find themselves hastening rather than slowing their own fall from power. That could be what is happening in South Africa now.
Mailbox
Angry rock fans rip warning labels
This letter is in rebuttal to Mr. Walter's assumption (an assumption shared by several music reform groups) that all rock music "encourages young people to dress savagely, take dangerous drugs, rebel against the establishment, hate their parents and teachers and regurgitate vulgarity in the streets."
it seems to us that this is taking the blame off of the home and using rock 'n' roll as a scapegoat. Granted, this general assumption does apply to a small number of groups. However, the idea of achieving achievements in rock 'n' roll for any small group of censors to ban or even blacklist the whole industry.
Barbara McCann
Olate freshman
and 17 residents
Ellsworth Hall 10th floor
'Ideally, music is created to satisfy the performer's needs, not the listener's.'
The debate about rock music censorship is unresolved — but should not be. The sides have been clearly established — pro or anti-censorship, pro- or anti-free speech. Unfortunately, some individuals confound the issue with inaccurate information and faulty reasoning.
Evan Walter makes bold assertions based upon flawed conceptions about rock censorship. Not only are Walter's facts incorrect, they are non-existent.
When Walter discusses his theories concerning rock's place in the marketplace of ideas, he makes an assertion: that rock is mindless fluff containing only falsehood. Walter has obviously not listened to the music he maligns. If he had done so, he would have discovered the ideas about "government, science and philosophy" that he craves.
The position Walter takes to defend censorship is insipid. He states, "Labeling records would only be a minor form of censorship."Ah, only a "minor" violation of the constitutional guarantee of free speech!
Walter continues, "freedom of expression would be just as dangerous when taken to extremes, producing total decadence and anarchy." At this point he crosses an ethical boundary. Total freedom of expression, barring criminal defamation, could have been the constitution sought to protect when the first amendment was drafted.
The warning label Walker advocates is flawed. Parents, as a general
rule, simply do not buy records for their children.
Walter is indicative of the police state advocates, commonly referred to as the "New Right," who feel that a return to "good morals" is a cure-all for trumped-up socialists. The movement an affront to the free citizen.
Philip A. Michelbach Goddard freshman
In response to a recent editorial by Evan Walter concerning rock censorship, we wish to express views that he overlooked.
In regard to Frank Zappa, Walter feels that Zappa "wants his views imposed on other parents nationwide." Reccently, Zappa said, "I have no desire to inflict it on people who don't want to consume it. If you don't like it, there's all those other names on the list."
Walter makes Zappa sound like a drug-crazed idiot. Although his lyrics are questionable, his intricate music has received praise by critics of many musical genres; this includes a nomination for a Pulitzer Prize for his string quartets.
We don't necessarily enjoy Zappa's music, but we don't believe in censoring it. We also understand the concern for a need of restraint of certain music. Censorship, however, isn't the best answer. Riddled with impracticality, it would be almost impossible to supervise, maintain and enforce. People are going to listen to the music anyway. We don't feel that a small group of people should decide the morality of rock music.
Most important, we find it difficult to understand how Walter generalizes about rock music by saying it "isn't based on complex ideas for intellectuals to study." This notion is absurd. Emerson, Lake and Palmer's fusion of rock and classical music, as in their renditions of Mussorgskys's, Copland's and Bach's works, offers intellects much to study.
There still exist artists who create music — in any form or style — to express themselves. Ideally, music is not a subject of the performer's needs, not the listener's.
Finally, censorship only leads to
more censorship; we may as well censor newscasts and newspaper articles. On the other hand, let's censor editorials written by people who don't have all the facts.
Tim Harrison
Overland Park sophomore
M. Chang
Wichita sophomore
"The marketplace of ideas was meant for sophisticated ideas government, science and philosophy. Rock 'n' roll however, isn't based on complex ideas for intellectuals to study. Rather, it's a form of entertainment for young people." Kansan staff columnist Evan Walter asserts. Here is another example of what might be called the ignorance complex. Alas, yet another self-righteous conservative attacks a subject that he knows little or nothing about.
Rock 'n' roll isn't just a form of entertainment for young people. Rock 'n' rollers such as Springsteen, Sting, Peart and Dylan write songs that deal with topics that are very real — our governments, our society, the problems that we face today.
What is putting a label on a record
to do? It might screen out some
offensive lyrics. But isn't that restricting one's right to express oneself? Won't some of the quality be screened out with the questionable.
The way the system works now is fine. People can exercise their discretion through their pocketbook. Buy what you like and let us buy what we like. Don't restrict our market. Think about it—a future generation growing up listening to Lawrence Welk, Frightening, isn't it?
Mahi de Silva Wichita senior
How are warning labels good for rock music, Mr. Walter? Will they curb vulgarity found in rock music? Warning labels only warn of the lyrical content of an album; they do not stop a young person from buying that album.
To make a simple point, rock warning labels are worthless, they will raise album production costs and they are for women like Tipher Gore who, if it seems, cannot detect whether a rock album is vulgar or clean by looking at its cover as she's doing her Christmas shopping for her daughter.
I side with Frank Zappa. I think that it's time biddie hens biss condemning other peoples' morals without looking at their own.
R. H. Prestridge Lenexa senior
Hats off to Zobulon Paul Mamabol for exposing Victor Goodpasture's ignorance in regards to South African affairs. It is now completely obvious to me that Mr. Goodpasture is not making rational assertions, but is passing value judgments on a situation of which he has no knowledge.
Columnist relies on beliefs, not facts
Just one example of Goodpasture's misleading persuasion techniques can be found in his second column regarding divestment. In it, Goodpasture quotes Gatsha Buheleza, a South African tribal chief, as saying, "to exert pressures which do more harm than good to the oppressor than to the oppressors is madness."
Without a doubt, it would be ridiculous to disagree with such a broad statement. However, Good-pasture uses general assertions, such as this, to convince readers of the validity of his own arguments.
Nowhere does Buthelezi cite dissection as the "harmful pressure being exerted." yet Goodpasture manages to imply this by using such a general assertion, one that is applicable to many situations, in support of his opinions.
Mr. Goodpasture contends that "the most logical answer to end aparineth is continued Western influence on the South African economy and continued diplomatic pressure."
Perhaps if Goodpasture were to lay aside his paranoida and temper his beliefs with a bit of empathy, then he could talk about logical solutions. I contend that Goodpasture ought to spend same time re-evaluating his reasoning to ensure he can evaluate a situation that is obviously foreign to him.
Sarah Trummel
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Saran Trumpet West Hartford, Conn. sophomore