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WILKINS: The victory of a proposition to end with racial consideration in college admission tests in Michigan shows institutional racism isn't going away. See kansan.com for more opinions and Free for All comments
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2006
WWW.KANSAN.COM
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
PAGE 7A
OUR VIEW
Post-game celebration makes KU fans look featherbrained
Dear Jayhawk goalpost revelers:
Your featherbrained faux pas has relegated the goalpost celebration to meaninglessness after 6-5 Kansas beat 7-5 Kansas State on Saturday.
We are not surprised that your actions marked the first time this season that goalposts were torn down in the Big 12 Conference; you dopes disassembled them three times last season.
You have successfully embarrassed the rest of us with your lack of college football savvy. OK, the goalpost dismemberment was warranted after we beat Nebraska last season. But Kansas
State? The Wildcats beat Texas, but Kansas State is far removed from the Top 25.
You halfwits decided it would be a good idea to topple the posts when your team was favored by 2 1/2 points. OK, if Kansas beats Texas or Oklahoma at Memorial Stadium you dolts could fell the goalposts. But the celebration would mean nothing because you have made it a cheap novelty.
Instead of wasting time and money by ripping down the $10,000 posts, you should study the rivalry, about which you seem to know nothing. Here's a start: The Jayhawk football team has beaten the Wildcats two
umes in the past three years and we hold the all-time series record at 63-36-5.
You could have congratulated our team along with some other fans who rushed the field. Instead, you morons chose to commit your addle-brained act against the will of your booing fellow fans.
You fools make our school look ridiculous. Let's hope you numskulls find a classy way to celebrate next time.
Steve Lynn for the editorial board
>> COMMENTARY
When depression takes over
Sam leans over the steering wheel and kisses his girlfriend goodnight. She hops out of the car and just before walking through her front door she turns and with a hopeful smile says, "Hey, try to have a good day tomorrow."
I'll try, Sam thinks with a heavy sih as he drives down the street.
sign as he drives down the street.
He walks into his apartment, steps over a few empty pizza boxes and soda cans into the living room, where his roommates sit, battling out the fury in.
BY YELENA PAVLIK
KANSAN COLUMNIST
OPINION@KANSAN.COM
out their rates in the latest edition of Halo.
after two paragraphs concentration is not even a remote option.
"Come play with us",his best friend shouts over the sound of gunfire mixed with rap music.
Feeling defeated, he clicks off the light and lies in bed, unable to sleep
"Nah, I'm tired."
For more information about depression or for ways to get help, go to the National Institute of Mental Health Web site www.nimh.nih.gov.
"Sam, come on, you can't be serious, you haven't hung out with us in weeks," another roommate pleads.
for the third night in a row.
Sam shrugs his shoulders. "I can't, I still have to study for my history test tomorrow," he says and walks into his room, slamming the door.
He picks up his Western Civilization textbook and his last calculus exam fails out, marked with a bright red 58 percent. He always used to ace that subject without even trying.
He slumps down on his bed and attempts to read the chapter, but
Sam, like 18.8 million American adults and 15 percent of college students, is suffering from depression.
Depression an often misunderstood term, refers not only to a common period of unhappiness because of a minor setback in everyday life, but to a disruptive and dangerous illness.
Symptoms, often unnoticed by friends and family and even the individual suffering, vary by case and can include insomnia, fatigue, irritability, extreme mood alterations, forgetfulness, restlessness and changes in appetite. The condition also often results in physical symptoms such as digestive disorders and headaches.
Depression will be the most
common health problem worldwide in 2020 and the largest killer after heart disease, according to studies done by the World Health Organization. It contributes to coronary disease, alcoholism, substance abuse and the onset of other fatal illnesses.
The source of depression is not always clear, but can often stem from stressful or traumatic events such as death or divorce within family, childhood trauma, family history of the illness, chronic stress and anxiety, or a chemical imbalance where the brain lacks neurotransmitters such as serotonin.
Unlike other health problems, in which seeking medical attention is the most prevalent of solutions, 80 percent of those suffering from depression go untreated, leading to a 15 percent yearly suicide rate, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
Sam clicks on the light by his night stand, slowly fumbles for his cell phone, which he has been ignoring for weeks, and punches in his girlfriend's number.
"Hey, what are you still doing up?" she asks in a drowsy but optimistic tone.
Sam takes a deep breath and slowly exhales into the phone, "I need help."
Pavilk is a Plano, Texas, sophomore in journalism.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Fan behavior an embarrassment
I'm a University of Kansas alumnus who is proud of the school I went to — at least most of the time. I know when you're in college, it's easy to think you're in your own little world. But there's a whole other world out there that watches and judges what students in Lawrence do.
This business of tearing down the goalposts must stop.
It's times like Saturday's game when I'm not proud to represent the University of Kansas. The actions of those students are indefensible at this point. I just throw up my hands and say, "I know, I know."
from grace over the past few years, I would have expected that the students treat the victory like any other notch in the team's belt, and not some excuse to humiliate the more civilized fans who can handle a victory like grown-ups.
See, I live in Kansas City now, where there's a potent mix of not only KU supporters, but also Kansas State and Missouri fans.
They don't chide the University so much for the basketball team's first-round exits. No, they're far more critical of the fact that KU students insist on tearing down the goalposts after even the most marginal of victories.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find my atlas to figure out where Towson is so I can go vandalize some cars after the KU basketball game.
For as much as I hear KU fans
deride K-State football for their fall
Steve Vockrodt School of Journalism '05
Dave Ruigh, associate opinion editor
864-4924 or druidhukansan.com
Frank Tankard opinion editor
864-4924 or flankard@kansan.com
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》 SUBMISSIONS
The Kansan welcomes letters to the editor and guest columns submitted by students, faculty and alumni. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length, or relect all submissions.
For any questions, call Frank Tankard or Dave Rugh
at 864-814 or e-mail opionen@kanan.com.
Institutional racism alive and well
General questions should be directed to the editor at editor at kansasan.
ORGANIC CHEMISTS HAVE DEVELOPED A CURE FOR INSOMNIA: ORGANIC CHEMISTRY
COMMENTARY
There used to be a time in America, a much simpler time, when white supremacists said what they really meant. In the 1960s, Alabama Gov. George Wallace made his case against racial equality by hiring a leading member of the Ku Klux Klan as his chief speech-writer. He campaigned for president in 1968 on a bluntly racist platform "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."
His speechwriter also coined several other, much less elegant catchphrases to describe his opponents. I'll leave those to your imagination.
trying to think of a way that the government has disproportionately benefited whites in this country, try looking around at who you're taking classes with. Despite the fact that the University of Kansas is a public institution, whites (most of them from wealthy suburbs) outnumber people of color nine to one.
Faced with the moral and political superiority of the civil rights movement, Wallace and his partners lost most of the battles they fought during those years, but they never allowed their racist vision of the future to die. In the years since his death, Wallace's spiritual descendants have taken that vision and scored major victories by adapting it to today's changed environment.
And if you think that those numbers are reflective of society at large, you might want to get out a little more often.
Case in point: Michigan's Proposition 2.
The spirit of George Wallace is alive and well in the 21st century. He just found a better speechwriter.
But in the confused language of present-day American politics, all is not what it seems. In reality, Prop. 2 was aimed at dismantling the last remaining traces of affirmative action from Michigan's public
If you missed it amidst all the other election news, Prop. 2 was a ballot initiative aimed at, in the words of its backers, outlawing "racial preferences" in college admissions. It passed overwhelmingly on November 7, with 58 percent of the electorate casting their ballots in favor.
BY BEN WILKINS
KANSAN COLUMNIST
OPINION@KANSAN.COM
The argument against affirmative action is centered on the idea that non-whites do not have a rightful claim as Americans. It has been cloaked in the misleading language of "colorblindness" and "meritocracy", but the core doctrine of racism has remained.
If anything, affirmative action has never been able to go far enough. Black and Hispanic Americans, as well as a significant chunk of whites who have seen their living standards decline in recent years, still lag far behind in all the markers of equality employment status, income, homeownership, education level and so forth. Only by recognizing that we as Americans are responsible to one another — that we are all in this together — can these conditions be dealt with sufficiently.
life. No wonder the vast majority of whites supported it, while six out of seven blacks were opposed.
Until the initiative passed, Michigan had used race as one factor among many in determining who would be able to attend state universities. Like opponents of affirmative action everywhere, the sponsors of Prop.2 argued that such considerations of race actually end up discriminating against the majority group — that is to say, against white people.
By this logic, it is affirmative action that is inherently racist, while "colorblind" admissions based purely on academic achievement ("merit") are fair and just.
Affirmative action was and still is intended as a corrective to long-standing government favoritism toward whites in housing, employment and educational opportunities, among other things. These forms of discrimination stretch back decades and continue to this day. Viewed from this standpoint, "affirmative action for whites," as Columbia professor Ira Katznelson calls it, existed long before it did for blacks or anyone else.
Now, let's cut through the fat and recognize what this issue is really about.
Wilkins is a Kansas City, Mo., senior in history.
FREE FOR ALL
Call 864-0500
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
We don't corrupt Kansas. Kansas corrupts us.
properly
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To the guy I had sex with on the hill: Oh no. Not wow.
To the guy who just went flying off his skateboard: Thank you. You made my day.
that I could get off of the roll.
Brandon Rush needs to learn that he is not too cool to warm up
As much money as I spend on tuition, I would expect toilet paper
According to Wikipedia, Julian Wright is the biggest bad-ass on the planet
Dear Lawrence: Your couch and bed suck. I'm never staying over
again
I just saw someone walking with a cape. Lose the cape, bro.
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The reason I rev my engine is because if I pay $500 for an exhaust system, I want to hear it.
Thanks to the boy that suffered through Project Runway just to
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LETTER GUIDELINES
No. 3 in the nation? Fooled me.
SAYHAV
I can't wait until Thanksgiving. No.1 Florida vs. the unranked
Preseason All-American my ass.
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In light of all the religious protest, should change our motto to "kansas. As sinful as you think."
I was walking up the stairs in Fraser and my little brother fell up the stairs.
That is it. I'm never buying a Sports Illustrated again.
Maximum Length: 200 word limit
Indude: Author's name and telephone number;
class, hometown (student); position (fa-vi-tem member/staff); phone number (will not be published)
SUBMIT LETTERS TO
111 Stauffer - First Flat
1435 Jasper Blvd.
Lawrence, KS 66045
(785) 844-8191; oppoining@iamsan.com
Bring back the old "Beware of the Phog" sign. The new one sucks.
Dear KU basketball team: Stop reading your press clippings.
GUEST COLUMN GUIDELINES
Maximum Length: 500 word limit
include: Author's name; class, hometown (student); position (faculty member/staff); phone number (will not be published)
Also: The Kansan will not print guest columns that attack a reporter or another columnist.
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EDITORIAL BOARD
Jonathan Kealing, Erick R. Schmidt, Gabiella Souza, Frank Tankard, Dave Ruigh, Steve Lynn, McKay Stangler and Louis Mora
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