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University Daily Kansan/Wednesday, October 30, 1991
OPINION
Garbagewatch
Recycling campaign should be hailed
It only takes one year for our small Lawrence population of 55,000 to amass 15 to 20 tons of aluminum cans in a landfill.
If the city recycled this vast wasteland of cans, an annual $100,000 could be drawn into the local economy. Most importantly, recycling cans could save our land from the thousands of years it would take for the metal to decompose.
That'sallthemorereasonforthepublictoapplaudPatriciaMarvin,Lawrencewastereductionandrecyclingcoordinator,whowillbelaunchingacitywiderecyclingcampaignin
an effort to make recycling more successful.
Obtaining city money for four downtown recycling bins is one strategy included in the campaign. Placing the four recycling bins on alternating blocks should motivate people to recycle by having such convenience.
However, more businesses are needed to transport the aluminum to the recycler. If Marvin's campaign for downtown recycling bins becomes a reality, she said that members of Community Living Opportunities could transport the aluminum collected
downtown to the recycler.
Our community should show its thanks and support for these efforts by making further commitments to the recycling movement. These downtown aluminum recycling bins would be a great start, but the city needs to begin finding solutions for the other kinds of recyclable material.
It is hoped that someday, before we drown in our own garbage, solutions to the problem will exist, and everyone will recycle.
Duke for governor?
Jennifer Tanous for the editorial board
Former Klansman's past would haunt GOP
Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke is causing quite a stir in the Republican Party.
Duke has announced that his views are most closely aligned with the GOP. He also said that he expected the backing of Louisiana's Republican Party as he looks toward the Nov. 16. runoff election for governor.
But representatives of the national Republican Party have denounced Duke's association with the GOP.
White House chief of staff John Sununu has said, "David Duke is not the Republican nominee. He is an individual who has chosen to call himself a Republican. He was not supported by the party there. He is not supported by the national party."
Opposition to Duke has been so strong that White House and national party strategists convinced Louisiana's incumbent Gov. Buddy Roemer to switch from the Democratic Party to the
GOP in hopes of blocking Duke's run for office.
This plan backfired, however, when the state party endorsed another Republican candidate who earned just enough votes in the primary to keep Roemer out of the runoff.
Duke now faces Democrat Edwin Edwards in the runoff. Edwards currently holds a majority of African-American support in the race, with Duke earning strong white support.
Now the GOP will be forced to choose between backing Duke or backing Edwards, who the GOP has long considered excessively liberal. An alternative to backing either candidate would be to sit out the campaign, but the GOP had been counting on Louisiana in its
Duke's true level of support is difficult to gauge, however, because many people are hesitant to support him publicly but are willing to support him in the privacy of the voting booth.
endeavor toward party realignment in the South.
The GOP should continue to deny support to Duke. It should not minimize his past by considering his politics.
Duke left the KKK in 1980 as a grand wizard. He has since tried to downplay his involvement with the KKK, but when he left the organization, he was a 30-year-old adult. His association with the group should not be characterized as a misguided rebellion of youth.
Duke has apparently learned the nuances of covert racism and has learned to adamantly avoid questions about his past by reciting his plans to help the common man. But David Duke has not changed.
The Louisiana Republican party shouldfollow the GOP'slead in denouncing Duke. His past should not be overlooked or underestimated.
Julie Wasson for the editorial board
'Dances with Wolves doesn't deserve praise
Fivehundredyearsafter Columbus, American Indians have apparently been "discovered" costar, this time by actor Kevin Costner.
Citing the popularity of Costner's Academy Award-winning film, "Dances with Wolves," the November issue of Redbook magazine declares that Hollywood is poised to make 1924 the year of the American Indian. Eight new films allegedly about American Indians are currently in the works.
I remain baffled as to why "Wolves" has been hailed by many critics and American Indians as the film that redeems us poor ol' Indians. Maybe it's because the film's makers hired actual Indians rather than whites with painted skin for supporting roles and extras. Maybe it's because the Sioux in this movie are allowed to speak their language rather than Hollywood Indianese, i.e. "How Uph" etc. Or maybe it's because the filmmakers think they are making amends for Hollywood guilt about John Wayne westerns.
At closer examination, however, "Wolves" is not at all a movie about American Indians. It is, rather, another story about a white man discovering Indians. It is a white man's on- and off-screen fantasy of playing Indians, using them as a metaphor for nature. And as everyone in America knows, those quaint, noble savages are just what a man needs to discover himself and get back to nature.
The theme of the frontier as a voyage of discovery is essentially a white man's story. Inasmuch as they are there to help Costner/Dunbar discover his "frontier within," the Indians in "Wolves, I am embarrassed to say, are relegated to playing Tonto and Pocahontas for the white hero.
Nor should it make anyone feel better that "Wolves" attempts a sympathetic portrait of American Indians by stereotyping whites. Except for Costner's LL John Dunbar, the white men depicted in "Wolves" simply are abominations unto the Lord. They are slobful, farting, butted, and footoons or hateful masses of blubber, whiskers, tobacco and traildust.
These boys are set up to win our hearts in this fashion; they kill Dunbain's trusty horse, steal his trusty journal, beat the hell out of him for being a traitor and to top it all off, they Sock the worms, the Woolwolf in this movie.
When they speak, it soon becomes apparent that they were written to have all the grace and charm of those Black Hills rednecks that filgoergs last encountered in "Deliverance": "Ya returned Injn. didn't va?"
In contrast to the other white men in "Wolves," Costner's L.t.Dunbar seems to possess some kind of mystical connection to nature, as well as to animals and Indians, both of whom instinctively recognize his goodness.
Dunbar dons a buckskin and feathers and, with amazing ease and speed, he "turns Indian" and masters the Indian world. Dunbar is soon saving lives, leading the tribe to herds of buffalo, speaking Lakota fluently and winning the hearts of the entire tribe with his tiresome, milk-and-cookery-gelly-gee-whiz humor. Some persons form ends, one is tempted to conclude that Dunbar has become a better Indian than the Indians. Such an unintended (?) message of white superiority does not bother those who praise the film.
The Sioux honor Dunbar by giving him a name, the unfortunate Dances With Wolves. This name has to be a reflection of the love affair Americans have for English translations of Indian names. Otherwise, it is a complete puzzle as to which words are written. Evidently, there were no Lakota words for "Wants to Play Inan" or "The White Guy With An Identity Crisis."
And if it weren't bad enough that these movies allegedly about Indians require a hero here, before "Wolves" ends, our familiar old friend, the kid
Lorraine
Jessepe
Guest
columnist
napped white woman, also rears her ugly head. In order to have good or bad Indians, you see, there must be a white in the film to teach us so. As Michael Hilger writes "In the American Indian in Film," "their (the Indians)' goodness or badness is always measured by their reactions to whites, never by their intrinsic nature as American Indians."
Nor does it trouble those who praise "Wolves" that the strongest role for an Indian woman in "Wolves" is not an Indian woman at all, but the kidnapped white woman. Like Lt. Dariar, Mary McDonnell's character, "Stands With Fists," whirls in and concludes the Indian way of life.
Coster and the makers of "Wolves" obviously think they have made a politically correct movie because the film's pre-hippe white characters teach us about the good Indians. They are utterly obcious to the patronizing, paternalistic film they have managed to make.
At one point in the film, for instance, Dunbar's voice-over narration comes dangerously close to sounding like an episode of Mutual of Omaha's "Wild Kingdom." Like Marlin Perkins observing the mating habits of the wart hog, Coster/Dunbar treats us that Indians care about community and family (Duh!), and they even have senses of humor.
(Oh, those cute Indians! Oh those quaint savages!)
Harmony, Dunbar tells us, is the one word that describes the Indians. Dunbar then proceeds to intrude on this harmony by supplying his "good" Indians with guns so they can all kill the "bad" Indians more efficiently.
This is the same film Indians have praised?
"Dances With Wolves" exhibits the same kind of behind-the-scenes racism that has marked past Hollywood Indian films. The history of the film industry clearly shows that it will not make Indian-theme movies without a white star, hero or central character. Film stars such as Dustin Hoffman, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Burt Reynolds, Raquel Welch and even Elvis Presley have either been cast as Indians, kidnapped whites, half-breeds or whites encountering
A white star, it appears, not only makes these films bankable in the eyes of Hollywood, but also seems necessary to legitimize the messages of these films to white audiences: Indians are a righteous people because Kevin Costner has now recognized them as such.
Many Indians, however, have heaped praise on Cormoran and the film for sparking interest in American Indian culture. No doubt some Indians in this country, including those who worked in the film, are flattered by Hollywood's attention. As soon as they get their heads out of the clouds, I hope they will realize that they always possessed human value; I hope they did not survive hundreds of years of social and political upheaval to let their lives be validated in 1991 by a good white man.
As an artist, Costner certainly has the right to make a movie about Indians if he wants to, but in the meantime, there is "Dances With Wolves." As time passes, "Wolves" will take its rightful place on a dusty shelf next to the Billy Jack movies and John westernes.
Lorraine Jessepe is a Topeka senior majoring in journalism. She is a Potawatomi-Oneida Indian.
KANSAN STAFF
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TOM EBLEN
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Last Hurrahs
by Mike Romane
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