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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
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Black history has a story to tell—not only to blacks but to all Americans. It's a story of 200 years of slavery, followed by segregation, discrimination and an ascent of a race out of despair.
Time to remember
It's a story of the South and of the North. It's a story of the bloody Civil War, of people and their attitudes toward people of different skin colors. It's a story of martyrs, bigots and racists. A tale of sit-ins, bus boycotts and walks for freedom.
February is adorned with the title Black History Month, a time to look back and see how far the nation has come and how far it has to go.
It is necessary to remind ourselves of the years of black suffering so that the negative passages in the story can not repeat themselves.
A story that too few understand and too few care to remember.
Black History Month is a time to recognize great men and women of the past and their contributions to a country which did not recognize them as citizens for so long.
Remember Crispus Attucks, who led the patriots to the Boston Massacre. Remember Harriet Tubman, an escaped slave who risked her freedom to help other slaves escape. Remember Sojourner Truth, who shouted for women's rights.
It was the philosophies of Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. that helped prick a nation's conscience and awaken it to the fact that the time had come for the nation to do something about its hypocrisy.
King rallied a nonviolent movement. Malcom X called for a separate state and Marcus Garvey proposed a movement back to Africa.
Remember Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington. Their words were fiery; their message, divided, but with one aim: to correct the indignities suffered by blacks in their time.
Hysteria returned for a repeat performance in Kokomo, Ind., last week. A 14-year-old boy, who was barred from school after he contracted AIDS from tainted blood, was allowed to return to school Friday for the first time in more than a year.
These people's words and actions made black history an important thread in the intricate fabric of the history of our nation.
Unfounded fears
His triumph was short-lived. Once again, hysteria swept through the community and many parents kept their children home in protest and in fear of AIDS. Before the day was over, a judge had issued a restraining order to keep the boy, Ryan White, out of school again.
AIDS researchers have stated time and again that AIDS is transmitted through sexual contact, contaminated needles, blood or blood products and from an infected mother to an unborn child. Even prolonged kissing is not considered dangerous.
The fact is, not one person who has had normal, close, daily contact with a person
with AIDS has contracted the illness. Family members have lived with AIDS victims for several years — hugging, kissing, sharing the same eating utensils and in a few cases even using the same toothbrush. None of them got AIDS.
People with AIDS are not lepers. They do not have the bubonic plague, polio, mumps, measles or scarlet fever. The county health official ruled that White poses no threat to students or teachers. All research has reached the same conclusion.
Yes, there is much that is unknown about AIDS. But its mode of transmission is very well documented. And that mode of transmission does not include the kind of contact that would occur in school.
The attitude of the parents, and especially the judge, is shameful. Issuing a restraining order to keep Ryan White out of school only adds to the hysteria by legitimating it.
Driven by desperation
He then lit a newspaper, touched it to his clothes and exploded in a fire.
A man, depressed and unemployed, doused himself in gasoline as he stood outside the gates of the White House last week.
The man, Orland Payne McCafferty, left a three-page letter in his car addressed to President Reagan. He expressed his disappointment with the economy and his delayed Social Security retirement benefits.
"Let me light the way," he wrote on the last line of the letter.
In his hometown of Lee's Summit, Mo., McCaffery was not thought of as a lunatic indulging in civil disobedience.
Friends and relatives described him as a hard worker who was not particularly involved in politics.
His frustration reflects the frustrations of other unemployed people looking for work in despair.
His desperate act reminds us that not all is well simply because the economy is at a high. Many still are poor, others are homeless, down and out of work.
McCafferty sacrificed himself so that those in the White House would take notice. His act is tragic, but it should not be taken in vain and written off as a meaningless act by a demented human being.
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News staff
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Monday, Feb. 24, 1986
Mailbox
Heroes, not wimps
Concerning Chris Shannon's letter of Feb. 14 about civil disobedience and divestment; I believe this criticism of protesters on this campus is wrong. Those who have the power to fight injustice and do not should be held partially responsible for it. (May I point out the Kitty Genovese incident of Queens, N.Y.)
South African injustice remains a problem for two reasons. The first is laziness. Some of us don't like injustice but we think "my schedule is too full," or, "I don't want to be threatened with expulsion," or, "showing my face at a rally won't make a difference."
The usefulness of civil disobedience lies not in breaking the law but in people power. Those who spent even a few minutes listening to their rights being read or a ticket being made out to them suffer because they're alone and because any efforts they make are weak, not in the actions themselves but in the numbers that make them.
What I'm screaming is this: most people who care don't even say anything! The more who do, the sooner we will follow the just sense of many other universities and the sooner blanks will stop be-
The second reason apartheid continues is that money is much closer and much more important than any bloodshed in the background of our lives and much more important than the faint voice coming over the tube. It seems that our wallets are too close to our hearts and our brains too close to where some keep their wallets.
For those of us who care about injustice, the KU protesters should be held as heroes, not wimps. In Kansas, our protesters may seem like wimps, but a few faces at a rally, in a courtroom or in a police car are far more courageous than any of us who whines because our BMW is dirty.
inged murder, jailed, tortured and oppressed every day. KU, please stop killing, torturing and oppressing blacks in South Africa.
Jason Newsom Lawrence junior
I truly hope Mr. Cunningham's column on seat belt laws vs. civil liberties in the Feb. 19 issue of the Kansan was more tongue in cheek than serious.
Yes, Mr. Cunnyngham, it is your choice to wear or not to wear your seat belt. But how can a proposed law designed only to help someone be construed as an infringement upon your civil rights? I find the logic of your argument very frightening.
If I understand you correctly, any law which impinges upon your right to make your own decision between one act or another is a violation of your civil liberties.
OK, let's get creative. Should the laws against murder, arson, rape, robbery, embezzlement, forgery, child abuse, traffic violations, fraud, etc., all be repealed? Does this equate with your comment, "To give up the liberty of choice is much more costly than the alternative. To pay for the right to make personal decisions is a small price no matter what the cost?"
I really don't think this is "the Deal!" our founding fathers made.
Some of our laws are in effect to prevent chaos, some to protect us from others and some to protect us from ourselves. I don't know you sir, but I wish you no ill will. Beyond that, there are undoubtedly many who do know you and would consider your death, no matter what the cause, to be a tragic and sorrowful loss.
But if that loss was preventable, and you did not avail yourself of that prevention, then I contend, sir, you are violating the civil liberties of many. People will no longer be able to make the decision whether or not to talk to you, visit
you, write you letters, bear your children, share your happiness, console you in sad times, etc. I don't think you have the right to be that fish.
I hope you read this and laugh that you sucked some poor person in with a satirical column. If not, I hope luck is always on your side
Phillip E. Litts
chairman of the department of aerospace studies
Women carry burden
Opponents of legal abortion want to protect life. If abortion becomes illegal, it is the logical conclusion that the majority will assume responsibility for the lives affected.
Government financing will be appropriated to supplement the income of unwillingly pregnant women who have increased expenses due to prenatal care, maternity leave or loss of employment. A follow-up job placement program for women fired because of unwilling pregnancy or laws preserving job security for pregnant women will be needed. Children kept by unwilling natural parents will need a program to ensure that they do not suffer malnutrition, physical or psychological abuse from their ill-equipped parents.
Because many men involve themselves in preventing abortion, men will become actively responsible in birth control and self-restraint. If a man is not prepared to accept the responsibility of a pregnancy and child, he will not participate in the heterosexual sex act, ever. He knows as well as a woman that no birth-control method is 100 percent effective.
Having relieved the woman of this moral, personal decision, we take on the responsibilities forced upon her. We must work together so that women will not be forced to accept the brunt of poverty anymore.
Shelly Sanders
Wellsville, N.Y. senior
Group exploits abortion issue
Probably the most divisive issue of our time is abortion. Those who oppose abortion argue that abortion is murder. They think that human life begins at conception and that any interference with that life, no matter how it was created, constitutes a deliberate taking of a human life with malice aforethought.
Those who support abortion as a legitimate option argue that a fetus is merely a conglomeration of cells, like a toenail. They think that a woman should be allowed to choose what to do with those cells. They also argue that legal abortion prevents illegal abortions and saves women's lives.
The problem with the abortion issue is that it requires a balancing of rights, those of the woman against those of the unborn. To many it seems unfair to impose a death sentence on a fetus who is clearly blameless of any wrongful act.
My personal opinion is abortion should be available in some cases but should not be used as a substitute for careful and conscientious birth control. A woman who is a rape victim, who is mentally incapacitated, who is a victim of incest or who has consciously followed her birth control regimen should not be penalized with a pregnancy.
On the other hand, many think it is just as unfair to impose nine months of physical discomfort and a lifetime of mental distress on a woman against her will, especially if that woman has been the blameless victim of a rape.
Chris Bunker Staff columnist
On the other hand, a woman who has no mitigating circumstances or has not followed a program of birth control has no right to penalize the
Now that you have my opinion, and I'm sure many of you disagree with it, I want to focus on one group that has grown up around the issue of abortion. That group is called Women Exploited by Abortion.
WEBA is a anti-abortion group comprised of women who have had an abortion. They say they were not given sufficient information to make an informed choice on whether or not to have an abortion. And of course, the villain in their whole scenario is Planned Parenthood.
unborn she is carrying for its existence.
WEBA needs to rethink its position. Like all people, these women have a right to change their minds. And they have a right to advocate their points of view and urge the public policy that they think is right.
But their assertion that they were exploited by abortion is just flat wrong. When they had their legal abortions they had a choice. They chose abortion. Planned Parenthood didn't make the decision for them.
Indeed, no one required them to even listen to Planned Parenthood's opinion or to walk through Planned Parenthood's door.
If they did not have enough information to make an informed decision on whether or not to have an abortion, it was their responsibility, not Planned Parenthood's, to make sure that they gathered sufficient information. In other words, these women were adults, making an adult decision, and now after Planned Parenthood has done the exact thing that these women asked them to do, they are unset.
The real tragedy for the members of WEBA is that they did not walk through Planned Parenthood's door with their sexual partners several months before they had their abortions.
If they had, they would have discovered that Planned Parenthood is a large dispenser of safe and effective birth control. They would have discovered that Planned Parenthood's philosophy is that children should be responsibly planned for instead of being the result of an irresponsible accident.
And if the members of WEBA had walked through Planned Parenthood's door several months earlier, they probably wouldn't have had abortions at all.
The members of WEBA are not victims. If they have changed their minds on abortion, then they should reflect on the error of their ways and resolve never to make the same mistake again. But by placing the blame on Planned Parenthood, they merely deny their own responsibility for their abortions. A vandal might just as well blame the crowbar she used to break and enter.
Most of you already have an opinion on abortion. And few of you are likely to change your opinion because of this column. But if you haven't formed an opinion yet on the issue, I urge you to consider the views of legitimate anti-abortion and prochoice groups, not the misguided diatribes of WEBA.
Bright side doesn't exist in election
One of President Reagan's most endearing qualities is his ability to look at the bright side of a situation and make us all feel better.
For example, the Philippines just finished holding a presidential election and many Americans were horrified at the way it was run.
There have been dozens of murders, and most of the victims have been supporters of the party trying to unseat President Ferdinand Marcos. $ ^{9 c} $
There was blatant vote fraud of every kind: buying votes, stealing ballot boxes, altering the results, bashing heads, cutting throats.
Mike Royko Chicago Tribune
And Marcos has said that if the election didn't turn out right he might have just canceled the whole thing and remained in office.
This has dismayed many idealistic Americans who thought that because the Philippines was our ally and patterned their form of government after ours, the election should be run on the legit.
Even those who are more practical-minded figure that Marcos, having stolen hundreds of millions of dollars, ought to be content to step aside gracefully and let somebody else have a chance. At his age, Marcos can't even spend the interest on his stash.
But President Reagan has managed to find a bright side to the election chaos.
He said, "In spite of all these charges, there is at the same time evidence of a strong two-party system now in the islands."
What a cheering thought. It has caused me to rethink some of my cynical views on Chicago elections, which have had a lot in common with the Philippines, although on a less grand scale.
in the days of Prohibition, when A Capone was the unofficial mayor election day always featured the porping of machine guns and some corpses up turn here and there.
Capone, like Marcos, was a greedy power-hungry, depraved kind of guy. If bribes were effective, he used them. If not, he'd just have his boy ventilate the problem.
I guess Big Al was ahead of his time.
But nobody ever said that machine gun bullets whirizing through a polling place was evidence of a strong two-party system.
Years later, the Daley Machine found ways to make the vote totals sit up and smile. Instead of violence, if used sleight of hand, making one vote turn into 10; miracles, causing the dead to rise and cast a straight ticket; and kindness, offering a bottle of muscate for a trembly vote or two.
Poor sport that he was, Richard Nixon in 1960 shrieked that Daley had stolen the White House for John F. Kennedy.
I guess it never occurred to Nixon that Daley was just demonstrating that a strong two-party system existed in Illinois.
With his eye for the bright side, President Reagan even proposed a solution for the Philippines' turmoil.
He expressed hope that no matter how the election turned out, Marcos and his opponent, Corazon Aquino, would "come together to make sure the government works."
That would be so nice. It kind of makes me choke up just thinking of Marcos pouring a drink for the widow Aquino and saying something conciliatory, such as.
"Well, Corazon — can I call you Cory? I think we should heed the words of my friend President Reagan and get together. Want to shake on it?"
"I don't know, Ferdinand. Was it really necessary for you to have my husband murdered at the airport?"
"Aw, come on, Cory, that's politics. Let bygones be bygones. Say, are you interested in New York commercial real estate?"
"Ferdinand, you had already railroaded my husband into prison and caused us to go into exile."
"Hey, Cory, there's nothing to be gained by crying over spit husbands. What do you say to clear title to an oceanfront house on Long Island? I'll throw in a new Mercedes."
"Ferdinand, do you realize how many of my supporters were murdered in the election?"
"That's just supporters over the dam. You got any interest in Swiss bank accounts?"
If this becomes a reality, President Reagan should start urging other adversaries to take the same warm approach.
He might propose that when members of Solidarity have wedding parties, they send invitations to the Kremlin.
Nothing like a few drinks and a fast polka for getting people mellowed out.