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Friday, February 26, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Pulling out of waste compact would hurt state's credibility
But now that it has, Nebraska wants no part of the contract made with Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma to comply with federal guidelines for disposal of low-level radioactive waste.
Belonging to a five-state low-level radioactive waste compact was just fine with Nebraska as long as it wasn't chosen to be the host site for the first dump.
The news of a petition drive by Nebraska citizens to get a statewide initiative vote to pull Nebraska out of the compact has spurred response from several other compact states, including Kansas, who say that they, too, will pull out if Nebraska does.
That certainly solves the problem. Instead of one waste dump in the five-state area every 30 years, each state will be forced to build one immediately. And that is truly a waste.
Nebraskans' threat to pull out completely shatters the idea of a compact. If a state was not willing to accept being the host site for a compact waste dump, it shouldn't have joined the compact in the first place. Pulling out after the fact is childish and immature. That applies to Nebraska, Kansas or any state thinking of forgoing its commitment.
Legal repercussions that could be potentially damaging to a state failing to honor the compact's contract have yet to be answered. If the contract is a legally binding document, the other states could sue a withdrawing state. The federal government also could take action against a state pulling out of the compact because it set a Jan. 1, 1988, deadline for making such decisions.
And even though Kansas is the alternate host site, it could have a lot to Jose by pulling out of the compact.
Nebraska should not turn tail and pull out of the compact. It knew the chance of being chosen as the host state and still committed itself. It should not renege on its part of that commitment.
communication. And if it does, Kansas and the other states should not follow suit. Unless that suit is in the form of a lawsuit against Nebraska for breaking the contract.
Jody Dickson for the editorial board
A physician in Oklahoma City is attempting to create a blood bank solely for "chaste," "Christian" donors. What he is really creating, however, is more blind fear of AIDS.
Physician fosters hysteria
Condon Hughes calls his plan "Lifeblood," and he hopes to put it into use by early April. The blood bank would supposedly weed out promiscuous people by asking all donors to sign a statement confirming that they have abstained from sex or have been faithful to a spouse since 1977. This registration system would rely on the honesty of the donor.
But by advocating such a "Christian" blood supply, Hughes is implying that the current supply of blood is unsafe and that 100 percent safe blood bank can be created and maintained. He is clearly capitalizing on the public's fear of AIDS.
Ronald Glicher of the Oklahoma Blood Institute said, "What we see this doing is undermining the donor base, . . . confusing people, creating distrust and a lack of credibility."
Hughes is simply making a bad situation worse. Blood that comes with some form of honor-system guarantee will be no cleaner than blood from the general populace. Existing blood banks already screen donors and conduct tests on donated blood, and Hughes' tests would be no more thorough.
Charles Yockey, chief of staff at Watkins Hospital, said the majority of the U.S. blood supply was safe. He said the worst threat to the blood supply was not sexual promiscuity but professional blood donors who donate in order to support alcohol or drug habits.
Vockey also said there was no such thing as a zero-risk blood bank. Some blood-transmitted diseases, such as non-typable hepatitis, cannot be detected with any blood test. And in some cases, a person may be infected with the early, undetectable stages of the AIDS virus.
Rather than creating a safe supply of blood for a select group of people, Hughes' idea of a "Christian" blood bank is fostering fear. And by doing so, he is limiting the pool of potential blood donors.
Alan Player for the editorial board
Physicians should be trying to contain the hysteria surrounding AIDS, not fueling the fire.
Editorials in this column are the opinions of the editorial board.
News staff
Alison Young...Editor
Cohen Todd...Managing editor
Rob Knapp...News editor
Anne Plyger...Editorial editor
Joseph Rebello...Campus editor
Jennifer Rowland...Planning editor
Anne Luscombe...Sports editor
Stephen Wade...Photo editor
Rhonda Stewart...Graphic editor
Tom Eblen...General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Kelly Scherer ... Business manager
Clark Massad ... Retail sales manager
Brad Lenhart ... Campus sales manager
Robert Hughes ... Marketing manager
Kurt Messermanith ... Production manager
Keira Klinge ... National Park manager
Kris Schorno ... Traffic manager
Kimberly Coleman ... Classified manager
Jeanne Hines ... Sales and marketing adviser
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History gives perspective on KKK
To every event, there is an element called background, and that is the foundation to forming opinions and passing judgments based on information. As a student newspaper totally run by students, a majority of whom were born after the Civil Rights struggle, the opinions expressed by the editor and the editorial board depressed us.
The argument, reasoning and dogma of the right to speak, on which you had based most of your conclusions, were infallible. But, what you had overlooked were the lessons of history, the black community's brutal experience with the Klan, and what actually the protesters to the Klan's visit feared.
The Kansan has continually compared Louis Farrakhan's visit in 1853 to that of the invitation extended to the Klan. With Farrakhan, he was not invited to a class and students had a choice. No group was forced to attend, whereas with the Klan, a black student or Jewish student may have been forced to listen to the Klan's propaganda. This includes the idea that some races are inferior to others and that they do not deserve to live. And surely it is fallacious to equate the Klan with Farrakhan, who, even though an extremist, does not have the history of mass killings and brutal murders like the Klan. At a time when the public is so concerned about the human rights of a fetus even before it is conceived, maybe blacks are not asking too much when they protest the possible growth of a hate group that has brutally killed thousands of them.
To take one example, in 1981, two Klan members abducted Michael Donald, a 19-year-old black, beat him, strangled him, slit his throat and hung his battered body from a tree. The only difference between this case and many others of a similar nature is that Donald's murderers were prosecuted.
What the public also needs to know is that this outcry was not just a black issue. Jews and other minority groups also opposed the Klan as fervently as the black community.
In all this recent outcry from the Lawrence black community which the editor of the Kansan finds very "ironic," there has been a lot of reference to glib rhetoric like constitutional rights and freedom of speech. Here you are asking a community to buy an argument based on the Constitution, when they lived for centuries without any rights. Let us not forget that the
Constitution called blacks less than humans, and that is what the 3/5 compromise was all about. If it will help your imagination better, these people you are addressing with your smug "freedom of speech" line did not until recently, have the right to vote, let alone have the right to express themselves. Is that ironic or not?
Take KU for instance. The authorities who "capitulated" to this outcry may have based their decision on a deeper understanding of the situation at KU. It is no secret that black students frequently find a predominantly white campus like KU unfriendly and insensitive. Here, integration is not a word for the history textbooks. The University is still concerned with the academic and cultural integration of the black students.
The Kansan has consistently backed the student community's right to know the real world, yet it has no desire to know or understand the real world of the black student. The real world of the black student involves insensitive professors who can hand out the word "lynch" as a password to a black student without second thoughts, media reports about brutal Klan atrocities in their community, unbelievable acts of racism, discrimination, and scars from history that events today will not let them forget.
When the black community in Lawrence protested the invitation extended to the Klan, they were not reacting to a ghost from the past. For example, black students at the University of California at Berkeley held a rally to protest incidents of racism on their campus, some of which included the carving of "KKK" in a black student's room and similar vandalism, the chasing of a black student by white students at a football game, and the discovery of a dead chicken hanging with a sign reading "Death to Niggers" around its neck.
bookstore personnel. Soon, a campus security guard arrived and accused Ellis of shoplifting. His only crime was being black.
The black community is not ready to accept the argument that the public will reject the views of the Klan on hearing them. One reason is the recent incident in Fort Smith, Ark., where the local community picketed the courthouse to express their support of the Klansmen who were on trial. Another is the spate of reports they read on racial discrimination on campuses. One example is what happened to Todd Ellis, a marketing major at Northern Illinois University. He was in the campus bookstore looking for a course book when he noticed he was being followed by
In recent cases of racial violence, one cheerleader in Iowa was bullied off the squad for being black and another one in New York was assaulted, raped and smeared with racial epithets. Even if the public is selective about the news they read, not all of the racially motivated crimes making front-page news such as these can escape their attention.
Our objective here is not to enumerate the numerous cases of violent crimes on blacks and other minorities in this country but to state that the day such events received gestures of disbelief are long gone. If the argument is double standard or precedent, it may be wise on the part of opinion leaders like the editor and editorial board of the Kansan to argue from a historical standpoint. The question here is the kind of precedent the black community can go back to, when it comes to their rights, not only their right as citizens but also as humans.
The Statue of Liberty and the lofty ideals it stands for will be viewed with skepticism by the black community who were brought against their will through the back door of America to the slave markets of Jamestown, New Orleans and Savannah, and not Ellis Island.
We, too, believe that issues of racism cannot be resolved by burying them. Real issues need to be brought out in the open if any just solution can be reached. Therefore, if recent incidents and results of studies are any indication, then it is the blatant and subtle racial violence against blacks that needs immediate attention, not a forum for the Klan to propagate their hatred, which is the foundation for most cases of racial violence today.
The next time the editorial board tries to evaluate the outcry from a community, we encourage you to try to let judgments flow from soul-searching, humanism and a clear understanding of what is happening in the country and with an awareness of the lessons of history.
This column was written by members of the staff of the office of minority affairs, including Vernell Spearman, director; Ramona Harden, office manager; Mukhta杰, graduate assistant; LaTanya Cook, peer counseler; Helen Gee, program assistant; and Zelia Mitchell, office assistant.
Racism stems from fear of being alone
Not long ago, my younger sister surprised me with the question, "Mike, do you ever wish you were 'white?' I could only answer with silence. It was a question that opened old hurts that I had long since forgotten and was not entirely willing to face again.
Perhaps I should explain a bit before I go on. My sister, myself, and another brother are all adopted children with mixed blood. We all show varying degrees of an oriental parent we never knew, small reminders of a genetic ghost. In the small rural town we call home, it was we who were “different,” and there were those who took pains to point that out. And Lisa, the youngest and the most different in appearance, faced it alone once the rest of us left school.
Why do I dredge up memories that I had thought long ago were put aside? Why is it that even now, as the images return to an inner eye, the shame and anger seem so real? Perhaps it is to remind myself that a past I have so carefully edited still has these shades of doubt lurking at the edge of my looking back. Doubt that life was as warm and caring as I wish to remember. Doubt that I will ever really forget the twisted visage of hate reaching to slap a slanty-eyed little boy.
Michael Foubert
I am reminded of all these things for reasons
Guest Columnist
other than a quiet question from my sister. This is Black History Month, and for several weeks we have been offered a variety of stories, broadcasts, and articles illuminating different facets of black history, culture and education. And there is another facet that has not gone unnoticed — the racism that black Americans still contend with today.
Now I do not believe that racism has disappeared from our society. We are universally appalled by the graphic violence or vituperative bigotry that a small segment of the population openly manifests. But we are not all disturbed or even attentive to the subtle ways in which discrimination sees into our conversations, our relationships, our beliefs. A joke here, a stereotype there, and gradually our unconscious is poisoned by racism.
But I have to ask myself, just where does the racism lie? And in its broader form, what is the root of discrimination against any group or
individual? Are blacks more oppressed than hispanics? Do women suffer greater harm than gay and lesbian citizens? Must we yearly rally against the swastika or a Confederate flag or some other tattered symbol, as if by exorcising a piece of cloth we could somehow rid ourselves of a deeper sin?
No, I think it is time we looked inside, because the answer is there, and it's not really all that hard to understand. You see, most of us are afraid. I don't mean of blacks or women or gays, or any other group. What we're afraid of is being alone.
Blacks are afraid to be alone. Whites are afraid to be alone. I am afraid to be alone. And so we seek out others who are like-minded, like-acting, and like-skinned, just so we don't have to be alone. There is a little bit of racism in all of us, maybe because we forget just what we are capable of doing when prodded by fear.
So I look forward to a day when there will be no cause to be "proud to be black," because no one will see it as a cause for shame. When symbols of hate will be nothing more than historical curiosities. And when my sister no longer wishes to be white, only to be what she is.
Michael Foubert is a Lawrence graduate student.
Michael Foubert is a Lawrence graduate student majoring in urban planning.
BLOOM COUNTY
AREN'T THEY
WONDERFUL ?
A VERITIBLE
TOWER OF
PSYCHOBABBLE !
bv Berke Breathed