44
Thursday, February 8, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEW POINT
Being a student senator means getting involved
The KU Student Senate is a powerful voice of the student body. It decides how to spend $35, or 17 percent, of the $208 that you pay in student fees. But do students join and run for Senate to be a voice for the students they represent, or is it a resume builder?
Being a senator means more than showing up for meetings and voting on legislation. It means sponsoring legislation, joining or being appointed to various boards, representing constituents and taking on other responsibilities as an elected official.
Being a senator is a way to get involved at the University of Kansas.
But this involvement means doing more than the minimum required. Many senators do no more than what is necessary to keep their offices: showing up for the required number of meetings. More than half of the 70 student senators never have sponsored any legislation. It is amazing that some get re-elected without ever having sponsored a single bill.
So far this year, 35 senators have sponsored about 50 bills. Only 15 have sponsored two or more bills. A small number of hard-working senators have sponsored five or more bills.
These senators should be commended for sponsoring bills to fund various organizations or to change rules and regulations for the better. Why are these senators so involved in Senate?
Arthur Yudelson, graduate senator, said sponsoring bills helped senators make a difference.
"That's what I'm here for," he said.
One reason that senators don't sponsor legislation is that it requires time that they don't have.
Senate does require a lot of time from students. But, if some senators can commit their time, then they all should. Students should pay close attention to what is going on in Senate and hold these elected officials responsible for performing their duties, especially those that are running for re-election this semester.
Senators should not use the Senate as a résumé-building scheme but rather a way to get involved and make a difference for all students.
SARBPAL HUNDAL FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD.
Commentator deserves his place in Athletic Hall of Fame
Ascreaming Allen Fried House voiced its appreciation last weekend as Max Falkenstien was honored as the first media representative inducted into the KU Athletic Department Hall of Fame. The Athletic Department made a classy decision by acknowledging the contributions of a nonathlete to the growth and success of the program.
Falkenstien established himself as a radio pioneer in terms of college athletics. His career started at an NCAA playoff game against Oklahoma A&M (Oklahoma State) in 1946. His tenure ranks second in the nation, and he has been behind the microphone for more than half of all Kansas football games.
Falkenstien has watched 8 bowl games,9 head football coaches,10 athletic directors and an estimated 1,600 broadcast hours. He never has missed a football broadcast and has missed only
THE ISSUE:
Max Falkenstien
three or four basketball games.
Falkenstien has been instrumental in the rise of Kansas athletics to the national sporting eye. He has called the exploits of countless heroes of the past: Danny Manning, Gale Sayers, John Riggins, Wilt Chamberlain and even Greg Ostertag. He relayed successes to our parents and grandparents; his voice helped to build the mystique of the Phog and all of the traditions of the Jayhawks.
Falkenstien is one of the great traditions of Kansas sports, and the Athletic Department made a wise move by inducting a truly deserving figure. Whenever the fieldhouse gets rockin' on a cold winter night, and the Phog comes out to play, you know Max will be on the sidelines.
JOHN WILSON FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
ASHLEY MILLER
Editor
VIRGINIA MARGHEIM
Managing editor
ROBERT ALLEN
News editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
Editors
Campus ... Joann Birk
... Phillip Brownlee
Editorial ... Paul Todd
Associate editorial ... Craig Lang
Pastures ... Matt Wood
Routines ... Tom Ridolson
Associate sports ... Bill Petalina
Photo ... Andy Ruillett
Photo ... Matt Flokker
Graphics ... Noah Musser
Special sessions ... Norvall Dunn
Jen Humphrey
Wire ... Tara Treany
Illustration ... Milo Leaker
Shawn Trimble / KANSAN
HEATHER NIEHAUS
Business manager
KONAN HAUSER
Retail sales manager
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
JUSTIN KNUPP
Technology coordinator
Business Staff
Campus mgr ... Karen Gerach
Regional mgr ... Kelly Connelyse
Legal mgr ... John McKinnon
Special Sections mgr ... Nom Blow
Production mgr ... Rachel Gilliland
Marketing director ... Cary Breestle
Public Relations dir ... Angela Adamson
Public relations director ... Ed Kansasla
Classics director ... Stacy Moore
Internship/oop mgr ... T.J. Clark
One of the most difficult acts for African Americans is to give themselves permission to make money. I don't mean chump change. I mean serious money. White people's money. Instead of honoring African Americans whose enterprises have taken them somewhere within shouting distance of white people's money, we belittle them for even daring to think they could improve their condition, as if the
The second of three essays on race and identity
SURVIVOR'S GUILT
imperatives of Black solidarity precluded any of them from making an honest buck. Few were more torn by this conflict
than my first wife, Leanita McClain, an African-American, ghetto-to-Gold-Coast success story. Her upward climb was stopped by the torment of her inner conflicts, made worse by clinical, and ultimately fatal, depression. She eventually gave up. She killed herself on Memorial Day in 1984. Had we still been married, it would have been our 10th wedding anniversary.
"I was born on Wednesday," she would say. "Wednesday's child is full of woe."
A product of the South Side Chicago public-housing ghetto, she became the first Black woman columnist and Black editorial board member at the Chicago Tribune, one of the nation's oldest and largest newspapers. She won awards, made speeches and was beginning to appear as a guest on local and national TV chat shows.
Privately, she was a portrait of a walking wounded.
She was also full of grace and fair of face. Her light, freckled complexion, her naturally strawberry-blond hair and her bright, green eyes caused some people to wonder whether she was biracial. Of course, like most African Americans, she was. Somewhere in her early family background, tributaries of Caucasian and Seminole blood flowed into the stream of African blood.
She went on to describe the personal conflicts of coping with a Caucasian world that often seemed too reluctant or too ignorant to accept her as an equal. And her Black world was dividing rapidly right before her eyes between haves and have-nots, with many of her old friends and relatives slipping down the losing end. A boy she had a crush on as
"I have a foot in each world," she wrote in an anguished essay, The Black Middle-Class Burden, for Newsweek.
"I am a member of the Black middle class who has had it with being patted on the head by white hands
and slapped in the face by Black hands for my success," she wrote.
child in the projects was serving a life sentence for murder. A childhood girlfriend, once bright and lovely, is now a single
"Some of my 'liberal' white acquaintances pat me on the head, hinting that I am a freak, that my success is less a matter of talent than of luck and affirmative action. I may live among them, but it is difficult to live with them. How can they be sincere about respecting me, yet hold my fellows in contempt? And if I am silent when they attempt to sever me from my own, how can I live with myself?"
Her loyalty to the "hood" tugged at her: "As for the envy of my own people, am I to give up my career, my standard of living. to
pacify them and set my conscience at ease? No. I have worked for these amenities and deserve them, though I can never enjoy them without feeling guilty."
"I am burdened daily with showing whites that Blacks are people. I am, in the old vernacular, a credit to my race. My brothers' keeper and my sisters', though many of them have abandoned me because they think that I have abandoned them. I assuage white guilt. I disprove Black inadequacy and prove to my parent's generation that their patience was indeed a virtue
On some cerebral level, she had accepted the unreal and conflicting stereotypical roles into which she was cast by a needy, but misguided, public. Some wanted her to be the militant. Some wanted her to be the good little colored girl. Some wanted her to be the fey feminist. Others wanted her to be a self-centered bourgeois toady to white power. She chose to believe that these unreal characterizations were real and that they could not be transcended. In fact, her greatest tragedy is that she gave up the fight.
"I'll never live to see my people free anyway," she said in her suicide note. None are so blind, my hometown minister used to say, as those who refuse to see. The contradictions in her life terrorized her. Her struggle with triple victimization as one who was poor, Black and female exposed her wounds and her susceptibility to being wounded again.
I believe that we in the Black community who have made it have an obligation to reach back, not with condescension, but with genuine concern, to help those who have not. Lea enjoyed working with young people, but it was not enough. This leads me to conclude that her problems ran far deeper than such mundane issues as politics of economics. They were psychological, which struck an important nerve in the Black community. Our problems are as much a matter of our psychological self-doubts as they are a matter of politics or economics. This psychological aspect of our problem seldom is addressed, partly because it is so mysterious, and partly because, no matter how much of it can be blamed on Caucasians, it cannot be solved by them. Looking back, I see with greater clarity the freedom Leanita had at her disposal, whether she was willing to realize it or not. All she had to do was something that for many of us has been infinitely more difficult: to accept it. I am sorry she couldn't bring herself to do that, and I'm sorry that she decided to let the white guys and gals have all the fun.
Clarence Page is a columnist at the Chicago Tribune
While boarding the bus in the morning with brigades of mostly Caucasian briefcase-toting yuppies, and after returning from a trip to Paris, she ran into an aunt who was arriving to clean the condominium of our white neighbor. One of her sisters, wearing her designer everything, nevertheless is taken to the back door of the lakefront high rise where she lives by a taxi driver who just assumes, because of her skin color, that she is an employee.
mother resigned to a lifetime in the projects on welfare. "Jive hustlers" from the old neighborhood still tried to put the moves on her for money.
Although this may serve as a belated warning to the many unsuspecting young men already victimized by their actions, first-year females at the University of Kansas are of a different breed.
Nevertheless, through various experiences, both first-hand and vicarious, I have compiled a checklist of symptoms that your life is in harm.
STAFF COLUMNIST
life is being in-
Early detection prevents bad influence of freshman girls
She plans her study habits based upon the specials at the "Tennessee Triangle" bars.
She spends more time contemplating the outgoing message on her answering machine than her coming Psych 104 exam.
She consistently tries to sneak you into Gertrude Sellard Pearson-Corbin Hall after hours - then has her friends walk you out in the morning.
he is being influenced by a freshman female.
`Her dating habits revolve around coming fraternity parties.`
`She constantly surrounds herself with a gigantic group of people and giggles excessively.`
Episodes of 90210 and Melrose Place take precedence over all other activities in her life.
She admires you solely because you wear Game Bar-style baseball caps and Abercrombie plaid.
Her bulletin board closely resembles a Wall of Fame consisting of the numerous guys with whom she has attended fraternity parties.
You overhear stories of her dancing on tables at local drinking establishments.
Her heart rate fluctuates when her phone gives that special off-campus ring.
Upon being introduced to you, she initiates conversation by asking, "Are you in a house?"
If these symptoms seem all too familiar, you are not alone. Furthermore, if you need help, the KU Psychological Clinic can be reached at 864-4121.
This simple phone call could be quite beneficial to your wellbeing in the coming months.
So, until next time, I hpe all your dates are good ones. On behalf of Chuck Woolery, so long.
Guest columns: Should be double-spaced, typed and fewer than 700 words. The writer must be willing to be photographed for the column to run.
Mike Walden is a sophomore majoring in political science
Letters: Should be double-spaced, typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and hometown if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
How to submit letters and guest columns
All letter and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Paul Todd, editorial page editor, or Craig Lang, associate editorial editor, at 864-4810.
I
OUT FROM THE CRACKS
By Jeremy Patnoi
WHEN TRAINING THE MALE AN OPERANT CONDITIONING PROCEDURE THAT INVOLVES POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT MAY BE USED.