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Monday, September 20, 1993
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE
Several cases of children murdering their parents are in the courts today. These include a former KU student who was charged with attempted first-degree murder of her father. In each of these cases, the children have made allegations of child abuse.
THE BACKGROUND
In 1991, an estimated 2.7 million children were assaulted physically, mentally or sexually by their parents. One thousand three hundred and thirty-eight children, or almost four a day, died in 1991 in the United States because of parental maltreatment. Patricide accounted for about two percent of all homicides. Most of these involved teenagers who killed abusive parents.
THE OPINION
System fails children who kill their parents
Children are not driven to murder their parents because of routine groundings or a lack of allowance. They do so because the system has failed them. These teenagers pick up the family gun and murder their fathers because they are desperate, helpless and in mortal fear.
Roy Rowe, sentenced in 1991 to four to 12 years for the murder of his stepfather, had been beaten with a paddle, a belt and a two-by-four. Whenever the screaming got too loud, the neighbors called the police. Each time, family services, left Roy in his home.
Such an occurrence is typical in almost every case of patricide. Reports are made, officials visit, but no help is given. There are laws, but the safeguards are on the side of adults. Furthermore, bureaucracy often plays a part in these dismal failures. Police officers and social workers who are overworked or undertrained can miss or ignore signs of abuse.
Most parental homicides occur when the victim is in an apparently vulnerable position — watching television or sleeping. This leads many to deny the self-defense claim and to think it was cold-blooded murder. However, if children grow up in volatile and violent surroundings, they learn to read warning signs of an impending barrage, beating or rape. This vigilance implies that, when children do kill a parent, it is most likely an act of self-defense: They know something bad is going to happen, soon.
No one is saying that abused children should murder their parents or even that they should get away with it. Child abuse officials should carry out investigations of all murders, and the children should receive psychiatric help. However, across-the-board laws are fruitless. Each case must be dealt with individually. The system is failing abused children. A call, loud and clear, must be made for enforcement of existing abuse laws. This includes better training for professionals.
The next time you read about young people murdering their parents, do not be quick to judge them as aberrant or evil. Only after you have tried to imagine pain, terror and helplessness can you begin to understand the driving forces of their lives.
MICHELLE SMITH FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS:
DAVID BURGETT, JR CLAIRBORNE, CHRISTINA CORNISH, CARSON ELROD, TOM GRELINGER, MATT HOOD, MANNY LOPEZ, COLEEN McCAIN, TERRILYN McCORMICK, MUNEERA NASEE, KIRK REDMOND, CHRIS REEDY, MIKE SILVERMAN, MARK SLAMIN, MICHELLE SMITH, EISHA TIERNEY, KC TRAUER, AND DAVID WANEK
KANSAN STAFF
KC TRAUER, Editor
JOE HARDER, CHRISTINE LAUE Managing editors
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
BILL SKEET, Systems coordinator
Editors
Assistant to the editor...J.R. Clairborne
News ...Stacy Friedman
Editorial ...Terrilyn McComick
Campus ...Ben Grove
Sports ...Kristi Fageron
Photo ...Klip Chin, Renee Knoeber
Fostures ...Erzra Wolfe
Graphics ...John Paul Fogel
AMY CASEY
Business manager
AMY STUMBO
Retail sales manager
JEANNE HINES
Sales and marketing adviser
Business Staff
Campus sales mgr ...Ed Schoger
Regional sales mgr...Jennifer Perlier
National sales mgr...Jennifer Evanson
Co-op sales mgr ...Blythe Focht
Production mgr...Jennifer Blowey
Kate Burgese
Marketing director ..Sheliy McConnell
Creative director ..Brian Fuco
Clasified mgr ..Jance Davis
Letters should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University of Kansas must include class and hometown, or faculty or staff position.
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The Kansan reserves the right to reject or edit letters, guest columns and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall.
THINGS FOREIGN TOURISTS MUST HAVE WHILE IN FLORIDA:
Questions about life language answered
Once again it is time for Ask Mister Language Person, the column whose motto is: "People Judge You By The Words You Use, So Use Words That Nobody Really Understands, Such As 'Parameter.'"
Today, as is our custom, we shall start with our first question;
Q. I have noted that the slang expression "cool" is being used once again by young people. Is this good?
A. Yes. Mister Language Person approves of any language trend that makes him feel like a "hep cat," so he is pleased to hear young people bringing back "lingo" from the days when he was Mister Language Teenager and the Earth's crust was still warm.
Q. What does "boss" mean?
A. it means "cool," as in these examples: "Duane got a boss carburator." "Michelangelo painted some boss frescoes."
Q. Was "Michelangelo" his first name or his last name?
A. Yes. This column contains a letter from man who is upset because he
Q. Recently I made the statement: "I'm so hungry I could literally eat a horse." My grandmother, who is a real stickler for grammar, told me that this was incorrect. So I flushed her insulin down the toilet. My question is, what is a "stickler?"
A. Neither. It was just his fresco name. His full legal name, on his driver's license, was "Vito."
A. The correct form is: "I could eat a literal horse."
Q. Can you describe the contents of a "Dear Abby" column published in the March 26, 1992, Boston Herald and sent in by alert reader Chip Moynihan?
COLUMNIST
has discovered that his wife has a hidden collection of pornographic books. The man states: "I came upon them accidentally."
Q. Regarding the old spiritual song: Why would a person "jump down" and then "turn around" before picking a bale of cotton?
Q. Do the instructions for the Batman costume set manufactured by Kenner Products contain important consumer safety information?
A. This involved a union contract.
A. Yes. These instructions, sent in by alert reader Maria Reed, state: "CAUTION: Cape does not enable user to fly."
Q. What DOES the cape enable the user to do?
A. It enables the user to leap from one tall building to another. A user wishing to actually FLY should purchase the Kenner Products Superman cape.
Q. Are you going to receive an irate letter written by approximately two dozen attorneys for Kenner Products?
A. They can go jump in a literal lake.
Q. Please quote from an Official Marker erected in Plum Lake, Wis., to commemorate "The First Lighted
Softball Park In The Far North."
A. According to a photograph sent in by alert readers Dick and Margie Kussman, this marker, after praising the accomplishments of Plum Lake's champion softball teams, states "WE HAIL WHAT RADIATION HAS WROUGHT WHAT WE HAVE TODAY."
Q. "Radiation?"
A. Yes. The marker also states: "TRAVEL AROUND AND SEE THE VAST LEGEND OF OUR COMMUNITY. ENJOY RELAXING IN THE FUN OF THE HOMELAND OF WHICH WE ARE PROUD."
Q. Probably it would be good idea not to get out of the car.
Q. What was the cause of a September 1992 airliner crash in Katmandu, Nepal?
A. An Associated Press report at the time stated: "Airline sources said a Pakistani jet that plowed into a hillside may have been fled too low."
Q. It certainly pays to have airline sources.
A. Yes, and that is why we journalists will go to jail to protect their secret identities.
GOT A QUESTION FOR MISTER LANGUAGE PERSON? He is not in at the moment.
TODAY'S GRAMMATICAL TIP:
Avoid unclear use of pronouns.
WRONG: "Earl and Ted were working together when suddenly he pushed him into the threshing machine."
Dave Barry is a syndicated columnist with the Miami Herald.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Guest column wrong about feminist theory
I am responding to the column by Will Lewis "Male seeks an activist mother could love."
You assumed that the female driver of this car would go on a date with you. Your first mistake. Your second mistake was the sicker stereotype that you placed on feminists. It was sadly obvious to me that your misinformation regarding feminist philosophy only propagated your stereotypes. Many feminists would also disagree with the implied
intent of the fated bumper sticker.
Just because your brain has a void of feminist's existence does not mean that this world does also. If you are disbelieving, I refer you to Carol Travis and her book, "The Mismeasure of Woman." She devotes a chapter to the reason men are not superior to women as well as another explaining why women are not superior to men.
My next comments regard your mother's presence throughout this article. You've set it up so that one woman must approve another for you. Perhaps this is because you
cannot do it yourself? In this sense, your mother is now your governing superior and not your equal. Is there a resenting complex hidden somewhere between the lines, meaning the bumper sticker hit too close to home? (No pun intended.)
I take it your column was supposed to engage laugh. I felt kind of guilty about munchckues, however. I've always believed that ignorance was not something to laugh at.
Amanda Traxler Overland Park junior
STAFF COLUMNIST
'Packaging all part of games that lawyers play
There it was in bold letters: "African American to defend KKK."
As I read this headline a few weeks ago, I could not believe my eyes. But it was true. The newspaper article clearly stated that an African-American lawyer had agreed to defend the Ku Klux Klan. As an African American myself, I was first awded that an African-American lawyer would willingly defend a white-supremacist group. The lawyer stated that he took the case in order to protect the KKK's right to free speech, as well as his own. I decided that the lawyer had a valid point.
But the fact that everyone has the right to free speech is the obvious. Why would the KKK allow an African American to represent them anyway?
The article stated that when the Texas Civil Liberties Union sought representation for the KKK they did not know that the lawyer who accepted the case was an African American. But when the KKK discovered the lawyer's race, they could have sought another attorney. So why didn't they? It's all a part of packaging.
It's all a part of packaging.
When the opposing lawyers enter a courtroom, they are merely trying to sell the judge and jury a package. It is pure advertisement. In some cases, all of the jurors may not have a clear concept of the law. When they enter the courtroom, they bring all of their individual biases, morals and values with them. And sometimes, their individual judgments affect their verdict more than the facts.
The fact that an African-American lawyer is representing the KKK is not ironic. The KKK is allowing the lawyer to represent them in order to play on the sympathy of the jury. If an African-American man defends a group that is against his race, it looks to the jury that the KKK is okay because an African-American lawyer is defending them. It is in the KKK's favor to have an African-American lawyer because it creates a good package for the jury.
The first Rodney King case is an excellent example of packaging. Rodney King is an African-American motorist who was brutally beaten in 1991 by four Los Angeles police officers who are white. A video tape of the beating clearly showed the officers beating King. But the jurors in the first trial did not base their verdict on the video tape. They took their own blases into the courtroom and acquitted the four officers.
It will be interesting to see how packaging affects the Reginald Denny case. The Denny case is similar to the King case, except the role roles are reversed. Reginald Denny is a white man who was pulled from his truck and brutally beaten by two African-American men during the Los Angeles riots. Denny's beating was video taped also. But packaging probably will affect this case differently. Most likely, the defendants in the Denny case will be found guilty with much harsher sentences.
Although everyone has a right to a fair trial, sometimes packaging and the individual biases of a judge and jury can affect their decision more than the facts.
Tiffany Hurt is an Overland Park senior majoring in Journalism and English.
University of Mars
Hey, Carbon based life forms. Ya know, every time you turn on the tv, ya get bombarded with images of sex and/or violence So, we at U or Mars are taking a 3-part look at tv violence.
Why Study TV Violence (and NOT TV SEX)? CUZ CARTON
SEX AIN'T FUNNY, it's just HARD TO DRAW. AND SO...
by Joel Francke
FRANKLE '93
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