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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 25, 1986)
Page 2AThe Battalion/Tuesday, November 25, 1986 Opinion Whites uneasy with impending minority status Nearly two years ago I wrote a column about the hooded antics of the Ku Klux Klan in Houston. The piece sparked a response from a self-proclaimed “White Pat riot,” warning me of the white race’s impending ex tinction. Minorities, the letter writer warned, were taking Loren Steffy “There are 30 all-black na- tions, 20 all-yellow nations, and 60 all-brown nations. One all-yellow nation alone, China, has over one billion people!’ propaganda a piece of the reader’s propaganda warned. And in the words of Neil Diamond, they’re cornin’ to Amer ica. “Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Phila delphia . . . Washington and numerous other large cities used to be almost entirely white. . . The flier illustrates the paranoia whites have about be ing in the minority. As the reader pointed out, in the world population, we already are. While most fears of a declining white population aren’t as fa natical as those in the propaganda, there is a na tional discomfort with the idea. To an extent, my racist reader was right — the white population is on its way out of the majority status. A recent study by the Population Reference Bureau found that by 2080, whites will be the larg est of minority groups. No one race will have a nu merical majority. But those who fear the eradication of the white race don’t need to start training Boy Scouts to use assault riiles just yet. Numerically, the whites will account for less than50 percent of the U.S. popula tion, but only by one-tenth of a percent. It will take more than numbers, however, bring other minorities to the level of social control that whites currently take for granted. As we have seen in South Africa, numbers alone are not enough to make those in power release their stran glehold on the social power structure. Immediately fingers are pointed. A dwindling white population is looked at as a national crisis. Immigrants, as they always have been, are seen as stifling “true” Americans. Blaming all on illegal immigration is unfair and inaccurate, but it’s easy. Immigration — legal and illegal — helps keep the population from decreasing. If the current fertility rate of 1.8 births per woman is maintained, the U.S. population — 242 million last summer — would fall to less than 100 million within two cen turies without the influx of immigrants. Still, im migration is seen as an invasion. Instead of seeing the impending total cultural assimilation as a culmination of our much-lauded melting-pot society, it’s viewed as a loss of national identity. The melting-pot recipe was fine as long as one ingredient was noticeable among the rest, but now it’s time to put a lid on it. Social integration always has been difficult for this country, which prides itself on upholding the rights of minorities. We fought and somewhat con quered the Indians, enslaved the blacks and ha rassed the Jews and Catholics. It took the Supreme Court, battling the tidal wave of public opinion, to make us let blacks attend the same schools, drink from the same drinking fountains and sit in the front of buses. GOOD NEWS, BO' IM oust 9M 7EPiRS, IJE'U- QUfW TOR AFFIRMATIVE ACTION.' The white population’s identity always has been with its dominance. Sending us the tired, poor and huddled masses was fine — as long as whites could wrap themselves in the security blanket of the ma jority. to It’s a seamier side of our cultural heritage that we’d rather not talk about, but one that those who’ve enjoyed majority benefits don’t really want to abandon. A burning cross near Houston and a racial hazing at The Citadel military school in South Carolina remind us how our subtle facade can vanish in a wave of fear and hatred. Like a lily-white Linus, we fear a minority of Snoopys will sneak up and steal our precious blan ket. The white population will be left sprawled and bewildered while the minorities run off with every thing we hold dear. Contrary to the racism-tainted harbingers of mi nority-controlled doom, other races are not“o running.” If they’re lucky, they might gam whites in the next two hundred years—and about time. Numerical growth doesn’t ensure equal righi even prominence in the society. The struggle ] minority rights has been long and hard. It’stkwrh reap some rewards, starting with the knowlt jom. that majority rule may be more difficult todejo'k," in the future. W link t Loren Steffy is a senior journalism major andim Opinion Page editor /br The Battalion. Official language? Bilingualism hinders Hispanic assimilation. encourages continued reliance on Spanisl Much has been said lately about making English the official state, and maybe even Marco Roberts Guest Columnist national, language. Speaker pro tern of the Texas House, Hugo Berlanga, said recently that the effort “smacks of big otry and racism.” State Republican Chairman George Strake said “This is meant to pull people together rather than isolate or separate people because of their language.” Perhaps. I don’t doubt that the impetus for many who are behind the effort is prob ably based on an animosity towards peo ple of a Hispanic background and their “foreign” ways. But this does not mean there are not some valid points to con sider in their argument for a society tied together by a common language. The issue isn’t the proposed amend ment, but the role English should play in our society and to what extent Span ish, and for that matter other languages, should be incorporated into our public services and operations. After all, as a Battalion editorial stated on Wednes day, it is superfluous. (Of course, the editorial then proceeded to tell us how an official language will have a discrimi natory impact on the Hispanic minority, which sounds hardly superfluous to me.) As implied by that editorial, the real issues are the education of Hispanics, their voting privileges and their assimi lation to the mainstream of society. Speaking as one who began life know ing only Spanish, I firmly believe that the introduction of Spanish, or any other language outside of English, into public services is a fundamentally flawed policy — a policy that will hurt Hispanics and our nation in general. When I was seven years old, I hardly knew any English. I entered the second grade in an English-only school and was not allowed to do any work in Spanish. By the time I entered the third grade I was speaking in English without any problems. When I lived in Mexico, I attended a private school that was bilingual and ca tered primarily to English-speaking for eigners (mostly Americans). I remem ber finding out, to my surprise, that most Americans, even those who had lived for 10 years in Mexico, hardly could speak Spanish. I felt offended that people who had lived for years in a real MAft&ULieS ©nee Hwsioti fvsr The fire' country I called home never bothered to learn the language. Though they were required to take some Spanish, their regular classes and their homelife were in English, thereby reducing greatly the need to learn Spanish. These people never assimilated into any part of Mexi can society, but since most were Ameri can citizens who intended to return eventually to the United States, this was UnU»dFtslurt Syndlesi* not important. The Hispanic community here is Politicians in the public eye — and they’re irritating it I often won der why any body would want to run for political office. It’s expensive, it’s tiring, and you have to kiss a lot of fat ba bies, and fat ba bies have a habit of drooling on you when you try to kiss them. Lewis Grizzard And after you’re elected, although you do have a good opportunity to be come wealthy in some instances, you still have to wear a tie to work every day, people write nasty letters about you in the newspapers and if your kid gets arrested for shoplifting you have to deny you even know the little devil or face losing when you run for re- election. All that was bad enough, but in the recent national elections, we had a new twist known as negative advertis ing. This is where you pay an advertis ing firm $2 million or $3 million to in vent television and radio commercials saying your opponent has bad breath, sleeps in his underwear and doesn’t love the Lord. I happened to be doing a great deal of traveling during the final weeks of the campaign, and after seeing neg ative commercial after negative com mercial, I became concerned that ev ery candidate running was some sort of dishonest mudbrain. Began one: “Do you really want a man like Harvey Snucklehouser rep resenting you in Washington? He cheats on his income tax, doesn’t put the shower curtain inside the tub when he bathes in hotel rooms, his mother wears combat boots and he pulled for the Mets in the World Se ries.” Another said: “How could anybody vote for Bernice (Dingbat) Flournoy? She’s so stupid she thinks Beirut was a famous baseball player, she smells like a goat herder, probably is a commu nist and has fat thighs.” In Georgia, incumbent Republican Sen. Mack Mattlingly basically stayed out of his campaign with the excep tion of buying commercials that said his opponent, Democrat Wyche Fowler, hardly ever bothered to ap pear for votes during his term as U.S. representative. Fowler got even, however; he beat Mattingly, who won’t be making ANY appearances in the Senate anymore. I have a friend who once ran for a local county post. He lost. “It was the worst experience I ever had,” he said. “Every time I told a lie, they caught me, and every time I told the truth, nobody would believe me.” There are lots of better ways to abuse oneself than going through the expense, turmoil and humiliation of running for and/or holding political office. You could open a meat market in Ralph Nader’s neighborhood, get a job as Frank Sinatra’s press agent or become a newspaper columnist and say you think television evangelists are a bunch cf crooks. I once asked a man who was run ning for Congress just why on earth he would want to put himself through such an ordeal and have people say bad things about him and be mistrust ful of him. “Well,” he replied, “I was already a lawyer.” In my mind, that’s still not reason enough. Copyright 1986, Cowles Syndicate shooting itself in the foot when it de mands the inclusion of Spanish in public affairs. We keep hearing about their voting privileges being denied or re stricted when Spanish is not included on voting ballots. How does an American citizen reach the age of 18 not knowing how to read English (though they ap parently learned to read Spanish)? All naturalized Americans are required to learn English, so these Spanish speakers must be Americans by birth. Our public schools are open to illegal aliens, and we’ve had bilingual education for some years now, so how is this possible? Learning another language is not easy, and people will simply opt not to learn one unless it’s required. Just about any foreign language teacher will tell you that the best way to learn a language is to be constantly required to use it. Most of us will revert back to our native language whenever possible, simply be cause it is easier. This is particularly so when we are talking about children, es pecially Hispanic children who may not understand the importance of learning English and how it will affect their edu cational and job opportunities. The Hispanics are the only ethnic group that has demanded, and suc ceeded to some extent in getting, their initial education and some public docu ments in their language. Hispanics as a whole also have been the slowest to learn English. The point is thatbili CSL ualism to accomodate a minoritysimWion retards the assimilation of that mine® P< into the mainstream of society andr 1 ™' 1 ' 5 hances its isolation. nci XT .11 MM' No matter what the law says,?pil a( |m Hispanic that does not speak EngiB will never have the educational ortm ployment opportunities thatotlP^ Americans have. When \ve makeiuj ier to get along in our society withfl |! the use of English, we simply are ing it easier for a group to remainnn similated, and in fact, judging b) poor marks bilingual education been receiving in teaching pupils glish, that is precisely what is fiap| ing. So despite patronizing editor* the contrary, public bilingualismrei assimilation rather than promotes i In addition to all this, I don’t# L Hispanics are entitled to specialtrM [rorr ment that no other non-English-spfi ing ethnic group has received. 1 ofc rpig feel embarrassed by these den® from our purported Hispanic and frankly, it would be chaotic if e'£ group in the United States that did speak English demanded a similar® sion of their language. Finally there is the issue of unity. Throughout history, langus has shown itself to be among the® powerful determinants of nationlP believe it is to our advantage to havt ery American fluent in another guage besides English, but it is more portant to insure our abilit) communicate with each other. Asap son with a Hispanic heritage, Idonil lieve we are entitled to a governmf' subsidy of our cultural heritage. Unfortunately, our Hispanic leaf' will continue to push for this public ingualism, not because it is of long 1 ' benefit to anyone, but because it! more votes among their const#® and the Anglo liberals will help them 1 the same reason. But what isjustai' heartening is that most of the con# tive Anglos will oppose them cause of the rightness of their po# (which they probably arrived at bj ! dent), but out of latent prejudice,d and their constituents’. That’s pol# and durit offer *P/ * B( * Bl D * Al \b B ( Marco A. Roberts is a senior pol 11 science major and editor of The f napiecan Times, an undergnm per. 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