Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, March 27, 1987
The Battalion
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The Battalion Editorial Board
Loren Steffy, Editor
Marybeth Rohsner, Managing Editor
Mike Sullivan, Opinion Page Editor
Jens Koepke, City Editor
Jeanne Isenberg, Sue Krenek, News Editors
Homer Jacobs, Sports Editor
Tom Ownbey, Photo Editor
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A U.S. tradition
Let’s get something straight about the controversial Frank Van
diver final exam T-shirts. If Traditions Council wants to sell them
and you want to buy one, you can — thanks to the First Amendment,
which guarantees freedom of expression.
And Carolyn Adair, director of student activities understands
that she — or any other A&M administrator — cannot forbid the sale
of the shirts in the Memorial Student Center simply because of the
T-shirt’s message.
The Student Press Law Center in Washington D.C. explained to
The Battalion that because the administration allows other organiza
tions to sell T-shirts in the MSC, it must also allow Traditions Council
the same right.
The problem seems to be that Traditions Council did not get a
permit to sell the shirts, and, therefore, was forced to stop selling
them in the MSC. Legally, however, the council can apply for a per
mit and can get one.
If the the administration refused to issue a permit, The Student
Press Law Center said, it would be running serious risk of being sued
for First Amendment infringement.
But according to Adair, the Traditions Council has not applied
for a permit to sell the shirts.
Adair said that if the council “pushed the issue, I would probably
sign a permit.”
She said she is most concerned with the tactic used by the council.
Adair said the red protest T-shirts aren’t consistent with the council’s
more conservative, “professional” methods and that the shirts will
hurt any chances the council may have for attaining its goal — re
scheduling senior final exams or elimination of the plan altogether.
Petitions are nice, and door-knocking isn’t a bad idea, but so far it
seems that nothing the Traditions Council or any other student or
ganization has done has caught the attention of administrators like
the T-shirts have.
If students are concerned about senior final exams and want ad
ministrators to take note, it seems they have stumbled on to a com-
So what happens when
In Bergenfield,
N.J., four trou
bled teen-agers
pulled into a ga
rage, closed the
door and pro
ceeded to kill
themselves by car-
bon-monoxide
poisoning. By
nightfall, the tra
gic story was on
the evening news
and the next morning in newspapers.
Instantly, experts were called upon to
comment on teen-age suicide —whether
it is, or is not a serious problem.
This is what happens when whites
die. I do not mean to minimize the
deaths in New Jersey. There were four
kids in that car and the death of each
one is a tragedy. Young lives and all the
supposed promise that goes with youth
were extinguished. Parents and relatives
will mourn, and, inevitably, some will
blame themselves. A school and com
munity have some hard questions to an
swer. One of them is why kids should
conclude that they have nothing to live
for.
But there is a version of the New Jer
sey tragedy that is considered the nor
mal state of affairs when it comes to the
impoverished black community. In ways
we often do not recognize as suicide,
blacks and members of other minority
groups kill themselves at a rate un
known in the white community. In
1982, the homicide rate (per 100,000)
for whites was 9.6. The same rate for
blacks was an astounding 59.1.
Sometimes these deaths are caused by
what we all recognize as suicide — and
for that, the rate for blacks is lower than
for whites. But much of the time, the
cause of the death is listed as something
different — drug overdose, alcoholism
or, even the victim of violent crime.
Those figures tell a wholly different
story.
Some homicide victims, of either
race, were simply in the wrong place at
the wrong time. But if that was all there
was to it, the white and black rate would
be about the same. The difference is ex
plained by other factors, like a more
dangerous environment for many
blacks (inner-city slums) and a tendency
to engage in violent behavior — what
criminologist Marvin Wolfgang calls
“victim-precipitated homicide.”
What is true for violence is true also
for drug addiction, alcoholism and
other forms of what is called “risk-tak
ing behavior.” Very often, the same de
pression, hopelessness, frustration and
rage that is associated with suicide con
tributes to what we consider anti-social
behavior.
At the Centers for Disease Control in
Atlanta, both homicide and suicide are
considered public-health problems
whose causes may be similar. The hope
lessness, rage and depression that con
stitute the unbearable pain of the sui
cide victim can, in another person,
trigger violent behavior. In the end, the
actions of a suicidal person and some
one who is always picking a fight can
produce the same result.
There is so much of this behavior in
the poor, urban black community that
some demographers think it explains
why in some areas there are fewer men
than women. (Suicide, like homicide, is
mostly a male phenomenon.) In certain
inner-city New York neighborhoods,
for instance, the gap is 14 percent—and
both homicide and suicide are held par
tially responsible. The true explanation
may well be under-counting by census
takers fearful of entering certain build
ings. But just the fact that homicide and
suicide are cited shows the extent of the
problem in the underclass black com
munity.
As it has with drug addiction, Ameri
can society clutches only when the prob
lem spills out into the white middle-class
community. Heroin addiction, which
has bottomed out as mostly an under
class problem, receives scant attention in
the media; that same thing will probably
happen when cocaine, as some predict,
is abandoned by all but the lower classes.
What is commonplace in the ghetto
usually goes unnoticed until it threatens
suburbia. Then media attention stops
are pulled, America waxes indignant,
the president appoints a study commis
sion and its recommendations are for
gotten as soon as the problem retreats to
the ghetto.
Richard
Cohen
Opinion
GIMMIE THAI “GOOD OL' T/A1F" RELIGION
By
This doesn’t seem like a port
L
is now weig
Congress ar
dency, a fori
who served
president t<
night.
believe
power advai
ing, toward
Rgan’s str<
some degree
erid D. McC
sistant for le
aid Reagan.
Iw'Aiid absi
having the cl
ehaiacter of
aularity ai
will continue
gress’ favor,”
|»lcClure, <
on relations
the presidem
April 1 MS<
said the role
legislative brt
mentary and
jAs the cc
president co
McClure saic
Only five more
weeks and I’ll be a
former student. I
can tell it’s time
for me to graduate
because I am fed
up with studying.
I remember every
one telling me that
college is the best
time of your life
and to enjoy it. Ev-
eryone said I
wouldn’t have any responsibilities and
all kinds of free time. Apparently, none
of these people went to college — at
least not at A&M.
It seems I never have a free moment.
And I’m sick of worrying about 20
things at once. I can’t wait to get a full
time job. After I get off work, the only
thing I’ll have to worry about is getting
up the next morning to go back. Some
how that sounds a lot better than what
others die?
Given that record, it is reasonable to
predict that the New Jersey tragedy will
cause the nation and its news media to
put a bigger spotlight on teen-age sui
cide. Since the problem exists, that’s a
good thing. But the hopelessness and
despair of the New Jersey teen-agers
who call themselves “the burnouts,”
their pessimism about job prospects and
the solace they might have sought in
drugs or alcohol, is an ordinary part of
underclass life. We accept it as that —or
dinary — and not what it essentially is —
suicidal. The suicide of four young peo
ple is a tragedy. Its more frequent coun
terpart in the ghetto is that and more.
It’s also a disgrace.
Copyright 1986, Washington Post Writers Group
I’m doing now. The best part about get
ting a full-time job is that I’ll only be re-
sponsibile to one company.
In college, you’re responsible for a
number of things. The most obvious
one, of course, is your grade-point ratio.
Unfortunately, each professor feels his
or her class is the most important one.
My boyfriend and I went out to dinner
one Friday night and we ran into his
biochemistry professor. At the restau
rant, the professor seemed nice enough,
but the next week in class he com
mented that he had seen several stu
dents from the class out on the week
end. He added that if the students had
enough time to go out, then they didn’t
have enough work to do. Naturally, the
professor took it upon himself to correct
the problem.
It seems almost all instructors feel
their class should be at the top of each
student’s priority list. 1 have friends who
were given homework over spring break
or had to take a test the Monday we got
back. And now we have a number of
faculty members who want graduating
seniors to take final exams.
Recently I read that the early grading
requirements for graduating seniors
were complicating the faculty’s schedule
and that this was one reason for justify
ing final exams. This only seems fair, af
ter all the consideration instructors give
to the students’ schedule. I’m sure we’ve
all had instructors postpone an exam af
ter finding out we already had one the
same week. Any other reasons for mak
ing seniors take final exams escape my
reasoning. Of course, that’s probably
why I’m only getting a bachelor’s degree
and not a doctorate.
However, school responsibilities
usually extend beyond the classroom.
Many students are involved in campus
organizations, and membership in them
often requires a large time commitment.
A friend of mine is in a singing group
and the time she spends at reh«qpj , . t * ie / ^' 1 m .
concerts and fund-raisingeu j
enormous. I he organization hai <; tales to ( oi e
sympathy for members who havtabut Congress
the day after a rehearsal. Some pfb e strings
zations make attendance manc;appropriate
and entoKc |xMialities for thok|Ri l,s ,,l( ' n !
don't attend. filled and dvn
■pcClure sa
Another large time commitmtspesidential a<
many students is work. There ai;g|
dents w T ho must work in order to«
school. Other students, whose
for their education, work sol
pay
can have spending money for rtii
spring break. And finally, studec
me work l>ecause they want cartel
m
ALLAS (
1.1 • i r .u waclass-acdoi
lated expel.CHI' before the. c ,
But working also means giving up ft rt asking
for studying or playing. WorkisadMental Heali
commitment and an added stress ■held in contei
already hectic schedule. he state is
inesubstanda
1 ve oiten heard the expressn tain retarded
until you get out in the real world fbAttorney E
pie who say this make it soundii!:C on, idential i
lege students don’t have a careitH te School r
world. College is part of the realuft 1 ’ tarings,
and students have numerous dei
placed on them by peers, parcc
structors and employers. I’m beg:
to think the students who take 121S
and aren’t involved in anythingek
doing it the right way. They’re
pie who grow up and proclaim,“ft ^
is the best time of your life.”
Of course, my discontent couli
be a sign of senioritis or spring:
Then again, maybe it’s becauselc
in town over spring break. Vita-
case may be, I know I’m ready tot 1
real job and a more stable schedti:
almost ironic how busy I’vebeentb |
semester. I thought I was goingtoj
the whole time. I guess this is
University’s way of telling me I
graduated yet. And if I don’t g
vated, I might be here another*
ter.
Jo Streit is a senior journalism t'
and a columnist /or The Battalion
m
H/
Q\
PI
M
Mail Call
Good intentions?
EDITOR:
In response to the letter “Good Intentions” by Mr.
Markel L. Simmons in Mail Call March 24,1 question just
who is the benefactor of the good intentions of President
Reagan and the U.S. foreign policy in Central America.
Yes, I agree with the idea that it is possible to do the right
thing in the wrong way, but I personally feel that some of
the intentions of the United States concerning Nicaragua
are selfish.
In January and February of 1981, I traveled in
Nicaragua and saw firsthand some of the problems 18
months after the Sandanista revolution. I also lived on the
East coast of Honduras from 1983 to 1986 and worked
with Miskito Indians, of which some 20,000 were political
refugees from Nicaragua. During my three years in
Honduras, I had several encounters with the U.S.-trained
and U.S.-backed counter-revolutionary forces (Contras).
Following are a few questions that I would like to share
with Simmons, all Aggies, concerned citizens of the United
States, and especially Reagan and members of Congress:
1. Were our intentions good when we helped set up the
Somosa family as dictators in Nicaragua in the late 1920s?
2. Were our intentions good when we allowed the
Somosa family (father and two sons) and a very few other
families to exploit their fellow Nicaraguans until the
peasants had very little left to live for?
3. Were our intentions good as we exploited the
resources (human and natural) of Nicaragua and other
Central American countries during the last century
through the combined efforts of private business and the
CIA?
4. Were our intentions good as the Somosa family
butchered (“Butcherer” is the nickname given to the
Somosa family by the Nicaraguan people) thousandswl
opposed them up until the Sandanista revolution of 191
5. Are our intentions still good as thousands ofyoufj
people die fighting in the counter-revolution when the'
have very little chance of winning (as the congressional
report stated recently?)
6. Are our intentions also good in El Salvadorwheri
we presently support a very oppressive government
against another group of “Freedom Fighters”?
As per the use of the word communist in the above
mentioned letter, Daniel Ortega has repeatedly stated!-
the Sandanista government is not communist — nordtf
it wish to be. Neither do they want to align with the type 1
democracy that has been shown to Nicaragua over the f*
60 years. I agree that the Sandanista government is
oppressive, but our press and our politicians are
sometimes guilty of pulling these sensational factsoutof
context. Somosa (whom we supported) was also
oppressive.
To make my stand clear, I am not pro-Sandanista^
neither am I pro-Contra. If one of my friends is manaff
his money poorly, does that give me the right to play
policeman and take his checkbook away and managed
money for him because I think I can do better? Please
don’t accept my opinions without investigating more
deeply the history of Nicaragua and Central Americafo 1
at least the past 100 years.
Again, what are our real in itions in Nicaragua?^
there maybe not better ways to encourage freedom?
Ray H. Griggs ’81
Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial it*
serves the right to edit letters for style and length, hut will make net)
maintain the author’s intent. Each letter must he signed and must include h
sification, address and telephone number of the writer.