Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, October 16, 1987
Opinion
The Battalion
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Tracy Staton, Photo Editor
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Black leaders are way out of line
in criticizing Michael Jackson
WS;
Equality needed
Now that the NFL strike is over and the “real” players are re
turning to work, it may be easy for ecstatic fans to lose sight of
what the players were fighting for.
At first glance, the fight for free agency may seem greedy
coming from men whose annual salaries are often exorbitant.
But by refusing free agency, the owners are refusing the players
a right the owners have: the right to get the best deal they can.
Houston may be losing the Oilers to Jacksonville because
owner Bud Adams is unhappy with the deal he’s getting from
the city and the fans, whose support has been waning. The NFL
allows owners to pick up and move when they’re unhappy with
the deal they are getting; players don’t have the same right.
Whether or not you agree with free agency, it’s easy to see
the situation is inequitable. The NFL should give in to tne play
ers’ demands on free agency — or require the owners to stay in
one place along with them.
The Association
of Black
Psychologists,
meeting recently
in Washington,
indicated their
displeasure with
black rock star
M ichael J ackson
for not being what
they considered a
proper role model
for black children.
Lewis
Grizzard
The group metioned Jackson’s heavy
makeup, his nose job and his artificially
straightend hair.
“He’s creating an appearance that is
more Anglo than African,” Halford
Fairchild, past presdientof the group,
was quoted as saying.
“We need positive models that exhibit
pride in African values of beauty.”
Allow me to say, up front, I’m not a
Michael Jackson fan. When it comes to
music, I go back to my own heritage and
the country sounds of Nelson, Haggard
and Jones, to name a few.
However, if I were Michael Jackson, I
would do one of two things: I would
either ignore the Association of Black
Psychologists or I would tell them, in no
uncertain terms, where they could go.
Regardless of Michael Jackson’s
African heritage, he is currently an
American citizen, which means he can
do anything he pleases in regard to how
much makeup he wants to wear, what
shape he wants his nose in and how he
wants to style his hair.
I will admit that the few times I’ve
seen Michael Jackson on television, he
did tend to remind me more of a
Michele than a Michael, but Willie
Nelson has gone to wearing earrings,
and I still play and enjoy his music as I
did before he decided to bejewel his
lobes.
throughout the world, and hepn
gets all the free Pepsi he wants.
He gets a little weird at times.doi]
things like sleeping in an oxygen
chamber, making Friends witna
chimpanzee and trying to buy wbaii
of the Elephant Man.
But consider this: Roy Rogers»i
role model as a child, and herodci
horse decorated like a Christmastis
and had a f. .end named PatBradu ^£^0:
talked to his Jeep.
Other than the fact 1 puta
my dog at Christmas and haveafc rariety of
who jogs, I turned out fairly welb
adjusted.
Micl rael Jackson’s new album
Black people still have a lot of
problems, and one of them seems to be
that they get a lot of pressure from so-
called black leaders on how they should
look, who they should vote for and how
they should fit in with other blacks.
White people used to do that for
blacks, but as soon as they cast off those
shackles, here came somebody else —
their own — with a set of guidelines.
What’s so wrong about a black kid
looking up to Michael Jackson? He’s got
all the money in the world, he’s known
atop the rock charts, incidentallv.a >the. campi
Ben
Lure of ‘Texana’
threatens our state
Recently a
young lady and I
were sitting up
late watching
television at her
apartment and
playing video
commander with
R. Lee
Sullivan
Guest Columnist
the remote control unit. Without
warning, she stopped on the Nashville
Network. Aghast, I protested loudly
and in the strongest terms possible.
“Shhhh!” she hissed sternly, increasing
the volume. For the next few agonizing
minutes I was shocked at the spectacle
of this woman I thought I knew
watching a country-western music video
in open-mouthed adulation, her wide
eyes filling with tears as she sniffed
sentimentally.
The mucus that filled her nose was a
phlegm born of unabashed, inbred
Texas romance. Sadly, it wasn’t sitting
next to me that made this girl’s heart
turn to petroleum jelly. My own
considerable charms were upstaged by
the images on the screen: cowboys,
longhorn cattle, the Capitol, crude oil, a
chuckwagon and the Marlboro man all
spread out on an endless prairie with
the Lone Star flag covering the sky. The
music twanged along to lyrics that went
something like, “From Brownsville to
Dallas/El Paso to Sabine,/the Rio Grande
and Red rivers/Keep heaven in-
between.”
“That’s awful!” I blurted.
„ “It’s a damn good song!” she shot
back in a accent notably thicker than the
one God and nature endowed her with.
To tell the truth, this woman normally
carries absolutely no trace of Texas in
her diction at all. Now she sounded like
Jeanna Clare. Unwilling to be Don
Mahoney at any price and frankly
terrified by a transformation that could
only end up in a kind of East-Texas
Exorcist (“Your mother sucks chili-dogs
in Cleveland!”), I retreated from
Calamity Jane’s private Alamo before
she started spitting a stream of Wolf
Brand at me.
This summer I met a girl from New
Jersey who refused to believe I was a
native Texan. “You don’t sound like a
Texan,” she told me. Well, she didn’t
pronounce Jersey as “Joisey,” so I don’t
think she’s really from anywhere near
the Rust Belt. However, she’s right — I
don’t talk like I’m from Texas, at least
not the Texas you see on the Nashville
Network or CBS. Heck, Larry
Hagman’s from Texas, and when he’s
out of character, even he doesn’t talk
like J.R. Ewing. Remember when ’ol J.R
was Maj. Nelson? “Oh, Master, you
cannot be from Texas; you do not
sound like Slim Pickens!” Truth is,
Jeannie, the Texas J.R. and Slim come
from is the one you have to blink up on
prime-time.
Driving through Austin, Dallas or
San Antonio, you can find ample
evidence of make-believe Texas, which
has come to be known as “Texana”:
cowboy boots and 10-gallon hats and
six-shooters merchandising everything
from barbeque to baby oil. Reason is, a
good part of these cities’ economies
depend on tourism. If expectant
yankees are short-changed on their visit
to the Lone Star State, they may not
come back.
Travel farther south, though, to
Houston, and it’s difficult to tell you’re
in Texas at all. Houston is downright
ugly, but it’s real live Texas nonetheless.
It’s unpretentious and power-hungry,
dedicated to commerce and doesn’t care
who knows it. A lot of its citizens may be
out of work at the moment, but that’s
the reason most of the pioneers who
originally came to Texas crossed the
Red River in the first place. You don’t
get the veneer of Wild West hokum
trying to disguise trade as tradition in
Houston like you do up in Dallas, where
they call it “bidness,” and it’s real cute.
Houston is hardball, stripped-down
capitalism that everyone can get a piece
of no matter who his daddy is.
Houston looks the way it does
because people don’t go there to sight
see; they go there to make money, the
oldest authentic Texas tradition there is.
The occasional stray tourist who does
end up in Houston gets sent to
Pasadena because it sort of looks like
Hollywood Texas, but that’s only
because yahkees know more about
Gilley’s than they do about NASA.
Besides, before John Travolta made his
movie, almost no one wore starched
Wranglers and Ropers to Gilley’s. When
I was in high school, we used to go there
wearing 501s and AC/DC T-shirts, our
hair hanging down to our shoulders,
and we were more Texan than a whole
posse of urban cowboys.
Of course, my young lady friend
would disagree. It is instructive to note
that she comes from old Texas money.
The past was good to these people, and
it’s hard for them to give up things like
an economy based on oil and
agriculture. Besides, real he-men don’t
have a state income tax on the trust
funds their parents worked so hard to
inherit. Embracing the same sort of
manifest destiny that motivated their
forebears, these civic-minded successors
to peerage in the redneck realm glory in
the heritage that landed them in
Highland Park, and they want things to
stay that way. No matter if their history
is as much of a myth as amateur athletics
at SMU.
A tough son-of-a-gun like Sam
Houston was probably as sentimental as
a rattlesnake, and I’ll bet he would have
hated country music as much as he did
the Confederacy. Dude-ranch Texas is
good public relations as long as we don’t
start believing our own press. We’re
history when the accent becomes more
important than what we have to say,
when being Texan becomes more
important than being successful. The
men and women who settled this state
concerned themselves with what Texas
could be, not what it had been. That’s
why it’s called the Lone Star State
instead of the Lone Star Republic, or
even worse, Mexico.
R. Lee Sullivan is a graduate student in
English.
'YOU KNOW, THOSE
SMOKELESS CIGARETTES
REALL'/ MAKE A DIFFERENCE...
THESE ARE THE CLEANEST
CANCER CELLS I'VE EVER
SEEN.
he’ll make enough money ofTthesl
to buy himself a real elephantiflK
wants one.
Meanwhile, don’t anybody tel
Association of Black Psycholopsca
Charlie Pride, the country musku
who happens to he black and is jtti
rich selling white people’s music is
them.
WASH IN
epartment
Joyd Bents
is goal of r
art of the o
The repe
® 1901 SANDeeouMot f'lf® ne n d m e i u
-Texas, wo
Knowing something like that® j'
make a black shrink have a nervosi ^ (|
breakdown.
Copyright 1987, Cowles Syndicate
Texas A
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dLfnerican Pe
Mail Call
Where has 'Howdy' gone?
EDITOR:
Where have all the Howdy’s gone?
In our efforts to become a “world class” university,
Texas A&M students, faculty and administrators have lost
sight of the spirit of Aggieland. The longstanding
tradition of greeting people on campus with a “howdy” is
quickly becoming extinct. A&M is well-known for its
friendliness and strong school spirit. It is a reputation
which students take pride in and which makes A&M
unique. With the increase of enrollment because of
Vandiver’s goal of a “world class” university, Texas A&M
has begun to lose the characteristics which brought people
to it in the first place.
Texas A&M can be a “world class” university without
40,000-plus students. The quality and spirit of the people
are what make the University “world class.”
Come on Ags — Say “howdy,” dammit!
Gail Turchi ’90
Gina Rumore ’89
Editor’s note: At A&M, lamenting the demiseofibtj
dy" tradition is almost as much of a tradition as si$
the first place. The following appeared in The M
on Oct. 30, 1947:
BLOOM COUNTY
0C&W/ vow'
I . Hf\ Hfl HA
.dr V 7 HOCfT'mi
THANK YOU.
i Love
YOU ML.
FUM'f/
HA HA
mm ha
ha m m
Howdy faces extinction
One of A&M’s oldest and most creditable
rapidly sinking into oblivion. T he custom of gret®
eryone with a friendly “howdy” is one of the most®
assets of an Aggie, and yet the present studentlxxM
ans and corps members alike, have gradually let tq
tice slip into disuse without a single note of dissent
To be sure, A&M students still speak, butt
be found is that friendly atmosphere that once eft
the campus. . . . What is the cause of this in
Who is responsible? Why, WE are!
Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The tkA
serves the right to edit letters for style and length, but will mah Tj
maintain the author’s intent. Each letter must be signed and mwl w j
sification, address and telephone number of the writer.
by Berke Bret
HEY.
mrcH
THIS...
MfT...
NO...
1 CANT
TAKE /T...