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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 20, 1988)
Page 2/The Battalion/Wednesday, July 20, 1988 Opinion I322E Learning from others is a valuable experience About a year ago, I had to take a course called the Sociology of Mi nority Groups. It was a fairly easy course, but the fi nal project had me scared, and it was worth about 30 percent of my grade so I couldn’t get out of it. I had to interview a Black or Hispanic person over the age of 50 whose income was near the poverty line. I was to ask him or her how racism had affected his or her life and to describe specific in stances of racism he or she had encoun tered. The professor told us a good place to start looking would be on cam pus after five p.m. He said that minori ties come out when the other people have gone home. It’s like they are hid den away during the day. I was shy. I was very, very intimidated by strangers. I could just see myself. I’d see someone pushing a broom or some thing and I’d say, “Hey, I couldn’t help noticing that you are black, old and look poor — mind if I ask you some ques tions?” I was sure that whomever I asked would be insulted. I had 100 rea sons why I shouldn’t have to do the pro ject. But I knew I had to find someone or take the course over. Then my roommate introduced me to Lucy, a black, older woman who works here on campus. When I told Lucy what I wanted to do, her face lit up, and she gave me a big hug. Lucy was actually flattered when I said I wanted to interview her. Evidently, no one had ever thought that Lucy had any infor mation. Lucy’s story was remarkable. She spoke somehow without bitterness or anger about events that would harden almost anyone. I struggled to under stand her kindness after she had been treated so badly. When she was small she lived around white children. When ever something was missing it was al ways Lucy who was blamed. Because she was black, she was assumed to be a thief. Lucy had rude bus drivers order her to sit in the back when she was old enough to be their mother. Lucy had felt what what Martin Luther King Jr. described as the “stinging darts of segregation” sink into her. The part of the interview that stuck in my mind the most though was when she said she wanted to be a teacher, but she had not finished school. I thought, Lucy, you are a teacher. There are 50 years of history in Lucy, including an amazing acount of tbe civil rights movtment. And there are thousands and thousands of Lucys out there. They have so much wisdom to share. But no one ever asks. The greatest source of teachers that we have are older people. As Ann Land ers says, everytime an old person dies it’s like a library burned down. And if a person is a minority, a special perspec tive is brought in, showing a terrible, tragic, ugly side of this country and hu manity. And this same perspective also shows the courage, hope and determin ation of people. Part of the reason I did not want to do the interview was because I was scared. Initially, I only talked to Lucy because I had to. I had no idea it would be so serendipitious. 1 had never known anyone well who was black, much less someone black, older and not middle class. I said I wasn’t prejudiced. I would not tolerate racial slurs, and I could ar gue a good case for affirmitive action. 1 truly believed that Blacks are equal to whites and that they are short-changed on opportunities. But after talking with Lucy I realized that 1 never thought I could learn anything special from black people. I thought they were just too dif ferent from me, especially the ones I was supposed to interview. I had built a wall in my mind made out of those per ceived differences. Lucy taught me that everyone has a story to tell, andwtj all learn from each other. There; common human bond that cani learned from books but is translj through people — all people. Lucy is a teacher for those who wi lling to give some time and atieil to her. And she is eager and grateful that time and attention. Our sou needs to stop hiding minorities and people. We spend a lot of time wont ing what to do with them when ought to be learning from them ought to be paying attention and list ing to each other. External differed such as age or race can be a barrierc if we let them. If we only listened.! could for once quit seeing ourselvt; the standard other people must judged by. If we could appreciates pie for what they are, we woulddiset an inf inite amount of experieu strength, hope and wisdom that pet have to offer. Jill Webb is a senior secondaryec. tion major and columnist for The! talion. Bentson is bad news for every proud liberal It could have been worse. Duka- kis could have asked Richard Nixon to be his running mate. Lloyd Bentsen isn’t that bad, really; I’m told he once took the anti slavery side in a debate. What am I say ing? Of course, Bentsen is that bad. He has voted for contra aid, the MX missile, the B-l bomber, school prayer and first elected to the Senate in 1970 by supporting the war in Vietnam. As a young congressmarv in 1950, he sug gested that Presideftt Truman end the war in Korea by threatening to use the atomic bomb. He has been against gun control, federal financing of abortion for the poor and taxing the rich. He’s never met a loophole he didn’t like. He beat George Bush in that 1970 Senate campaign in Texas by running to the right of Mr. Bush. I’m a liberal; I hate him. He could be a great choice. Alan Baron, the political oracle from Iowa, now of Washington, has a theory that the best choices for vice president are the ones that cause the presidential candidate’s strongest supporters the most discomfort. His reasoning is that your strong supporters are going to stay with you no matter whom you pick, it’s the people who don’t like you much to whom you have to reach out. He points to Jack Kennedy’s choice of Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan’s of Bush as examples of the art. If that theory is correct, then the Bentsen pick is a lulu. Of all the Demo cratic vice-presidential possibilities pa raded before the media in the past few weeks — Jesse Jackson, Bill Bradley, Sam Nunn, Lee Hamilton, Dick Ge phardt, Tom Foley, Bill Clinton, Bob Graham — Bentsen is the least winsome to the liberal mind. When push comes to shove, however, Sen. Bentsen’s worth as a vice-presi dential candidate comes down to his be ing able to help Dukakis wrest Texas from the Republicans in the fall. You can, as an intellectual exercise, construct a scenario that has Dukakis winning the election without carrying Texas. But, in the real world, no Democrat has done so in this century. Choosing Bentsen as his running mate doesn’t guarantee that Dukakis will carry Texas but it does give him a leg up. Bentsen has the most powerful, smoothest running political machine in the state, which will now be put at the service of the national ticket. In addition, due to a quirk in the Texas election law contrived to accom modate Lyndon Johnson in 1960, Bent sen can simultaneously run for vice president and for the Senate. That en sures that every Democratic politician of note in the state will work his handshake to the bone to see that Bentsen is el evated to the vice presidency so that his Senate seat goes up for grabs — theirs. If Bentsen brings in Texas, he was a great choice. If he doesn’t, he was an ir relevant one, by yet another failed Dem ocratic nominee. All of this assumes, of course, that the ransacking of the Bentsen closet that will go on in the next few weeks will pro duce no hideous skeleton that will cause sensitive voters to recoil in fear and loathing. *» As it now stands, the worst thing we know about him is that he soon as he be came chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, he tried to shake down favor-seeking lobbyists for $10,000 campaign contributions to have breakfast with him once a month. He at least had the good grace to be. embar rassed when word of the deal got out and he was forced to cancel it. There are good things about him, from a liberal point of view. After beat ing Mr. Bush for the Senate he did move to the left a little, coming to op pose the war in Vietnam. He has been a supporter of the Equal Rights Amend ment, of such social programs as cata strophic illness protection, bilingual ed ucation and day care and he opposed a constitutional amendment to ban abor tions. He plays tennis, a more liberal sport than golf. You see what piteous creatures we lib erals have become? Where once we walked the earth with the stride of giants, challenging our ene mies with slogans of the New Deal, the New Frontier and the Great Society, we are now reduced to slinking around the banquet tables of the powerful, begging for crumbs. We hope that Dukakis is a closet lib eral but we understand that he can’t ad mit it in public, for fear that opponents will accuse him being — horror of hor rors! — a McGovern Democrat. We want him to campaign as a mealy- mouthed moderate, then act like Harry Hopkins when he’s president, in the manner of a pirate ship that sails into an encounter under a false flag before run ning up the Jolly Roger. And some of us are happy when he picks a man who is essentially a moder ate Republican conservative as a run ning mate. I liked it better when we ruled the Earth, or thought we did. Copyright 1988, Tribune Media Services,Inc. Donald Kaul The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Richard Williams, Editor Sue Krenek, Managing Editor Mark Nair, Opinion Page Editor Curtis Culberson, City Editor Becky Weisenfels, Cindy Milton, News Editors Anthony Wilson, Sports Editor Jay Janner, Art Director Editorial Policy The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspa per operated as a community service to Texas A&M and Bryan-College Station. Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editorial board or the author, and do not necessarily rep resent the opinions of Texas A&M administrators, fac ulty or the Board of Regents. The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for students in reporting, editing and photography classes within the Department of Journalism. The Battalion is published Monday through Friday during Texas A&M regular semesters, except for holiday and examination periods. Mail subscriptions are $17.44 per semester, $34.62 per school year and $36.44 per full year. Advertising rates furnished on request. Our address: The Battalion. 230 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, College Station. TX 77843-1111. Second class postage paid at College Station. TX 77843. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Battal ion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, Col- lege Station TX 77843-4 1 1 1. Thumbs down It is for this reason that it is incumbent upon Christians to oppose this abomination. EDITOR: Universal Studios has recently finished a film entitled “The Last Temptation of Christ” which is intended for imminent release. It is due to this that I address the many Christians on campus. From all the information I have seen, the film is patently blasphemous. Mary declares her son to be “crazy” and Christ is depicted as “struggling over his sins,” lust driven, and bedeviled by “nightmares and hallucinations.” The focus of the film is a fictitious, long-standing erotic relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. This includes both a dream sequence in which He engages in sex with Mary while inviting an angel to watch and His declaration that “Woman is God’s greatest work. And 1 worship you. God sleeps between your legs.” Each of you should request the managers ofPlitt Theaters, the local distributors of Universal films, notto i show the f ilm. This should be done with kindness but firmly. Make it clear to them that if they show the film, 1 then your patronage will cease for all future films they ! may ever show. More importantly, mean this. Concurrently/write or call the executives at Universal f Studios. Their names and addresses are on file at KAGC radio station in Manor East Mall.- Only a large show opposition, with an explicit link to ; economic loss for the future, will dissuade Universal Studios from releasing the film. If Christians are unwilling to make this minimal effottl to oppose evil now, how can they hope to oppose it in the future when the effort demanded may be much higher? Universal Pictures appears to be operating upon the assumption that the controversy over the sacriligious nature of the film will transform it into a box office bonanza. In no action be taken, they will probably be correct. Ian Dick 87 Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff tBSi serves the right to edit letters for style and length, but will make every effoit'f J maintain the author's intent. Each letter must he signed and must includethecbml sification, address and telephone number of the writer. BLOOM COUNTY Berke Breat