I
The Battalion
OPINION
Newiy Released Hostage Photos:
To skate or not to ska!
Speeding quietly past in green scrubs
and a lab coat with a stethoscope in the
pocket, Dr. Hal Doerr glides home on
his skates, leaving a little of the operat
ing room behind with each step.
Leigh
Hopper
Th* Houston P;i
The second-year resident with Baylor
College of Medicine says the mile-long
trip to and from the Texas Medical Cen
ter helps take his mind off work.
Houston police officer John
neaux, however, sees the major;
But each time he rolls into the street,
he’s breaking the law.
In Houston, street skating is a Class C
misdemeanor, punishable by a $200
maximum fine.
In the past two years, Houston police
have started cracking down on skaters,
backed up by a 47-year-old law. Skaters
argue they are entitled to the same
routes as bicyclists, and that cracked and
broken sidewalks pose a greater danger
than automobiles.
skaters as a nuisance. He is their
foe, having issued most of thet
citing skaters’ increased number
lessness, flagrant disregard fort
and complaints from merchants a j t ’ s t ]
son. He hopes the law stays intact Jard
there
He says skaters can’t see
ing behind them and are vulnen: Robe
drunk drivers or piolice cars I J
speed chases. He says skates doni:
any brakes or allow much control-! |aiik<
doesn’t pose a problem for thesiB' v ° 1
athlete, but “99 percent aren't
sionals, they’re amateurs.” llerhi
Assessing blame for family disintegration
As for enhancing the city’s imaft
bineaux believes skaters dojusttk
posite, frightening tourists wk
gangs of “30 or 40 skaters at a time
The graphic “sociological” stories we
keep reading about the misery caused
by crack addiction — about the disinte
gration of the family and of the social
fabric, sometimes complete with charts
and statistics —leave out only one thing
— the misery was there before the
crack. It is not new and it is not caused
by crack. And it is not caused by the “de
terioration of the family.” It is only
made worse.
The press critic Alexander Cockburn
wrote, “Amid the ravages of the 1982-3
recession in Reagan’s first term, it did
not escape the attention of news editors
that there were a lot of needy and des
perate people about. By 1982 black un
employment approached 20 percent.
The reasons for this were as obvious as
the misery such numbers implied. Rea
gan’s agenda, scarcely secret, was to
lower the costs-of production and redis
tribute wealth upward.
convince a great many Americans that
Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty was a
failure — Ronald Reagan once claimed
it had actually hurt the poor. In fact, it
worked. The Great Society programs
did exactly what they were intended to
do — hunger went down, illiteracy went
down, poverty went down, malnutrition
went down. And those programs were
in place, being run by people who be
lieved in them-, for less than three years.
Richard Nixon came in in 1968 and be
gan the job of dismantling those pro
grams. Reagan completed the task.
black women, and the result is “Black
Women Speak: Scapegoating the Black
Family,” an extraordinary special report
by those most directly involved and
from whom we so seldom hear. Nobody
knows better than these women why
black families are in trouble. Among
other organizations that should be or
dering the issue in bulk for their staffs
are American newspapers and broad
casters.
Neither fines nor city council negotia
tions have resolved the issue. (Many cit
ies, such as Dallas, have similar ordi
nances, while other places, such as
Atlanta, Ga., Venice Beach, Calif., and
New York take a more tolerant ap
proach.) Local skaters want the ordi
nance overturned; police are tired of
seeing the law broken. Some skaters feel
they are being singled out for ha
rassment; police say it’s their job to
ticket offenders.
Sherman, who has been ticketed
(but got off when the officer
tend his hearing), says his beefi
with police but with the city count
its lack of action.
In;
as!
Al
he w
“At the end of 1983, the Baltimore
Evening Sun studied black families for
three months and confided to its read
ers, ‘state and local officials describe the
breakdown in black family structure as
one of the biggest and most perplexing
problems confronting the city.’ No
where in any of the articles, was there a
mention of economic crisis, corporate
policies, management agendas or their
effects on the poor.”
Instead of addressing the fundamen
tal causes of black poverty, from which
the great complex of social problems
flow, the press, encouraged by the rhe
toric of the Reagan years, has instead
chosen to focus on “the disintegration of
the black family” and on those bootstrap
enthusiasts given to announcing that
blacks will have to solve their own prob
lems. When Moynihan first wrote his re
port on the black family, black unem
ployment was 8.1 percent. At the end of
Reagan’s two terms, after the great eco
nomic recovery he and the Republicans
so endlessly extol, black unemployment
was 13 percent. According to their fig
ures.
Of course the War on Poverty was not
as successful as Johnson promised it
would be: It was so hopelessly em
bedded in the character of that most
Texian of presidents to exaggerate, to
over-promise, to blow-hard — there was
no way he could deliver on all those
promises. And for that, they declared
the War On Poverty a failure, said after
three years of trying that it was hopeless
and we ought to call it off. And now
they blame the poor for being where
they are, as though corporate and gov
ernment policies aimed at perpetuating
their poverty didn’t exist. (Not to men
tion the minor matter of the theft of
money from HUD intended to help
build housing for the poor. It used to be
that “poverty pimps” was a phrase ap
plied to blacks who got jobs administer
ing poverty money and who managed to
take off with some of it; turns out the
real pimps are people like James Watt.)
The people most responsible for the
uglification of American politics — the
fine folks who brought you Willie Hor
ton as a national issue —are now about
to start usingcrack and the fear of crime
as a replacement for one of the longest-
running fear-mongering scams.
According to the polls, Americans no
longer have a uniformly negative view
of the Soviet Union, and so the Republi
can Party strategists, who for years have
gotten away with beating on Democrats
for being “soft on defense” and “not
tough with the commies,” are planning
to replace that old dog with a new one
— “soft on crime.” They plan to whip
the fear of crack and crime into a great
lather and then accuse the Democrats of
being “soft.”
In an effort to smooth matters, state
Rep. Debra Danburg, D-Houston, intro
duced a statewide roller-skating safety
bill (House Bill 1412) in March. A skater
herself, Danburg sees no reason to keep
people from coasting in the streets. The
bill was approved in mid-May by the
House, and would give skaters the same
rights and responsibilities as bicyclists.
He says skaters went before lit
council twice in ’87 to explain
ers have a spotless safety recordaiil
an important part of revitalizingi
town Houston —but to no avail. 1 ance
ficial stance remains that skaters slit
adhere to the same safety standarc
pedestrians.
Not only is that opinion misgut c om j
Sherman argues, but ticketing sk rising
late at night gives outsiders theii
sion that Houston’s police forceist
zealous. He estimates skaters optirj
their day in court cost the city morel
and money than the issue is worth
Meanwhile, the controversy simmers.
Ray Marshall, the Texan who served
as Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of Labor,
said, “We know that a full-employment
policy would be good business. With a
jobs program, $15 billion could save the
federal government $30 billion. We’ve
demonstrated that in the past. The main
reason we don’t do it now is the neocon
servative mythology that it didn’t work.
The contrary evidence is overpowering.
As Lee Atwater knows better than
anyone else, the political effect of talk
ing about black problems is death.
“We’re tired of hearing about it,” is the
first response; “After all we’ve done for
them,” is the second.
For the white press to discuss crack
and the “disintegration of the black
family” without the economic context of
what has been happening in the ghetto
is as deeply racist and irresponsible as
anything we have ever done in our en-.
tirely undistinguished record in this
area.
“We should not let people make abs
tractions of human suffering
Rather, what we should fear most, as cit
izens of the richest nation on earth, is
the judgment of the world community
and of history that we were unwilling to
be good and faithful stewards of our re
sources, that we deliberately decided
not to use our resources to try to im
prove the human condition.”
Roller skaters have long been a part
of Houston’s inner-city landscape. Most
noticeable are the Urban Animals* a
loose group of several hundred people
who glide through downtown late at
night, playing hockey and socializing.
Their appearance may alarm the unini
tiated — a hodgepodge of hippie, Hell’s
Angels and punk rocker wear that
usually includes a black T-shirt embla
zoned by the winged Animal logo. The
Animals themselves enjoy a renegade
image, but on the average they are up
standing citizens ranging in their pro
fessions from bartenders to doctors, art
ists to accountants. Members of The
Animals celebrate their 10th anniver
sary this summer.
City councilman-at-large Jim Gn
wood views skaters in a positive It
but thinks boundaries must be set
remembers seeing two skaters one
in downtown Houston being
along by Great Danes.
ill
verge-
Indus
ivera
34.9 f
Rol
dent
Skaters don’t understand whythf|
a problem.
Babineaux says legalized street il
ing would be disastrous and thattkj
ler-skating safety bill is “a time I
waiting to happen.”
“If you give these people the rigl
skate, they’ll abuse it” he said,
be on the freeway.”
She
The Montrose Skate Shop on Stan
ford serves as an Urban Animals head
quarters and field command station for
the skating controversy. There, shop
manager and Urban Animal Jim Sher
man keeps abreast of the situation, in
forming fellow skaters of developments.
Skaters believe Houston has o
thing to gain by legalizing street skai Cai ^g
Many point to California’s Venice Be worke
as an example, a skating capital ofi
where the sport gives the econoit'
boost through tourism and equipi
rental and sales (A nice pair of si
can easily run $400.)
Leigh Hopper writes for The ft
ton Post
“All we’ve done for them” is one of
the saddest chapters in our country’s
modern history — lets just pass over
slavery and a hundred years of legal re
pression. Republicans have managed to
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Ellen Hobbs,
Editor
Juliette Rizzo,
Opinion Page Editor
Fiona Soltes,
City Editor
Drew Leder, Chuck Squatriglia,
News Editors
Steven Merritt,
Sports Editor
Kathy Haveman,
Art Director
Hal Hammons,
Makeup Editor
For a lone, noble exception to all this,
I commend to anyone interested the
July 24 issue of The Nation magazine,
now available in special bulk orders.
The Nation, this country’s oldest liberal
magazine, turned its pages for that issue
over to a group of guest editors, all
""EditoHauPoRc^^""
The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting
per operated as a community service to Texas A
Br ~ ‘
newspa-
A&M and
iryan-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 77843-1 111.
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 77843-4 111.
SENATOR UELNVS