The Battalion
OPINION
Thursday, December 7,1989
Mail Call
Hitler cartoon tasteless, offensive
EDITOR:
Wheri I looked at the editorial cartoon printed in The Battalion on Dec.
4, I really was shocked.
How can you permit such a caricature without any comment? If this is
supposed to be a joke, then it’s a pretty tasteless one, to say the least.
If it is not a joke, it shows that you guys are not only poorly informed
about Germany, but also lack any respect for other countries.
As a German, I am very offended and I think this borders on insult.
To preclude a future mishap like this, please take the following advice:
Limit the political news coverage of The Battalion to unchanged re
prints of news agency reports, as you usually do anyway. Instead, focus on
such “highly important issues” such as parking tickets, bonfire, etc., be
cause that’s what you are qualified to do.
Christoph Beckh ’93
Clean-up could prevent bonfire accidents
EDITOR:
On Friday night, 20 minutes after bonfire had been lit, I suffered a pre
ventable injury. By preventable, I mean that if bonfire site had been
cleared of small logs and pieces of wire, I would not be on crutches right
now.
I feel this is a perfectly legitimate request. I support bonfire, and do not
think it should be stopped; however, if this had happened to someone who
wants to abolish bonfire, it would be a legitimate case.
The responsibility of cleaning the site could be delegated to someone
without much effort. This task could limit the number of accidents at bon
fire, and that could help keep the tradition alive.
I’m not at this for sympathy, and I realize that there are many things
going through the minds of those at stack, but safety, not only before, but
during bonfire, should be top priority.
Please Ags, clean up bonfire site and prevent future accidents. Keep
the tradition alive and safe.
Wendy Harrison ’92
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We must handle problems
creating homelessness now
Ronda
Shepherd
Columnist
Homelessness, as a social phenome
non, seemed to arise out of nowhere
during the early 1980’s. At that time,
the estimated number of homeless peo
ple ranged from 250,000 to 2 million.
In the fall and winter of 1983-84,
nearly every American city was grap
pling with the problem of serving the
homeless.
Literally hundreds of coalitions,
churches, individuals, voluntary agen
cies and government offices became in
volved.
Soup kitchens and shelters were set
up; food and clothing were collected;
and caseworkers wrestled with the fact
that welfare cannot be given to anyone
without a permanent address.
This year an estimated 3 million peo
ple are homeless in the United States.
This is one percent of the total popula
tion.
Despite true concern and effort from
hundreds of helping organizations, the
amount of homeless people continues to
increase.
A question still remains: Why?
Despite all of our good intentions,
those of us striving to help have not
taken the time to find out why these
people are homeless.
Kim Hooper, a research associate
with the Community Service Society of
New York City drew up a list of some
principal factors leading to the marked
increase of homeless people.
1. The massive depopulation of
state rrfental IToSpitals without adequate
residential planning for ex-patients.
(Between the years of 1955-1980, the
number of patients in state mental insti
tutions declined from 559,000 to
138,000.)
2. The continuing high rates of job
lessness among low-skilled workers, the
drying up of spot-labor markets and the
slow rise of double-digit unemployment
in areas and industries previously con
sidered “recession-proof.”
3. A housing crisis characterized by
soaring rents, depressed construction,
widespread abandonment, arson and
deterioration of low-income buildings in
particular.
Until these three factors are responsi
bly dealt with, the number of homeless
will continue to increase with families
being the fastest-growing segment for
these involuntary street-dwellers.
Now is the time to push for better
housing legislation.
Now is the time to put pressure on
American companies whose products
are manufactured overseas in order to
get dirt-cheap labor and maximize prof
its without lowering prices while Ameri
can workers remain unemployed.
Now is the time to force public offi
cials to re-evaluate and change the bla
tant mistreatment and abandonment of
the mentally ill in our country.
Now is the time to stop accepting
short-term solutions for problems that
were created over the course of decades.
Now is the time to realistically rally
and regroup in order to regenerate and
revitalize a lost segment of the Ameri
can population.
Now is the time!
Ronda Shepperd is a senior journa
lism major and a columnist for The
Battalion.
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Scot Walker, Editor
Monique Threadgill,
Managing Editor
Ellen Hobbs, Opinion Page Editor
Melissa Naumann, City Editor
Cindy McMillian, Lisa Robertson,
News Editors
Richard Tijerina, Sports Editor
Fredrick D. Joe, Art Director
Mary-Lynne Rice, Lifestyles Editor
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those of the editorial board or the author, and
do not necessarily represent the opinions of
Texas A&M administrators, faculty or the
Board of Regents.
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Opinion Page Editor Ellen Hobbs 845-;
‘Back to the Future II’ hide
racism between car chases
There was a time in my life when I
wouldn’t have even noticed it.
This last weekend I went to see
“Back to the Future II.” It was sort of
fun, with the usual Spielberg stuff:
Ridiculous plot, too much action, in
sane car crashes, smelly manure, silly
pseudo-science and plenty of shots of
Michael J. Fox with his mouth open
and eyes bugging out. In short it was
a good teenage erotic fantasy flick —
brain candy with hormones. I kind of
liked it.
I’d like to focus on a particular as
pect of this film, because I think it’s
instructive. I’m thinking about the
scene where Marty McFly returns to
his neighborhood to find it changed
into a run-down, crime-ridden,
shabby image of its ‘Tormer” self. (I
won’t go into the time travel stuff
here.) Of course (like everything in a
Spielberg flick) it’s overdone; smok
ing heaps of rubble lie everywhere,
the windows are barred, people are
armed to the teeth and shooting at
one another constantly. And when
Marty returns to his own house,
climbing in his bedroom window, he
finds it inhabited by the worst possi
ble kind of people: Blacks. The lady
in bed screams wildly and the man of
the house chases Marty around with a
baseball bat, demolishing a large por
tion of his own domicile with violent
strikes (it takes three to put Marty
out).
What’s interesting to me is that
these are just about the only black
people that I noticed in the film
(aside from the band). The movie
floats back and forth in time, from
the future to the past, and through
out the whole thing it’s a film about
white folk. Black people appear in
this one place, and their race is not
Jeff
Farmer
Columnist
incidental; their blackness is ex
ploited as a symbol of poverty and vi
olence. It’s a cheap cinematic trick
designed to call up the deeply em
bedded cultural fear of blacks that
(let’s be honest) most white people in
this country have been raised with.
Excuse me if I call it what it is: Rac
ism.
Now, I don’t mean that the point
of the film was racist, or even that
there was any conscious intent of rac
ism, or that the people who made it
are necessarily racist. What I mean it
that the film perpetuates racial ste
reotypes by using them in a sleazy but
(unfortunately) culturally acceptable
way.
Some people may say I’m being a
bit picky. There are lots of movies
about only white people, or only
black people, or only rich people.
That’s not the point. The point is that
the only black people in this film ap
pear in this one place, and they are
used in a stereotypical way. Imagine
the scene with poor white folk in
stead. It lacks the punch, somehow;
it’s a quick scene, and an easy way to
get the most from it seems to be to
use a negative racial stereotype. I’m
not saying it isn’t cinematically effec
tive; on the contrary, it works well.
It’s just that it works by exploiting
racist sentiment.
Why am I making such a big deal
about this? Well, there’s been a lot of
talk about racism around here lately;
some of it focused around the demo-
lishing of the Students At’
Apartheid shanty. Andalotofft
pie would like to think thatit'sreai
not a problem here, and wisl
would just go away anyway. J
One of the main goalsofasem
education is to confront one’sow:
rationality and overcome it. Theft
step is to admit its existence.Juslis
cause your parents told youthaj
sus was a Baptist, or that iron!
clothes is women’s work, doe:
mean that it’s true. That’s whypeo?
in college study science, literaw
art, history and religion: To try a
discover what is true and what is no
to separate the individual andsp
cific from the general and abstriR
1 lence, one of the goals of a real
cation is to confront and debunk
bigotries we learned at ourmotliP
knee (or from silly movies).
This is why it is so disturbing
find racism, sexism, homophobia,!
trology and other assorted irratioe
lilies flourishing at a university.il
point of the University is to leu
about the experience of others,®
we don’t have time to repeat alii
their mistakes for ourselves. It's«1
we are here. 1 find the racism ofil
uneducated to be at least undersw
able, though not acceptable. Bm
people manage to go through fe
years of so-called higher educatic
with all of their prejudices in«
something is seriously wrong.
Various flavors of irrational:
(like racism) will probably bedeviltl
human species for some tinid
come. But if they take over ati
University, then we are in realm
ble.
Jeff Farmer is a graduate stude
in mathematics and a columnisti
The Battalion.
"The King 9 will live again on T\
Once again, I am the designated
“dead day” (the modern equivalent of
“dead week”) columnist. Taking this
into account, I could not think of a
more appropriate topic than Elvis.
The King is gone, but he is not for
gotten. Elvis has become the most
marketable dead guy since Jesus. The
hottest news out of Hollywood is that
ABC is planning to air an authorized
“based-on-fact” television series
called “Elvis.”
Now Elvis Presley will be seen not
only on all the express-lane tabloids,
random household appliances, and
in the frozen-food sections at grocery
stores in Tupelo, Mississippi, he will
be appearing weekly in your home
and mine.
I am torn between two emotions.
To me, this new production ranks
right up there with such classics as
“Joanie Loves Chachie” and “Man
From Atlantis”. On the flipside, the
American people may adore the
show. People have some strange at
tachment to Elvis. Is it the man, the
music or the mystique?
About the man: He was made out
to be larger than life. At the end of
his life, he was larger than ever. He
was rich, famous, eccentric and is
dead.
As for his music, it was definitely
trend-setting, but he simply hap
pened to be the one to step in at the
right time. He was immensely popu
lar and quite talented, but the same
can be said to a greater degree about
Paul McCartney. Hey, Paul died too,
but he cannot hold a candle to Elvis
in the eyes of many.
The Elvis mystique must be the an
swer to Elvis’s seemingly eternal life.
Immediately prior to his purported
death, he was basically a Las Vegas
act surviving on nostalgia alone. He
was nothing like the Memphis sensa
tion that took the nation by storm
with his “obscene” gesticulations and
good looks.
In his final days he was into drugs
but somehow remained fat. Strange,
huh? His death really brought him
back to life, but it does not explain
the overpowering Elvis mystique.
The preview episode shows Elvis as
a child hiding in a storm cellar during
a tornado. His mother comfortstiif
by telling him to pretend that tin
storm cellar is a theater and thestom
is a only a movie. At age 19, EH
draws on that day to aid him wheni
Memphis disc jockey is about top!* 1
his first record. Sounds cute enoif
so far.
With all of the dandy Hollywoo
embellishments, the Elvis mystif
should definitely remain intact. Pn*
cilia Presley plans to allow Hollywot*
to take “Elvis” up to the time whenkf
entered the Army because “so milt
has already been done about the
riod that came after that” including 1
book by Priscilla herself. Sure, Pni
cilia. You know as well as I thattlj
Elvis mystique would be shattered 1
any other period of his life were dm
umented and then you would lose*
of the money from the Graced
tourists. What a shame.
I am sure that many people vt'0
looking foreward to the premier 1
“Elvis” for some reason. I seeitta*
ing off like a rocket but ending u l
like Skylab.
Oh, no, I had a scary thougl 11
What will happen when MictiJ'
Jackson dies?
Matt McBurnett is a junior elect!
cal engineering major and a colud
ist for The Battalion.