The Battalion
OPINION
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Wednesday, February 28, 1990
Opinion Page Editor Ellen Hobbs 845-3314
African-American exam grades are in, and you failed
Editor’s note: Roland S. Martin gave
an African-American mid-term exam
in his reader’s opinion column of Feb.
20. The following is his report of the
results from this mid-term exam.
Here are the results that all of you
have been waiting for. After reviewing
all of the test results, I have concluded
that you ... failed!
I’m sure most of you knew this so you
weren’t surprised by this failure. Here
are the answers:
1. The first African-American
millionaire was Madame C.J. Walker.
She made her fortune through her hair
care products company.
2. The outstanding athlete and
scholar was none other than Paul
Robeson.
3. Alexander Dumas wrote “The
Three Musketeers,” “The Count of
Monte Cristo,” and “The Corsican
Brothers.”
4. The great Mary McCloud Bethune
began her own school, currently
Bethune-Cookman College, and
advised four U.S. Presidents.
5. Garrett Morgan saved many lives
with the invention of the gas mask and
the street light.
Roland S.
Martin
Reader’s opinion
6. Daniel “Chappie” James Jr. was the
first African-American general in the
U.S. Air Force.
7. Charlie Christian deserves his due
credit as the inventor of modern jazz.
8. There are many answers to the
African-American writers you won’t
read about in ENGL 228, American
Literature. My four authors are:
Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Alice
Walker and James Weldon Johnson.
9. Ralph Bunche and Martin Luther
King Jr. were the first two African-
American Nobel Peace Prize winners.
10. A. Phillip Randolph founded the
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters,
the first major African-American labor
union.
11. Marcus Garvey led the “Back to
Africa” movement.
12. There were many leaders during
the civil rights movement. My list
includes: Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm
X, Roy Wilkins, Medgar Evers and
Adam Clayton Powell.
13. P.B.S. Pinchback was the first
African-American governor in the
United States. He served as governor of
Louisiana for 47 days in the late 1800s.
14. Douglas Wilder is the first elected
African-American governor in the
United States.
15. Andrew Young served as the first
African-American U.S. Ambassador to
the United Nations.
16. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood
Marshall, while serving as head of the
NAACP Legal Defense Fund, argued
and won 65 cases in front of the
Supreme Court.
17. The current president of the
Southern Christian Leadership
Conference is Rev. Joseph Lowery; the
National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People,
Benjamin Hooks; and the National
Urban League, John Jacobs.
18. There are over 30 members in the
Congressional Black Caucus. Five of
them are: Rep. Ron Dellums, Rep.
Craig Washington, Rep. John Lewis,
Rep. Charles Rangel and Rep. John
Conyers.
19. Rep. William Gray serves as
majority whip. He is the most powerful
African-American in the U.S. House of
Representatives.
20. There are no current African-
American U.S. Senators.
The sad fact about this test is the
majority of you couldn’t answer 50
percent of the questions. I believe this to
be a reflection, not of your ignorance,
but of the lack of African-American
history taught in our educational
system.
We are inundated with information
about Christopher Columbus, Thomas
Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and
Benjamin Franklin but we do not learn
about Dr. Chrles Drew, Frederick
Douglass, Booker T. Washington and
W.E.B. DuBois.
We fail to realize that the refusal to
discuss the accomplishments of African,
Americans contributes greatly to racism
in our country. Many non-African-
Americans would not be of theniind-
frame that African-Americans are
inferior if they knew the contributions
of African-Americans.
I challenge you to read, read and
read some more. I challenge you to
subscribe to Essence, Ebony, Jet and
Emerge. I challenge you to attend
programs sponsored by African-
Americans. I challenge you toenrollin
Dr. Broussard’s “History of Black
Americans” class here at Texas A&M.
The benefits you will reap from thiswil
be enormous.
P
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Of It
Without the numerous contributions
of the African-American community,
we would be without many of our
luxuries today. It is our responsibility as
college-educated human beings to
discover this information and to pass it
on to the next generation.
1 hope each one of you will accept the
challenges that I have set forth. Maybe
by doing so you will be able to pass my
mid-term next year and receive the
Al i ican-American history that you have
been denied to date.
Roland S. Martin is a junior
journalism major.
Mail Call
Hobbs lives in 17th century
EDITOR:
This letter is directed at Ellen Hobbs’ extremely radical
editorial about maintaining status quo traditions at A&M. You
sound like 17th century women who were writing about get
ting an education if it was okay by the men. They only wanted
to know a few languages, mind you; they wouldn’t have con
sidered stepping outside the boundaries of the traditional fe
male role. I’m trying hard not to insult your intelligence, El
len, but with such dramatic changes as you’d instate here at
A&M, a whole new social order may evolve. Only by being an
outcast (especially on this campus) and by being a minority
voice expressing so-called “radical” opinions as did women
over 300 years ago can change occur. It’s always the minority
that becomes the majority in the end.
Karen Bell ’90
more efficient way to get your message across, if you really
have a message.
You speak of the American flag and men who have died
in defense of it in your letter. But I have personally heard
members of your group advocate burning the flag. You see,
Mr. Skipworth, some symbols such as the American flag and
the Nazi armband are actually much more than symbols.
T hey are items that represent stirring emotions. If you want
to talk about history let’s look at the 12-year reign of terror
led by the Nazi party you seem so proud to endorse. Nine mil
lion Jews lost their lives due to Nazi atrocities, not to mention
the millions of lives lost in the defeat of the Axis powers.
Surely you do not expect to receive a positive response by
your actions. If you do have a message that needs to be deliv
ered, please remember that there are rules and morals that
our society, for better or for worse, must adhere to. Certainly
you can find a better way to help society than by causing more
problems.
Marcus Johnson (and all the rest of you who oppose tradi
tion), if you don’t like the traditions, why are you here? Ift.u.
(and t.u. it will always be to me), is so great, why aren’t you
there? Yeah, I have friends at t.u., and I've heard what they
have to say about it. It makes me even prouder that Tm an
Aggie. We have something they don’t. We have an undying
devotion to our school and fellow Ags.
As for Ags hiring Ags, you bet I’d hire an Aggie before I’d
hire anyone else. That is, if they are a true Aggie. After all,
don’t friends help other friends?
Marcus, you are obviously not an Aggie. By saying, “serve
your conscience, not your country,” you are also not an
American. If you can’t take pride in either of these, what can
you take pride in? If you have nothing to die for, w hat is there
to live for?
Highway six would not get you out of here fast enough.
Fry Easterwood.
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Find a better way to help society
David Martin ’90
Lindy Sparks ’93
accompanied by 3 signatures
EDITOR:
I would dearly like to take this opportunity to address the
letter written by Bryan Skipworth concerning symbols. Mr.
Skipworth, I happen to be the Duddley Do-right that joyfully
ripped your symbol of Nazi reign and terror off the arm of
Sul Ross. You state in your letter: “if the arm band fits ... ” It
seems that you feel more than confortable wearing it yourself.
I wonder if it is the standard size and fit for all those people
such as yourself seeking attention by causing chaos. I have
seen you and your cohorts at several functions attempting to
protest. It is a shame that you can not take the time to find a
Two-percenters hit Highway six
EDITOR:
I’ve only been a student here at Texas A&M for six
months. From Yell Practice to Silver Taps, I’ve experienced
many traditions during this time that were completely new to
me and I loved every one of them. These traditions define
Texas A&M from the rest of the universities in the nation. I
take pride in that. I support the Gorps of Cadets. I support
Texas Aggie bonfire. I support the Twelfth Man. I am an Ag
gie and I love it.
Editor’s note: A headline in Monday’s Mail Call was incor
rect. The headline should have read “KANM benefit article
unethical.” The Battalion regrets the error.
[
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c
UNO victory will make muchos changes in Nicaragua
Last weekend, the United National
Opposition (UNO) won the Nicaraguan
national election. Their candidate,
Violeta Chamorro, w 7 as elected to the
presidency with 55 percent of the vote
(to 41 percent for Sandinista candidate
Daniel Ortega). Everyone was surprised
by the result, including the UNO.
The Bush administration, which had
been trying to figure out how to make
peace with the Sandinista government
after their expected win, was elated.
Falks are already beginning between
the government and Chamorro’s people
on how to manage the transition
scheduled to take place in several
months.
It is not a little ironic that if this
transition does take place peacefully (as
now appears likely), it will be the first
such transition in modern history; and it
will be managed by that much-villified
arch-communist Daniel Ortega himself.
We’ve come a long way from the early
’80s, when, to hear the Reagan
administration (or Oliver North) talk,
we were in imminent danger of an
Jeff
Farmer
Columnist
I
invasion of Spanish-speaking Leninists
from that tiny country (in fact, this
moronic idea was the plot of the motion
picture “Red Dawn”). Real life is so
different from fantasy.
If anyone thinks the Nicaraguan
“problem” is now solved, they are quite
wrong. The UNO is going to have a very
difficult time forming a viable
government for several reasons.
First of all, Chamorro must disband
the Contras and integrate them back
into Nicaraguan society. This alone is
hard enough, but it must be done
without allowing them to form death
squads to retaliate against the
Sandinistas. The UNO has good
relations with the Contras, so this may
be possible.
A more difficult challenge will be to
appoint a cabinet and create coherent
policies. The UNO is made up of people
from every opposition group in
Nicaragua; this includes fascist former
buddies of Somoza, other right-wingers,
social democrats, socialists and even
(gasp) communists. These parties are
unlikely to agree on anything except
ending the draft (which, in fact, was
essentially the UNO’s only platform
position)
The biggest roadblock for the UNO,
however, is not political, but economic.
The Nicaraguan economy is, to put it
delicately, screwed up. With inflation in
the range of 30,000 percent, and
practically no business investment of
any sort, it will take a real economic
miracle to make a difference. Nothing
short of a significant infusion of U.S. aid
will reconstruct this’war-torn country,
and the UNO is probably counting on
that. They may be disappointed.
T he reason is simple: The United
States wall pay a lot more for war than
for peace. As long as some threat (no
matter how small) can be said to exist,
politicians.will declare “war” in ordei to
extract funds from the citizenry. When
Nicaragua was part of the “evil empire”
of the Soviet Union, we spent millions
upon millions to arm the Contras for
guerrilla warfare; now that the threat
no longer exists, w hy should we spend
money on insignificant things like
roads, schools or hospitals? The so-
called “war on drugs” operates on a
similar principle: We would rathersem
arms to Colombia than, spend moneyon
education here. Of course, the fact that
we are one of the largest producers and
exporters of weapons in the world has
something to do with this.
Already in the U.S. Senate noises are
being made about how there is not
enough money for substantial aid to
Nicaragua. This position is both cynical
and immoral. After all the money we
spent tearing their country to shreds.l
think we ow^e them just a little bit of
help. Part of Chamorro’s job will be to
try to get the U.S. to live up to its moral
responsibility. Given the budget deficit,
it may be rough.
' Good luck, Violeta.
Jeff Farmer is a graduate student h
mathematics.
Adventures In Cartooning
by Don Atkinson Jr.
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