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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 16, 1991)
Tuesday, July 16,1991 Editorials Editorials expressed in The Battalion are those of the editorial board and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Texas A&M administrators, faculty or the Board of Regents. State should not cut A&M funding The state legislature began the task of reducing state spend ing by almost $5 billion Monday. Should the state government choose to follow state Comptroller John Sharp's deficit reduction plan, Texas universities and colleges could lose $622 million over the next two years. Texas A&M's loss would account for almost nine percent of that total. Sharp's plan also calls for doubling resident tuition at state universities, with 75 percent of the increase going to other state agencies. While Texas students could stand a tuition increase (tuition in Texas is among the lowest in the nation), sending part of that in crease to fund projects such as prisons and welfare is like Robin Hood stealing trom the poor. Texas currently ranks last in state appropriations per college student. Texas colleges do more with less than almost any other schools in the nation. But that does not mean they can stand the drastic budget cuts Sharp has proposed. Fewer class sections, less faculty, fewer books and shorter hours in an already inade quate library mean inferior education. The predicted increases required in food and housing could also make education prohibitively expensive for some people. And fewer college graduates means less tax revenue for the state in the future. In total, cuts in education account for 20 percent of the reduc tions in Sharp's plan. It seems that every time the state needs money, education is the first thing cut. It is time for state govern ment to quit looking at education as an expense and see it as the investment it is. The Battalion Editorial Board Mail Call The Battalion ift interested in hearing from its readers and welcomes all letters to the editor. Please include name, classification, address and phone number on all letters. The editor reserves the right to edit letters for style and length. There is no guarantee letters will appear. Letters may be brought to 216 Reed McDonald, sent to Campus Mail Stop 1111 or can be faxed to 845-5408. Juice too costly on campus EDITOR: Orange juice! All I want is some orange juice! So I go to the new, world-class culinary extravaganza on campus. Hul labaloo, and I figure, sure I can get some orange juice here. So I go to the refrigerator section, and lo and behold, there is one world-class choice of orange juice, in a covenient six-ounce container. Now I am not an extremely large individual, 6'-3" and 190 lb., but I do require more than a six-ounce serving of orange juice. I'm even going to go out on a limb and say that most other people require more than six ounces. Most people I know who chew tobacco can spit more than six-ounces. But that's beside the point. So I decide to take three. I figure that will fit inside a medium cup. So I go to the register, and figure, not much, buck and a half at most. The total came to $2.44. The person working the register was so suprised that she had to ring it up again; she thought she had made a mistake. That must be some orange juice if I can pay that much and still be sober afterwards. So I decide to check out other local establishments around the area, just to make sure that our prices are world class. 7-Eleven sells orange juice for $.99 for 16 ounces. For the price I paid, I could almost get double at 7- Eleven. But of course there is no price fixing on this world-class University campus. So, for you out there who want to watch what you drink, make sure you watch the prices first, especially on this, ahem, world-class campus. Richard Szecsy '91 Voice of support for TCA EDITOR: I want to voice my opinion that I am in favor of TCA Cable taking MTV off my basic cable service. I have three children, and I am concerned about the sexually graphic pictures portrayed on my TV screen. Judy B. McDonald L_ imon The Battalion Page 5 Film reveals social problem O B t' f l ti .. f 1 io i TTr-.-r-./-.-*'!'-! Til-. GO ver the weekend, the media have been quick to point out the violence associated with the new movie "Boyz In The Hood." Besides a word that causes my spellchecker to have fits, "Boyz" is about underclass life in South Central Los Angeles. Many critics have spoken out against the violence shown in the movie and the possible dangerous influences of the film on young minds. However, I will argue (with the help of an eminent scholar, a young movie writer/director and government statistics) in the following passages that "Boyz In The Hood" is a movie that should be seen and talked about by our nation. According to the film's writer and director, John Singleton, the story attempts to convey to the audience that an alternative to gang membership and violence exists in love and family life. And while Singleton, in his early twenties, is not exactly a social scientist, he may have hit upon the primary cause of gang violence: a deprivation of certain aspects of family life. One scholar, who certainly would carry the banner with Singleton for a better family life among the underclass, is eminent political scientist and author, James Q. Wilson. Wilson, in a recent presentation to American Enterprise Institute, argued that the primary cause of the social problems we see today among the underclass is the failure to socialize males into the society. Put another way, the lack of male role models in many poverty-stricken homes has left sons without guidance on how to appropriately behave in the Trey Jacobon Columnist world around them. Wilson suggests that rather than be taught what is right or wrong and how to behave by a dominant male presence, the son is left to develop on his own. The result is a young man who utilizes his physical strength, aggressiveness and available technology to survive. This may be evidenced by the rapid growth in gangs, the young age of drug dealers and the high number of gang-related deaths and crime. In effect, the young underclass men of today have become what Wilson considers "hunter-gatherers. " Related to the economic responsibility associated with this position is the lack of concern for offspring by the male. Wilson's theory is given some credence when one examines the statistics on gangs in Texas. If you didn't already know, gangs are not located exclusively in Watts. Texas has more than its share of gangs, too. The state attorney general's office recently issued a frightening report about gang activity. Of the fifty largest cities in Texas (yes, including Bryan-College Station) an incredible 75% percent reported gang activity. In the cities of Abilene, Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas, El Paso, Fort Worth, Harlingen and Houston, an incredible 13,000 gang members are believed to operate, selling drugs, fighting among each other with guns and committing assorted felonies. But for our purposes here, only one statistic is important: 80% of all gang members report being raised in single parent, presumably female-headed, households. Alone, this fact calls for additional research, but its implication is that children raised without a father or male role model may lack socialization necessary to peacefully survive in our culture. Think about that idea for a second. The concept, on one hand, gives us a place to start in improving the lives of our children. But by the same token, it suggests that we will continue to see wide-spread violence in poor neighborhoods. Worse still, the notion of inadequate male socialization points to a possible cycle of degradation among certain parts of our underclass that we may not be able to stop. The gang members and street hoodlums today aren't likely to get religion and take up the responsibility for their children or their actions. Without a break in the process, the following generations of males could be even worse off. Nevertheless, if we could only find someone or some group to communicate with the gangs and irresponsible parents, maybe we could better the youngsters' everyday existence, now. What is needed is a message to the poor that will almost certainly be heard; a message triumphing the needs of the children and the wonders of family life; a message that stresses peace instead of violence. If you think a movie reflecting life as they may know it is the answer then I've got a movie for you. Go see, and talk about, "Boyz in The Hood." Trey Jacobson is a graduate student in public administration. Aggie's death gets little attention P aul Broussard grew up in a small town in Georgia. After high school, he came to College Station to attend Texas A&M. He graduated with a finance degree in 1987 and moved to Houston, where he got a job in a bank. On the morning of July 4, Broussard was beaten to death by 10 youths wielding boards with nails protruding from them. The suspects are current and former students of McCullough High School in The Woodlands. If you haven't heard about this, you're not alone. It took several days for the story to make it into the Houston papers, and then it didn't make it to their front pages. A front page story finally appeared in the Houston Chronicle on Saturday, when arrests were made. Even less attention has been paid to Broussard's death in our community, where he lived, worked and studied for over four years. The reason for the silence seems to be that Broussard was gay, and that the boys who murdered him did it because he was gay. And while police have taken the proper steps to investigate the crime as a murder, not enough steps have been taken to deal with the murder as a hate crime. Police told the Chronicle on Friday that there was no evidence for motive in the murder and no evidence that it was a crime of bias. Now here's a description of what happened, as told in Saturday's Chronicle: Broussard and two companions were walking to their car from Heaven, a gay- nightclub, about 3 a.m. when two cars pulled up ..., police said. Someone asked them where the Ellen Hobbs Columnist Heaven club was. When one of the trio said they had just left the club ... they were attacked with boards and a knife. This looks to almost everyone but the Houston Police Department like an obvious incident of gay-bashing. (An interesting sidenote on this is that the HPD, not unlike the U.S. armed services, is still hanging on to the archaic notion that gays aren't real people and have banned the employment of homosexuals on the police force.) Fortunately, other members of the community have recognized it as a hate crime and have taken steps to condemn it. For example: □ Gay and lesbian community members organized a "Take Back the Streets" march to protest the murder and to warn that anti-gay violence won't be tolerated. And a coalition of gay bar owners has offered a $2,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the attackers. □ A group calling itself Concerned Clergy and Laity has made a statement condemning the crime and said, "There is no justification, religious or secular, for violence toward other human beings based on race, gender, creed, ethnic origin, sexual orientation or physical or mental limitation." □ Mayor Kathy Whitmire, State Representative Debra Danburg and three Houston City Council members made statements calling for a united response against hate crimes from the community. □ The Houston media, though a little slow on the uptake, have given the case a good bit of attention. If you want to voice your concern about bias crimes, one of the best things to do is to add your name to the list of people calling for state hate crimes legislation (that, of course, includes violent crimes committed against people not only because they are homosexual, but also because of their race, religious and ethnic backgrounds). Write, call or fax: The Honorable Ann Richards Governor of the State of Texas State Capitol P.O. Box 12428 Austin, TX 78711 Call toll-free: 1-800-252-9600 Fax number: 512-463-1849 Show that you, too, think that people who kill innocent people because of their backgrounds, their religion or their selection of bed partners need to be punished not only for their crime, but for their destructive hatred. On April 21, 1992, Paul Broussard's name will be called at Aggie Muster. If there was a little less misguided hate out there, there would be one less name on the roll. Ellen Hobbs is a senior journalism major.
