Wednesday • October 19, 1994
ber 10
People, not books preserve history
Older generations' experiences shed light on today's social problems
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MICHAEL
LANDAUER
T X TTien Michael
l/W Jacobs was
V V liberated from a
:oncentration camp, he
let a goal for himself. He
decided 50 years ago
hat he would give
peeches about the
atrocities he had
endured. Jacobs told
friends of his desire, but they only
laughed. At the time many of those in
concentration camps felt the world had
turned its back on them. Who would
believe the stories they had to tell?
We believe the stories now because of
men like Jacobs. He began, however,
giving speeches in the ’50s to audiences
who may have had difficulty believing
what he had to say. Jacobs is still
talking— telling his story in Rudder
Tower just last year.
But Jacobs was persistent and his life
long efforts were recognized last Sunday
when he received a Hope for Humanity
award from the Dallas Memorial Center
for Holocaust Studies. According to The
Dallas Morning News, Jacobs raised
§300,000 10 years ago to open the
center, only the second center of its kind
in the country.
If it were not for people like Jacobs,
the Holocaust could have been forgotten.
It seems impossible to us, after all. We
are such an open-minded, prejudiced-free
generation, aren’t we? Well, maybe not.
Each generation seems to have
fewer prejudices than the one before
them. It is hard to believe that when
our parents were kids they attended
segregated schools. Maybe our kids
will find it hard to believe that we
debated affirmative action.
My mom once invited an elderly
women over for dinner. Onie Dell was
straight out of the Old South, and it was
amazing to hear some of the stories she
had to tell. It was also
incredible to hear the
racist ways she
described people. To say
she was not politically
correct would be an
understatement. She
had a lot to say, but I
learned as much from
her racism as I gained
from her anecdotes.
It should make us wonder— will our
grandchildren learn lessons from us that
will stand the test of time, or will they
see our ideas as examples of the short
sighted ignorance of the past?
Not all elderly people are racist,
and not all racists are elderly. There is
no excuse for racism no matter how
old a person is. But talking with that
woman showed me that times have
truly changed.
Unfortunately not everyone has
So much of history dies with the
people who lived it, and many
valuable lessons are never passed
on to the next generation.
changed with the times. There are still
people who are ignorant enough to act on
their prejudices. These people are usually
looking for a way to explain things they
don’t understand. My friend “David” lives
in Louisiana and lost his best friend to
violence. The people who shot David’s
friend happened to be black, and one
night David got mad because I didn’t
hate black people.
If we find it hard to relate to racist
people, it is because they are drawing
their views from an environment we
cannot understand. I did not understand
Onie’s ignorance in the same way I fail to
see David’s logic.
I believe prejudices fade, and racists
have the ability to become rational.
I’ve heard George Wallace, the former
governor of Alabama, has even
changed his views since leading the
charge to preserve segregation. That is
promising considering that in his 1960
inaugural speech he demanded,
“Segregation now, segregation
tomorrow, segregation forever!”
Wallace was wrong when he said
those words. Hitler was wrong when he
thought he could get away with his evil
plan to destroy a race. And Jacob’s
friends were wrong when they doubted
the world would listen to their story.
Holocaust survivors are getting old.
Their stories are invaluable to us as a
generation trying to end racism. But
these people will not be here forever, and
that is why people like Jacobs are so
. important. So much of
! * history dies with the people
who lived it, and many
valuable lessons are never
passed on to the next
generation.
When he was our age
Jacobs decided he wanted to
tell his story. Now we should
aspire to live by what we’ve
learned from people like him. We should
listen to elderly people, even if they are
often wrong, because we can learn far
more from them than we can from books.
People like Jacobs have done so much
to tell their story, the least we can do is
remember. Hopefully it will change the
way we act.
If it does, then the name of Jacob’s
award is fitting— because of people like
him, there is Hope for Humanity.
ZZ)C
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The Battalion • Page 7
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Michael Landauer is a sophomore
journalism major
The Battalion
Editorial Board
Belinda Blancarte, Editor in chief
Mark Evans, Managing editor
Jay Robbins, Opinion editor
jenny Magee, Assistant opinion editor
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** -
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Racial disharmony
»
Tensions demand A&M's attention
Last week’s controversy surround
ing the College Republicans and Bon
fire have brought attention, to the issue
of race relations at Texas A&M. A&M
President Ray Bowen, Vice President
for Student Affairs J. Malon Souther
land, A&M faculty and administrators
will meet with leaders from minority
student organizations today.
This meeting is an excellent oppor
tunity for students to express their
problems and concerns while they have
the attention of the whole University.
Those attending the meeting will
have the op
portunity to
discuss the
possibilities
of racial edu
cation work
shops. The
discussion of
domestic cul
tural educa
tion, a more
localized
form of multicultural education will
also be on the agenda.
After music played at the Bonfire
site was viewed as racist and offended
several students, the Bonfire Commit
tee agreed to screen all music before it
is played. The decision will help all
students enjoy building Bonfire.
Similarly, the College Republicans
responded quickly and appropriately to
the distribution of racist fliers last
week by taking them down. The resig
nation of Bo Armstrong, College Re
publican’s vice president for publicity,
who was allegedly responsible for the
distribution of the fliers, indicates that
the group is not interested in causing
racial confrontations and will not toler
ate overt racism.
Should further problems arise in the
future, organizations and students
must continue to work together to solve
the problems of race relations. Organi
zations and students should also con
tinue to find, ways to prevent further
incidents of this nature. By acting on
these sugges
tions, the stu
dent body of
A&M can
closer to unity
and move for
ward.
David
Washington,
president of
Alpha Phi Al
pha, said the
fliers are a symptom of a greater prob
lem. Now is the time for the problem
to come to the center of attention.
Students have chosen to come to
A&M to learn, and in their educa
tion, they must also learn to respect
and cooperate with each other, re
gardless of race, religion or creed.
Until we learn to do so, the ten
sion will remain, and it may have
the propensity to grow into a larger
problem if we don’t stop it now.
Affirmative action not the yellow-brick road we wanted
AJA
HENDERSON
J!
Columnist
I really don’t believe I was the
average child. There was many a
morning when I went to school
with a bright, mismatched ensemble
on my back, the spoils of my victory in
that morning’s what-I-want-to-wear-
to-school fight with my mom. Then,
there was the period when I wore two
enormous Afro-puffs on each side of
my small head- I wanted to be just like Princess
Leia from the show “Star Wars.”
Nobody in my entire family, no grown-up who
knew me in my small child days, will ever let me
forget one of my cockiest hang-ups- I simply
adored a pair of sunglasses that I wore
everywhere, even to bed. These weren’t just any
I ordinary glasses, though. These were bright
l green, plastic, rose-tinted glasses. Those little
| suckers made everything look way different, and
way better. I don’t know what happened to those
glasses- legend has it that I lost them and cried
for days.
I have thought about my glasses often over the
' past week as the College Republicans flier
incident, and the racist music played at the
Bonfire site, revealed a campus-wide tension that
none could see, but all could feel.
I do not know the feelings of each and every
Aggie regarding affirmative
action and equal employment.
I do not know if all Aggies
even care. What I do know is
the difference between a
perception and a fact. The
great thing about our country
is that you can think anything
you want- it is OK. Everyone
is entitled to their own opinions here. However,
an intelligent person weighs realities, not just
perceptions, when forming an opinion. The
difference between perceptions and realities is
that perceptions are things you think are true,
while realities are things to know to be true -
sensory observations form perceptions, facts form
realities. Let’s deal in what is real for a moment.
Affirmative action began in 1979, not because
anyone in Washington, DC, thought women and
racial minorities were dumber than anyone else,
but because employers obviously did- they were
not hiring them. Affirmative action was not
designed to make the hurdles of women and
minorities lower than that of the majority, only to
make everybody’s hurdles the same height. None
lower, none higher than anyone else’s. All equal.
We are all Americans and all equal, remember?
Anyway, since its induction in 1979 affirmative
action has reaped the most benefits not for
blacks, not for Hispanics, but for white women.
This is not a judgment of whether affirmative
action is good or bad- I am not a social scientist.
This is just a statement of fact. You decide.
If it were up to me, affirmative action would
never have come about. People would never have
historically been discriminated against - we
would all have been judged solely on our merits
and personal strengths. The hurdles women and
Affirmative action was not designed
to make the hurdles of women and
minorities lower, but only to make
everybody's hurdles the same.
other minorities face would have not been higher
than that of the white male’s - our hurdles all would
have been of equal height. If it were up to me...
Well, I realize that my contemplations are
ambitious- after all, I deal with reality. And
reality tells me that equality for all people has
historically been nothing more than an ideal,
even since the birth of our nation. Isn’t it sad
that the average black female college graduate
working full time receives less than 90 percent of
her white counterpart’s salary? That is the
average equivalent to the salary of a white high
school drop-out.
If you truly believe, as I do, that all Americans
are equal, and should be treated equally, let’s
work to make this ideal reality. We can fight the Z-
discrimination, prejudice and racism that plaques
our country and hinders equality. There are
many organizations and events here on campus
you can get involved in — too many for me to list
in this limited space. You can start by sharing
your culture and heritage with someone who is
not like you.
You can call the Department of Multicultural
Services and say, “I believe that we are all
Americans and that we are all equal. How can I
help to make equality a reality? How can I get
involved?”
On the other hand, if you think that everyone
in America is treated equally, that everything in
America is really OK, don’t be surprised if I
assault you on your way to class- I think you stole
my rose-colored glasses. That kind of crime
doesn’t pay, my friend. Y
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Aja Henderson is a sophomore finance major ,
ij\/YY\YY/YnS
Humans, not statistics
draw faulty conclusion
One of the reasons that statisticians
become cranky as they age, is articles
like “U.T. outranks A&M in total crime
rate” in the Oct. 14 issue of The Battal
ion. There are technical and conceptual
errors throughout the article and the
graph. The heights displaying the num
ber of crimes are not drawn to a common
scale. Comparison graphs are meaning
less, or even worse misleading, unless
they are all drawn to a common scale.
The major conceptual error is the use
of crime totals to compare different uni
versities which are of greatly different
size. What’s needed is crime rates, for ex
ample, crimes per full-time student or
crimes per student residing on campus.
Totals of almost anything have no mean
ing when comparing populations of differ
ent size.
Of course, what really makes statisti
cians grumpy is comments like: Statis
tics can lie; it depends on how you inter
pret them. It’s not, in other words, the
statistics that lie, but the humans.
So, to lighten up a bit, how about
redoing the analysis? Let’s see if we
are really #2!
Raymond J. Carroll
Professor of Statistics
Soldiers use violence
to protect, not destroy
I must write in sheer disgust of
Michael Landauer’s column on Oct. 12.
Imagine yourself loaded with gear, an
M-16 automatic weapon “Locked &
Loaded” in your hand. You haven’t seen
your family in years and you are 16,000
miles from home and 100 yards away
from unseen enemy troops who only
know they should kill you. Yes, you are a
soldier, a pawn sent to fight and maybe
die in a country you never heard of be
fore. It is so easy to “Armchair quarter
back” military movements.
I speak as a Army veteran from the
25th Infantry Division (Light), Schofield
Barracks HI. It was there I spent 4
years as a Jungle expert/Air Assault
qualified forward observer. I joined the
Army out of a heartfelt need to protect
Americans. Every time I watched the
news during those years, a black cloud
hung over my heart every time troop
movements were reported.
I knew this meant possible death for
my team, for as a soldier, you never know
when God may call you in.
A soldiers mission is to protect. We
understand we may die, yet none of us,
or our families want soldiers to die. L
know now that there are far better ways
to solves disputes than by the violence-'
of wars.
To the unknown soldiers who guard us
across the world as we sleep, I salute you.;
Kelly Williamson
Graduate Student
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