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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 16, 1996)
mary 16,19% The Battalion Tuesday january 16, 1996 Opinion Page 13 g, The Battalion DWL >wery cele- Antonio. 104 points in the 4 assists and icad-to-head guard Anfer- her offensive points, 14 of Scott had 16 vas in double r straight at Orlando, has st five games, ming thesea- ■> 1 T9>kWff ms tune )7-99 t reserve ints, in- cial dunk onds left. - , ) — Hakeem 28 points and ) points and a donday night Rockets beat '-99. cored nine the last two the game for :ir biggest ad- ightly played al score, and Howard hot the Jazz me with nine a fourth quar- ckets put it econds left on i follow-up Ham by Elie after Olaju- .von missed a ayup, giving Houston a 104-99 lead. Sam Cas sell hit one Tee throw and Elie Hosed out the ?ame with ;wo more as reased their 14-3, fourth lost for the e games, was lone with 23 1 Benoit with shed with lh had 14. t added 19 i. ere slowed b)' the first half 2 sprint near a 51-47 half oved to 26-11 the win. The! tie for first west Division itonio Spurs, isday. H(emem(jmng Martin Luther JQna Jr. Holiday should have broader scope MLK is the only American singled out on the calendar with a holiday Jason Glen Columnist t Jfc: Y esterday we observed Martin Luther King Day, a day when we did not have school and many employees didn’t have to come to work. This did not make it any easier for me to get last minute fi nancial and course problems worked out, and it caused me to question why we actually did have this day off. It is not clear why we would have this day off instead of days such as Memorial Day and Presidents Day. What makes this day so special that many business and government offices are not open on this day? The answer might be that students bebeve that Martin Luther King Day repre sents the idea of freedom from oppres sion and discrimination for all races. If this holiday, which our Univer sity was under so much pressure to recognize, represents what people say it does, then why aren’t other great people who championed the cause recognized with a holiday? The holiday could celebrate the achieve ments of presidents who actually signed the race reform bills as well as spearheads for the cause such as MalcolmX, W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington. Children prove to be excellent tools for carrying on King s legacy Martin Luther King should not be the only man from our nation’s histo ry to be recognized with a holiday that everyone gets off to celebrate. The great achievements of Martin Luther King should not be overlooked, but the founder of our nation, George Washington, is not even recognized in this manner. Washington and Abra ham Lincoln are grouped into Presi dents Day, a holiday which fewer peo ple are given off. If all the people of this nation are to fully appreciate this holiday, its fo cus should be broadened to incorpo rate every race’s struggle for equality as well as the women’s struggle. Mar tin Luther King Day should be a day when all of us celebrate the fact that our country has developed into a more sensitive and humane place. It should be a day when all Americans come to gether and celebrate equality and the great people who helped bring about those changes. If we are to make the idea of what Martin Luther King Day represents into a true American holiday, then it needs to be more than a celebration of the man, Martin Luther King. Even Martin Luther King, in his ad dress in Washington in August 1963 said, “We cannot walk alone.” We could still recognize Martin Luther King’s birthday, but in the same way, we should recognize Washington and Lincoln’s birthday. We should set aside a day when every person, school, and business halts and we all celebrate the equali ty of every race and gender. When that holiday is created, we should recognize it as being significant enough to stop our studies and cele brate, but the Martin Luther King holiday does not do its meaning and spirit justice. Jason Glen is a sophomore political science major C hildren never cease to amaze me. It seems that every time I am around them, they show me something about myself I never realized. Children have a sixth sense that allows them to strip away the complexities of life and look at everything in its barest, most innocent form. This sixth sense withers away, proba bly shorHy around the time we stop be lieving ia Santa Claus. It is a sname it does, because, as I found out two years ago, this keen in sight is perhaps the most profound asset children possess. I was standing in the sweltering heat of the Houston summer, waiting for the Rockets championship parade to march through the downtown streets, with four of my colleagues from my summer job. One had brought along the son of her boyfriend. The boy, about 6, was a bundle of energy. To keep my friend from losing her mind, I told her I would watch him. Within a few minutes, he and I were laughing, joking and goofing around. As I carried the boy on my back, he talked without end. “I can’t wait to see Hakeem. He’s my favorite player,” he said. “Yeah,” I replied. “We’ve had a good time today, huh?” “Yeah.” “And we’re gonna have fun, even after today. We’re gonna stay good friends even after I go home (his mother lived in another state), and we’ll talk and see each other whenever we can, right?” “Right,” I said The conservation seemed pretty banal until he said something I did not expect. “And it doesn’t matter that I’m black and you’re white,” he whispered into my ear, “because we’re gonna be best friends forever.” A lot of time has passed since that day, and only now have those final words truly sunk in. “It doesn’t matter that I’m black and you’re white ...” What a great senti ment, so simple yet so profound. Across the United States yesterday, we celebrated the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a man committed to the ideals of peace and harmony. It is easy to get bogged down in the headlines that scream hate crime, black- on-black violence and the like. Every day drives us further from true equality. I often lose faith in our ability to put aside our differences for the benefit of mankind. Sometimes, I feel the winds of hate gusting and expect a tornado of racism to blow everyone away. "And it doesn't matter that I'm black and you're white/' he whispered into my ear, "because we're gonna be best friends forever." That is, until I remember that young 6-year-old boy on the humid Houston sidewalks who told me that despite our different skin tones, we’d be best friends forever. Here was a child who could break through the color lines like they were papier-mache. King said in his book, Why We Can’t Wait, that children were some of the most valuable members of the 1960s struggle for equality and freedom. He said that even though some chil dren could not even pronounce the word “freedom,” “... no Gabriel trumpet could have sounded a truer note.” Now, more than 30 years after the civil rights movement began, children are still making a difference. Wes Swift is a junior . . journalism major The Battalion Established in 1893 Editorials appearing in The Battalion reflect the views of the editorials board. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of other Battalion staff members, the Texas A&M student body, regents, administration, faculty or staff. Columns, guest columns, cartoons and letters express the opinions of the authors. Contact the opinion editor for information on submitting guest columns. Editorials Board Sterling Hayman Editor in Chief Stacy Stanton Managing Editor Michael Landauer Opinion Editor Jason Brown Assistant Opinion Editor EorroRiAL Campus Crime Students should not relax just because one rapist has been stopped. Aggies can breathe a small sigh of relief now that the police have apparently caught the West Campus rapist. However, his capture should not encourage people to let down their guard. In the past year, the two rapes that occurred on West Campus re minded everyone of the prevalence of vi olent crime, even in seemingly safe ar eas like Texas A&M University. With the posting of fliers and improved light ing, it seemed the adminis tration and the University Police Department all took measures to improve their safety and the safety of the campus. UPD also helped students raise their aware ness through an increased number of seminars. Still, the arrest does not mean the campus is suddenly a safer place. Most rapes go unreported, so it is unlikely that the two rapes on West Campus were the only ones at A&M last year. Besides, rape is not the only crime people need to worry about, since there are hundreds of crimes ranging from theft to rape that occur each year on campus. People on campus run the risk of being a victim of crime, and everyone bears the responsibility of minimiz ing that risk. Physical Plant should in crease the lighting and num ber of emergency phones, es pecially on West Campus, since the elevated activity on West Campus has increased the potential for crime. Most rapes go unreported, so it is unlikely that the two rapes on West Campus were the only ones at A&M last year. University Police should continue its awareness pro grams to inform the campus and the surrounding commu nity of crime prevention techniques. Most importantly, stu dents and others should take responsibility to reduce their own chances of being victims. Avoiding poorly lit and un populated areas of campus at night and attending crime prevention seminars are a couple of suggestions they should heed. Common sense will not prevent crime, but it certainly can help. Unfortunately, no amount of police protection will elim inate the threat of crime. But, active cooperation be tween the police, the Univer sity and the individual can make a criminal think twice about messing with someone at Texas A&M. Student perspectives help serve OPINION s purpose Michael Landauer Opinion Editor T homas Jeffer son once said, “If it were put to me to have a gov ernment without newspapers or news papers without a government, I would pause a minute to prefer the latter.” Sometimes it seems like people at A&M would choose none of the above, but we’re stuck with both the government and a newspaper on our campus. So we just have to make the best of things. People love to complain about government and newspapers, and this page, the one with the big “Opinion” at the top of it, bears the brunt of those complaints. It is on this page that we read how liberal The Battalion is, and, of course, how conservative it is. We get complaints calling The Batt everything from Marxist pamphlets to the daily supplement to the Limbaugh Letter (an un characteristically witty slam that came from the Daily Texan at the University of Texas). As we open the new semester and brace for the same complaints, I want to take a minute to ex plain a few things for the record. When most people say that The Batt is too anything, they usually mean the Opinion page, the Editorials Board or even just one columnist in particular. They can’t really mean the rest of the paper because that is where writ ers do objective news reporting (ex cept reviews on Aggielife and columns on Aggielife and Sports). The only time The Batt really speaks on an issue is when it prints an Editorial. They’re easy to spot. They come in a box with an explanation of whose opinion the editorial represents. Other than editorials, every opinion on this page is written by one per son, namely the person whose picture is shown at the top of their column. But they’re not the only indi viduals to use this page as their soapbox. The best part of this page is the Mail Call section. That is where conservatives write in and say how liberal The Batt is, and liberals counter by complaining about how conservative it is. Those letters are OK, but the best letters are ones that stick to issues and offer new perspectives. Critiquing the job we do is one thing, but responding to the issues we raise is what this page is all about. It is the best fo rum for the exchange of ideas on this campus. Sometimes that space is spent debating the best way to carry a backpack. Other days are spent clashing on issues that have a real effect on our lives. Mail Call is where we learn how different we are. An irate Joe Aggie will write in this semester saying, “I can’t believe Joe Colum nist wrote such-n-such. How can he call himself an Aggie? Highway 6 runs both ways and gig ’em.” Well, Joe Aggie might find this hard to believe, but with more than 40,000 people on this cam pus calling themselves Aggies, we’re going to have some different ideas floating around. He might also be surprised to find that Highway 6 links College Station to Waco, not Austin. Some Aggies will vote Democ rat, others Republican. Some will attack the administration, others will defend it. Some will think Newt Gingrich is a helluva nice guy, others will think he symbol izes hell on earth. It’s a hard pill to swallow for some, but that is what attending a University is all about — be ing around people who are dif ferent from you. Sometimes at A&M, it is hard to visually see those differences. We tend to emphasize our similarities more than our differences. But Mail Call can be different. Hopefully Mail Call will give peo ple an outlet to show the campus what things look like from their perspective. This Opinion page is nothing without the perspectives gained through having Mail Call. Without it we might as well have a govern ment without newspapers. But with large doses of input from the students of A&M, The Battalion, especially the Opinion page, can be what Jefferson had in mind. Michael Landauer is a junior journalism major