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The Battalion
Tuesday
january 16, 1996
Opinion
Page 13
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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