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Race Why is prejudice still heated topic in the South and in the nation? It has been thirty years since the start of the Civil Rights movement and racism is still the topic du jour on the Viewpoint section. Both columns, most of the letters and this editorial all concern racism and prejudice on campus and around the country. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be disappointed that this issue is still so relevant. USC letter-writers are certainly concerned about the problem. On a larger scale, the nomination of Clarence Thomas has sparked national debate over the need for affirmative action and other programs designed to end discrimination. ABC's Primetime Live has a special show about racism in America this Thursday. Dislike of a person because of physical characteristics certainly hasn't disappeared from the public psyche. The problem won't be solved on the editorial page. Americans have to loosen up and not be offended by everything. Whites must not deny blacks their rights, and blacks must not think they have a monopoly on suffering. Americans of every gender and color are poor, uneducated and deprived. The poverty and lack of education that creates ignorance is the real national problem, not racial hatred or drug abuse. To solve the prejudice and stupidity, we have to aggressively reform our nation's schools. If hatred is learned in the home, it has to be unlearned in the schools. Maybe the mixing of all ethnic groups at USC will eventually help the problem. Let's get started. jMrToifc "Utfc ENV'ffoHWNT Pl?F5iPEMT! I TTT fwP5>*tf>bum#P J I - mT,WE&oTS*PK# A ywsask . as8ms&~ I ? Distributed by Tnbune Media Services '' ^ k*- kmv i GAMECOCK" News: 777-7726 Advertising: 777-4249 Chris Silvestri Editor in Chief David Bowden Brant Long Managing Editor/Viewpoint Editor Copy Desk Chief Tige Watts Oct a via Wright News Editor Carolina Life Editor Aaron Sheinin Teddy Lepp Sports Editor Photography Editor Patrick Villegas Gordon Mantler ----- A \T P J- * Asst. News Editor assi. news acinar Tracey Davis Rich Taylor Asst. Carolina Life Editor Asst. Sports Editor Virginia Marshall Greg Rickabaugh Asst. Copy Desk Chief Asst. Photography Editor Wayne Williams Eric Glenn Comics Editor Darkroom Technician Renee a. Gibson Laura s. Day Asst. Media Director/Advertising Manager Production Manager Stacie Lewis ray Burgos Asst. Advertising Manager Asst. Production Manager Erik Collins Carolyn Griffin Faculty Adviser Business Manager Lara Chapman Asst. Classified Manager Letters Policy: The Gamecock will try to print all letters received. Letters should be. al maximum. 250 to 300 words long. The writer must include full name, professional title il a USC employee or South Carolina resident, or year and major if a student. An address and phone number are required with all letters sent. The Gamecock reserves the righl to edit letters for style, possible libel or in case of space limitations. The newspaper wil not withhold names under any circumstance. Racial groups On Sunday, In Living Color had their season premiere, including the continuation of Homie the Clown. Well, Fox should have chose not to play the segment because they made a joke about Homie bopping "the Man" ? the man Homie referred to as "Mr. Whitey." I was very offended. Now, the above opinion is one that could be labeled as "hypersensitive." I was not truly of- ] fended. I took it as a joke and laughed as I al- i ways do after p half hour of the show. < But some people are taking things like that < too seriously and are blowing them out of proportion. They are offended by anything and ev- ] erything that is said about them. Let me give t you an example: ( The recent explosion over Cockwheat, a < character in a free publication given out at < home football games, is just plain stupid. And Homecoming Tailgating, football games, cheerleaders, rCocky, they're all part of Carolina tradition. It all started before most of us students were even a twinkle in our parents' eyes. In fact, many of them may even have been students here. A lot of these things aren't just Carolina trad- I itions, but traditions in universities all across | the country. Homecoming queen is also one of those traditions. This year at Carolina, however, e that tradition has ended. ^ Personally, having a homecoming queen does not mean an awful lot to me. But it's kind of n like beer or Rich 'The Football God" Taylor's columns, it's part of the fun of the season. But I find a damper is put on my fun when I stop to ti consider that because human beings have to q find someone to hate, we have been forced to is end an institution. v I can understand the senate's decision to no si longer elect a homecoming queen in light of the a racial controversy that was caused this past g year. I am not questioning their decision. I hon- o I CTT MM* IMM I I { i Paper includes . * . . the NAACP dumb stories ^ ??our the "Africaner a-. petuatetheha To the editor: [ , I have often heard students criti- , . yf / cizing or bditUing The Gamecock. I, on the other hand, always gave have a j the publication the benefit of the NAACP tow doubt until I read two stories pubIlished in the Friday, Sept. 20 edi- If you need tion. The two stories "USC stu- lington, simp] * - *#nnx7 1 i aents win inp 10 Mi v music acuvm. wim Awards" and "Roommates win for jobs and p Sting tickets" were barely news- cause of th< worthy and hardly deserved the discriminatior amount of space they received. After reading the stories, I was per- I would als plexed. I mean who really cared? Ellington cai If the stories had to be mentioned, are, ?asan( which I don't think they did, two 1 or(* 1 or three lines would have sufficed. Ellington, ho We, the students of USC, de- ansvver tf serve the right to have stories of ^''abilil more significant importance &r0 ^?"ege I printed in a paper that is funded by example of ai our fees. Why don't you address white-racists important topics such as why the Americans c tuition has increased for the past ta?c-. Advani three years or why USC doesn't not discrimim hire more minority and female fa- Another vi culty. If the paper is going to start Miss Black ' writing stories when every student "whjtes? , wins something by luck or chance America pae then it will surely be a waste of "African Am paper and ink. lhe NAACp By the way, if the editors ever ch lhc have some space, they need to fill discriminati - in 1990, I won a stuffed ani- B,ack Ameri mal at the State Fan- and two years aj|ow white c ago I won $10 in a raffle. I'm sure is actuaj]y d that's enough information for at wj107 lf.aci iwf> stories. Cynthia M. Williams Mr. Ellin^ Advertising/PR junior search for fac the entire st Blacks can be prejudiced too S! looking at th To the editor: fact is, at sc I am writing this letter in re- every perso sponse to Mr. Ellington's letter in agt nst ? rej* The Gamecock on Wednesday, Maybe if yoi Sept. 18. Mr. Ellington may be yourself by c< ' correct when he says "African- American), ; Americans" do not have control together to o i over the power structure. The idea crimination ,* that this prevents them from being walks of life, racist, however, is ludicrous at best P( need not be hy \ blov I ) Greg Rickabaugh *? V-___ But \ new \ blisl 1 I. I CO was [*m sure if the character had been Cocky Darla, ^auS i few women might have gotten upset Maybe ^ logs would have been upset with Hong Kong ever Z!ocky. bm If we can't laugh at ourselves, who can we P0*" augh at? There are many other important ^ hings we could be complaining about in every environment than a character in a simple publi- SP0C eation that only a small percentage of Game- noV eock fans view every other week. entu In fact by complaining, the controversy was ^ shouldn't be r; Shelley Magee fact, ?|||* men L__? sent< wisd stly feel they did not have many other options, fullj Vhat I have to call into question is the morality f a university whose members forced the se- is? 1 ate to face that decision at all. pack It's kind of ironic that the tradition in quessure on is homecoming queen. The homecoming ueen is kind of like a mini- Miss America. She wmi wim ; meant to be the embodiment of the type of 'Oman that USC should be proud of. She is in^' apposed to be intelligent, ambitious, involved ( nd, gee-whiz, socially conscious. Can you ima- ^ ine that? And here we are arguing over what olor her skin should be. 1 ERS TO THE EDITC ' te to believe Mr. El- T CVCfpiT orant to the fact that ^LCH. has tremendous ef- ^ 1 1 ^ legal system. Isn't it ?00(1 ?1s wll( Americans" that peritred that leads to rac- To the Qd[tQr ? I mean, there are This letter is in referen te people that are dis- Shelley Magee's article er gainst, yet we don t "University should not 1 avenue such as the standards." ave our banners. Your article caught my I an example, Mr. El- lion. I agree with this stat ly look at affirmative that the university should es" are turned down high standards. I do not, ho^ iromotions simply be- agree with some of the re jir race. Isn't that that you made within this t i? As not only a concerned stud USC at Aiken, but also as ii ~ i?:c \jr- , - ? . ^ T uaeni ooay 10 your yuui aiuut siwus m/m ? ? eryone is entitled to understanding of the USC s nions, but you are not an<^ specifically USC-Aiken. ilindly accuse only Some research into the < tieing racists without entrance requirements at e entire picture. The Aiken may prove enlighteni ime time or another, yOU an(j others who share n is discriminated concerns. Uninformed opi ;ardless of their color. sucj1 as y0urs tend t0 fuel the j stopped identifying 0f discontent and are especial 3lor (such as African- pmcd since Dr. Palms is tryi , we could work hold the USC system togethei vercome racism, disand prejudice in all In the spirit of cooperatioi in an attempt to provide you Tim Queen an accurate picture of ilitical science junior academic excellence at USC u iikc iu khuw 11 ivu. aent Doay president, i am uu i explain why there by some of the statements th; Is of "whites" that made. 0 go to college. Mr. You recommend in your wever, probably can- that "the university shou lis because you have channeling more of these b ly of the United Ne- line students as freshmen I nmd. This is another university's branch campi 1 entity in a world of You said, "Maybe this fui " that only "African- could be used more effectiv an use to their advan- weed out some of the student Lage, Mr. Ellington, are not cut out for the fou ition. campus experience." Perhap ... are not aware, but USC-A [able question is t e fuiiy accredited four-year u America Pageant. sity that received the best ac< vere to have t e 1SS ing evaluation of any univen ;eant and not allow South Carolina> including erican contestants, Colum5ia and ^ other US( would 13 e y tem campuses by the Southei agcant o lcia s wit sociation of Colleges and Sell on Yet, the Miss usc.Aikeil) as*noted by , ca agean oes no creditation evaluation and hq ontestants. Now, who trance requirementS) str iscriminating against academic excellence. Gur sti mention this fact when a ;ton, I suggest you "Why do you want to attend :ts before you subject Aiken?" Apparently, the attit 1 1J _ _ nlntvtn frAtTl O 1' persensitive m up so much that people rushed to see Cockwheat was. I didn't even know of the acter before hearing about the controversy, you can be sure I was the first to pick up a spaper at the game only to see that puler Rod Shealy had poked more fun. In fact, uld have said his reference to Lily White offensive to white people. But all I did was h ? at myself. have been working on a society where ybody accepts each., other for their color, it is not going to happen when we keep ting fingers and screaming, nd for that matter, when Eddie Murphy did impression of Buckwheat, he did it is a >f of the character, because Buckwheat is meant to be an accurate representation of an e group of people. fe laughed then ? why not laugh now? ace issue tin color has absolutely nothing to do with g a representative of Carolina women. In the last time I checked, we Carolina wo were black, white, red, yellow and every r color imaginable. jrsonally, I would be proud to be repreid by a woman of any color who had the lorn and inner beauty to speak out thoughtr on my behalf. Tio cares what color the homecoming queen What we should be looking at is not the age she comes in, but the contents within package. We're so obsessed with making that no one white is offended by a black ler, and no one black is offended by a white ler that we've forgotten the reason for hava homecoming queen at all. dually, considering that, it's probably betihat we don't have a homecoming queen. l would be sort of hypocritical since we obsly have no idea what it's all about >R I invite you to visit our campus. I Kelvin Coleman I Student Government Association )10 President ? USC-Aiken .mied Minister lacks lower atten intelligence ement have To the editor: vever, This letter is addressed to Minismarks ter Ken Dew. irticle. I speak for many people when I lent of say your statements about the mets stu- dia, rock music and USC populaended tion are grossly inaccurate and exat you tremely offending. You make ludicrous generalizaarticle tions about a society with which Id be you are out of touch and about order- which you are not informed. You to the knowingly spread misinformation jses." about sexually transmitted dislction eases, AIDS and condoms to ely to young, impressionable minds, s who It staggers the imagination to r-year know you actually think most of s you the media are bisexual or ho1 is a mosexual. If it were true, so what? niver- And why do you use the media to :redit- proclaim your insane message sity in when, in your mind, they are imUSC moral? Do the ends justify the 2 sys- means, Mr. Dew? 11 As- On the contrary, the media keep iooIs. us informed about powerful lunaits ac- tics such as yourself. *h en- ueWj yOU qxq, a hypocrite. CSSCS Vrti. 1?A Anrl clonHar J 1 VJU MlUWlllglJf lie dnu diuuuw, U<P? and you seek to eradicate the very ri*?hts that allow you to speak your 4 . mind. You are no Christian, nor , are you an American, tck of lystem It seems to me that you are the only one who has a sexual problem, and it's called repression. Do ictual not come back to USC. Take your USC- message of lies, censorship and n8 to sexual repression elsewhere, your nions Learn a lesson from former Se. fi|-es nator Joseph McCarthy, Mr. Dew. ly ill- The First Amendment, you are ing to aware or it, protects your ireeaom of religion and my freedom of speech. If you take away mine, I n and will eradicate your's. And that is a i with promise. true Eric Ward !-A, I Journalism senior