Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Viewpoints__ Letters from page 10 Amnesty International a positive organization To the Editor I read Michael DiPresso’s latest col umn (“‘Good’ acts should be examined,” Nov. 22) with interest, seeing as how I am a proud member of the USC chapter of Amnesty International, which DiPresso cit ed as an example of the naivete of activism oriented student organizations. I will con cede that, collectively speaking, we are idealistic in our world view. I will concede that all the AI chapters in the world may not be able to remedy all the world’s hu man rights problems, let alone our partic ular chapter. And I will concede that often activist groups such as ours are misguided in their approach. (Maybe the residents of that housing project DiPresso helped clean up might have been more responsive if the group he was with had tried something more practical and useful than picking up trash.) And yet I must say that for all our “blind ness” and “naivete,” our attitude towards the problems of this world are 10 times more civilized and productive than that ex emplified by DiPresso, which could best be described as an unappetizing mix of stony apathy and utuitanan cynicism. As revealed by his comment about migrant workers, Di Presso doesn’t care how many people are cheated and exploited as long as he bene fits. He realizes and accepts that “people are’going to be homeless, tortured, starved, filled with bullets, oppressed by dictators, and generally miserable because of others’ desires.” But he doesn’t ask questions about whether it should happen. In fact, when juxtaposed with a recent column by Kevin Langston in which said columnist pompous ly suggested that the homeless existed for his benefit, DiPresso’s column appears to be symptomatic of a general climate of self centered callousness that is alarming in a publication that purports to represent and inform the USC community. We may not have all the answers, and our methods are not always successful or well-advised. But we are trying our best to help others and the world around us. And the last thing we need is the criticism of people too calloused and lazy to contribute. Jamie “Vladimir” Enlow Religious Studies Sophomore To the Editor As a privileged college student, I am relatively safe from becoming a victim of human rights violations. From this safety comes an obligation to speak out for and act with those threatened by state-sanc tioned murder and torture. This obligation is why I joined Amnesty International. The only danger I face for actively sup porting human and civil rights is charac ter assassination, which occurred recently in The Gamecock. Michael DiPresso’s column, “‘Good’ acts should be examined” (Nov. 22), harsh ly criticized members of AI-USC. The ar ticle presented questionable evidence about AI and bad logic in general. Writing an opin ion piece about an organization without at tending one of its meetings—or even for mally contacting some of its members — is irresponsible and does not provide an ad equate information base to make criticisms. AI’s purpose and DiPresso’s article both should be re-examined. AI is the world’s largest and most ef fective human rights organization. The or ganization is impartial and independent of any government, political persuasion or re ligious creed. It fights to free all prisoners of conscience; ensure fair and prompt tri als for political prisoners; abolish the death penalty, torture and other cruel treatment nf nriamp.rs- pnd nnlitical killing and “dis appearances”; and oppose human rights abuses by opposition groups. AI also strug gles to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which, among other things, calls for an end to discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and sexu al orientation. List year the USC chapter of AI wrote and introduced a bill into the State House of Representatives that prohibited the ex ecution of minors in South Carolina. This year, it is working on three different cam paigns: the death penalty, human rights abus es in Latin America, and international work ers’ rights. Some of AI-USC’s goals are to re-in troduce anti-death penalty legislation; to persuade U.S. Representatives to support the Human Rights Information Act; and to ensure that USC considers workers’ rights when contracting out its name. Aside from those three main campaigns, AI discusses other topics including the conditions of mi grant farm workers and police brutality. DiPresso writes that he had a conversation with an AI member who went “on (and on and on...)” about improving farm worker conditions. He then claims that the same AI member called Hispanics “disgusting.” If an AI member said that, his or her statement does not reflect the values of the group, and if DiPresso has an issue with one member of an oiganization, that is no reason to attack the whole group. Never theless, some questions arise from the ar ticle. According to DiPresso, the A1 mem ber “didn’t realize that they were saying it, but they were. Not implying or insin uating, but plainly saying it.” How can one plainly say something and not realize what he or she is saying? DiPresso also derides AI-USC for petitioning against police brutality. Per haps because he does not see the case of Amaduo Diallo as a horrible violation of human rights, DiPresso’s account of this case of police brutality is problematic. Amaduo Diallo, a West African immigrant with no police record and a stutter, was killed by four white police officers. Di Presso claims that two killed Diallo. DiPresso also claims that a “police uni form is a target,” but the offending officers were in plain clothes. There are several other discrepancies between reality and DiPresso’s depiction of what happened. These mistakes show poor research and reporting. While opinion articles are designed to be biased, one’s bias should be informed. Having a column in The Gamecock gives one a degree of power and influence. With power comes responsibility. In fail ing to inform himself of the facts, Mr. Di Presso ignored the responsibilities that come with his job. Man Fainter Political Science Junior Creationist argument ignores scientific facts To the Editor 1 write again to correct several inac curacies in a letter by Donnie Pritchett. In his letter of Dec. 1 [“Lack of evidence re futes aigument”], he writes that I failed to respond to his Oct. 13 rejoinder [“Evolu tion theory not definite despite facts”] to my letter of Sept. 29 [“Evolution letter filled with misconceptions”]. This is quite true. I decided not to respond on the grounds that his rejoinder ignored virtually every point I had raised and mischaracterized the rest. He wrote that I stated evolution is true because Nobel Laureates said it was true. This is false. I said that there was indeed evidence for evolution and that a good place to look for references for such evidence was the amicus curiae filed in the Supreme Court case of Edwards vs. Aguillard. Fur National Issues Preparation key to equality The recent sur- "" '"b vey on race relations in tlie US. military, the most extensive one ever conducted by a government agency, might not account for what is at the heart of the problems it indicat ed. writes each The survey Friday. He can be shows that a high reached via The percentage of mi- Gamecock at nonties in the ser- gckviews@sc.edu. vice—both officere - and enlisted—feel there is racial tension in the military. It al so indicates that minorities feel their chances of advancement might be hindered by their ethnicity. Unsurprisingly, the study has already caused high civilian leaders, including De fense Secretary William Cohen, to look in to the matter closely and try to determine what things can be done to correct the find ings of the study. My hope is that when a solution is evaluated and prepared, it takes into account something the study doesn’t, seem to address: preparation. I am curious to see if there was any cor relation between the minorities who feel race relations are not good or who feel then chances of advancing are hindered and what kind of elementary and high school edu cation they received. My hypothesis is that the minorities who feel racism and discrimination exist'in the service are minorities who did not re ceive good elementary or high school ed ucation. Thus, the study really indicates the frustration some minorities feel at not be as prepared as their majority counter parts. That is, it might not necessarily be ther, he failed to respond to my comment that the ability for a theory to change is a hallmark of science that evolutionary theory embraces but creationism does not, he failed to respond to my criticism of ask ing an evolutionist (biologist?) questions that should have been asked of a geologist, he failed to respond to my citation of dendrochronology as evidence against a young earth, and he failed to respond to my pointing out the inaccuracies in his view of the history of science. that minorities are being discriminated by not being advanced, but rather that mi norities really do not have the prepara tion to earn advancement I still leave room for racism and dis crimination. I think in any pluralistic soci ety these social ills are going to exist. But it might not be as prevalent as the study suggests. For this reason, before measures are taken to fix this problem, I think it is important to know exactly what the prob lem is. I have always contended that equality, equal opportunity and affirmative action should be addressed through preventive, rather than corrective programs. They should seek to prevent a disparity between the re sources available to majorities and those available to minorities. As it is, those pro grams do not exist. Affirmative action, for instance, seems to try to “make it up” to minorities by offering them substandard op portunities. While this may do some equal izing, in the long run equality is not reached. A minority who only has to score a 1000 on his SAT, when the majority is held to the higher standard of 1200 is not equal. The correct way to distribute opportuni tioc ic tr\ oncuro ovorvnno hac tho camp truilc to be able to compete. Then and only then can equality be reached. With this new survey, I fear that the government will try to fix the problem quickly through the use of corrective mea sures rather than preventive. I don’t think advancing unqualified minorities just be cause they are minorities is going to solve anything. The government needs to find out why minorities are not heing advanced. Is it because of discrimination or is it be cause they are unprepared and really do not merit advancement? Whatever the case may be, both scenarios are wrong and need to be addressed. If the lack of preparation is the problem, why aren’t minorities as His rejoinder then continued by stat ing that there are no journal articles that “explain how complex structures arose through evolution.” A quick Web search turned up an article by Prof. David Ussery (http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/dave/Be he.html) that contains references to dozens of articles addressing a few specific (sup posedly) irreducibly complex structures. It appears that all that is required to find such references is a search on: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.giv/PubMed/for prepared as the majority? And when and if this is the case, then a program needs to be implemented that would prepare minori ties in a^ay that would make them com petitive among the majority. Minorities are not wrong for feeling they are being discriminated against. They just might be wrong about when the discrimination may be happening. When it is time for advancement, it may be too late to cry discrimination, because it could be mistaken as a cover up by minorities for lacking preparation. The real discrimina tion may be happening in elementary and high school education. When low-in come neighborhoods — usually African American and Latino-heavy — receive as - much, if not less, money than schools in more affluent neighborhoods, it is here that discrimination should be screamed. The truth is that when minorities don’t get advanced and their majority counter parts do, it could be very frustrating. But if the minority is not prepared then they should not be advanced. The military is no place to give sub standard service members opportunities and responsibilities they are not qualified to rpppivp Tho militarv hac to talrp itc hpct And if the best are mostly majority, then that’s who needs to be put in command. My question would be, why aren’t there more “best” minorities ready to take com mand? I don’t complain without offering some solution. 1 think another survey needs to be done to see if there is a correlation be tween disgruntled minorities and the prepa ration they have received. If a correlation exists, then the problem needs to.be axed at the root: elementary and high school ed ucation. Minorities need to be given the opportunity to be as successful as the next person. the specific structure you are curious about. Similarly, the Web page: http://www.talko rigins.org/faqs/behe.html contains a variety of similar references. As a psychometrician, however, I am not the one to ask for the best list of references concerning evolution or biology. 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