page 4
daily nebraskan
friday, march 3, 1978
Decriminalization bill keeps
Nebraska in tune with times
(
Storm warnings arc out and all
indications arc that the Nebraska
Legislature should brace itself for a
whirlwind of a debate.
LB 1 87, which would reduce pos
session of alcohol, tobacco by
minors and possession of less than an
ounce of marijuana from a criminal
to a civil offense, is expected to
come up for general legislative de
bate. And it may well be that its
stay in general session will be more
heated and possibly more drawn
out- han its stormy year in
committee.
Iranian protest shakes UNL complacency
The Iranian students protesting
the shah Thursday, marched under
fear of a 5-year jail sentence when
they return to Iran and possibly with
a fear for their well-being.
The protest march consisted of
more than 75 people, some UNL stu
dents and professors along with
masked and unmasked Iranians who
were convinced that the shah's police.
Savak agents, were watching them.
If this is true, if there are Savak
agents on campus, makeshift paper
masks are not hiding the students'
identities. If there are Savak agents
in Lincoln, they undoubtably would
recognize most of the 200 Iranian
students by their physical charac
teristics and their clothing.
Some of the demonstrators said
they were risking more than a jail
sentence in Iran. They also were
risking their physical well-being.
One demonstrator, when asked
about the threat of a jail sentence
said. "We are doing what we have to
do. If we go to jail, we join thou
sands of our countrymen.'"
Another Iranian student said he
and another 100 Iranian students
did not protest because they were
afraid.
According to an article in the
March 1 Daily Nebraskan. an anony
mous Iranian said he can feel his
family's fear when he telephones
them, although they never speak of
politics because the Iranian govern
ment monitors phone calls.
Without a doubt, these students
have acted courageously, but for
what result? Several of the protestors
said the only result they expected
from the demonstration was an in
crease in Nebraskans' knowledge of
the situation in Iran.
Maybe it is more than that. Ten
sion is high. Pro- and anti-shah
Iranians at UNL are fighting among
themselves, several times coming to
the point of fist fights. Maybe fear
and oppression can bear down on a
people only so long before the ten
sion erupts.
That eruption Thursday was a
shock to a complacent campus
whose student leaders base political
campaigns on jokes and arguments of
what to do with the Apollo space
capsule in front of Morrill Hall. The
efforts of these Iranian protestors
should be praised if only for jolting
students in this sheltered univer
sity environment back to the reality
of the world around them.
But some of the changes included
in the bill are long ovvrdue and need
immediate attention. If passed,
LB 187 would make possession of al
cohol or tobacco a civil offense. Pos
session of less than an ounce of mari
juana would have the same classifi
cation. These offenses would be pun
ishable by not more than $100 for
the first offenses, not more than
$200 for the second offense if com
mitted within the same year, and not
more than S300 for a third offense
in the same year.
We support this aspect of the bill
sponsored by Sen. John DeCamp of
Neligh. More importantly, we agree
with the legal rearrangement the bill
entails. If passed, DeCamp's bill will
reduce possession to a civil offense.
Besides saving offenders penalty pay
ments and a possible jail stay, the
bill could open up several areas now
off-limits to those guilty of alcohol,
tobacco and marijuana possession.
Jobs are a prime case in point.
Criminal offenses do not look good
on job applications, and anyone guil
ty of possessing these substances has
a big fat black mark on their perma
nent record. It is ridiculous to think
that an individual's job chances may
be jeopardized simply because he
had a good time one night.
Nebraska needs a realistic,
practical policy for minors in posses
sion of alcohol and tobacco and
especially for marijuana. Let's hope
the Legislature can recognize this
need and supports LB187.
Prejudice comes in all colors, stains hopes for harmony
I was one of i' c 6 percent of Nebraska
voters who voted for Ernie Chambers for
governor in 1974. Neither J.J. Exon nor
Richard Marvel seemed appealing, and I
liked the way Chambers once told off one
of his colleagues in the Legislature.
The exact words escape me. but they
were enough to win my vote.
Now I would rather vote for Mickey
Mouse. The turning point came with a
Daily Nebraskan interview with Chambers
published in Fathom last Friday.
ray
valden
For a page and a half, Chambers talked
about what it means to be black. In that
space, he showed himself to have the men
tality of a post-Civil War plantation owner,
except that his racism comes in a darker
shade.
Chambers tells us that he is the most
intelligent man in the Nebraska Legislature.
He also tells us that "white people are just
silly," they are vicious (while blacks are
not) and there is a racial battle line drawn
whenever a black meets a white.
The solution he sees for racial conflict
is to vaporize the country in a nuclear
holocaust.
Chambers makes many good points
about the degradation of black under white
racism, about the education system that
teaches whites to feel superior and blacks
inferior and about the differences between
the black civil rights movement, which
bears the legacy of slavery, and the civil
rights struggles of other racial minorities
and women.
But the value of these insights are lost in
the fog of Chambers' own prejudice and
intolerance.
After three centuries of slavery, another
century of segregation and oppression and
only a decade or so of grudging equality
(more so in the legal sense than the social
and economic), it is natural that blacks
should hate whites. Natural but not con
struct ive.
Another natural reaction is to lump
people into categories according to some
obvious trait - skin color is the easiest -and
attach a label. This eliminates the messy
task of treating each person as an individ
ual. Less load on the brain. How much
easier it is to say all whites are vicious or
silly than to examine each white person for
evidence of viciousness or silliness.
Much of the energy of the civil rights
movement has gone to wiping away group
labels. The law at all levels of government
now bans discrimination on several bases,
and race tops the list.
The ultimate goal of this, at least in my
mind, is to wipe this race consciousness,
this prejudice, this stereotyping, from our
minds as well as from our law books.
This is why I am upset to see Chambers
drinking from the same poisoned cup of
prejudice of which he says all whites have
partaken. He is a sign of the move made by
some blacks from civil rights to separatism.
Oppression and war are functions of
groups. Peace and equality are functions of
individuals. In speaking of the split be
tween "our own kind" and "the enemy".
Chambers is perpetuating the usthem
mentality that blocks racial harmony.
He says he will never forget what has
happened to black people in America. Nor
should he forget. Whites also must carry
that memory to guard against tailing back
into the injustices qf the pasK.
But can he forgive the past'' And can
whites renounce it? These are the necessary
barriers to pass if we are to live in the pre
sent free from the past. To be bitter about
the past is to be enslaved by it.
The real issue is not race, except for
those who make race the issue. The real
issue is respect. Every person deserves the
respect of every other person and of him
self. Those who fail to respect others throw
away their own right to be respected.
If Sen. Chambers reserves his respect for
people of his own pigmentation, then I
must withdraw my respect for him.
letters
to the editor
I would like to correspond with other
people. My name is William J. Marsh. I am
20, and living at the Nebraska Penal
Complex for a crime of burglary.
I will be getting out in May. 1978. My
hobbies are hunting and camping outdoors.
My hometown is Omaha. I will expect
letters from all and write them back.
William J. Marsh
P.O. Box 81248 Lincoln, NE 68501
Vote for mandatory fees
Even if you have no interest in the
March 15 election, it will be an opportun
ity for you to express your feelings about
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the new policy set by the UNL Board ot
Regents. Please go and vote.
The regents' decision to cut the speaker
program from mandatory fees will not save
you one cent. We will lose the opportunity
to listen to well-known and interesting
speakers expressing many points of view.
As a result of the new policy, the degree
you receive from UNL will not have the
intrinsic value that it has now.
Vote to use mandatory fees for speak
ers, and maybe the regents will lister to the
students.
Michael Adams
Junior mathematics major
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