dailu nebraskan
thursday, november30, 1978 lincoln, nebraska vol. 102 no. 52
ASUN motions criticizing
Daily Nebraskan defeated
By Shelley Smith
Prompted by a possible lack of inter
pretation, two resolutions criticizing the
Daily Nebraskan's coverage of university
activities and issues were defeated by
ASUN Wednesday night.
The resolutions, one which specifically
criticized coverage of East Campus events,
and the other, criticizing total coverage of
campus activities, were a result of increased
student concern and complaints received
by ASUN, according to one sponsoring
senator, Joe Nigro.
Nigro said he felt the defeat came be
cause people might interpret the resolut
ions as being dictatorial to the Daily Ne
braskan. He added that the real purpose of
bringing these opinions before the Daily
Nebraskan might have been achieved be
cause of the long debate.
Nigro said he has heard complaints
about the Daily Nebraskan 's coverage and
ASUN's executive committee felt some
thing should be done.
He said that since the Daily Nebraskan
is the major means for students to get
information about the university, it should
be more concerned with campus activities.
"I've heard complaints from IFC (Inter
fraternity council), the Recreation Depart
ment, and East Campus," he said.
"It's their general concern that a lot of
activities and issues are not being covered.
I'm here to express that concern," he
added.
Senator Dan Lamprecht, chairman of
the Special Topics Committee which
sponsored the resolution criticizing East
Campus coverage, said that ASUN is not
trying to tell the Daily Nebraskan what to
print.
He explained that ASUN represents its
constituents and that there is a "very real
concern of a bunch of students what the
Daily Nebraskan reports."
News editor Tarn Lee explained that
there are other channels in which ASUN
might take to gain awareness of this
problem, and. said she felt it was not in
ASUN's jurisdiction.
"I don't think ASUN has any business
doing anything like this-anything to do
with the Daily Nebraskan," she said.
Carla Engstrom,Z)fly Nebraskan editor,
said there has been a sudden amount of
people upset with the coverage, and
emphasized that the Daily Nebraskan is not
a public relations paper.
"We are not anyone's public relations
organization and the Daily Nebraskan
never will be," she said.
"There are a lot of ways you can go to
voice a concern about Daily Nebraskan
coverage. This is like the City Council
telling the Lincoln Journal what to do.
ASUN, after a three week heated
debate, also passed an act which requires
all ASUN committee members "to repre
sent to those agencies, in all ways possible,
the general policy positions decided
through enacted legislation of the ASUN
Senate."
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Photo by Mark Billingsley
Snowmobiles appear on Lincoln streets as the winter cold settles in to stay.
Speakers tell of own experiences in coping with racism
By Alice Hrnicek
The number one need of minority stu
dents at UNL is instruction in coping with
racism, according to Cyrel Foote, director
of the UNI Culture Center.
"The campus isn't the real world," he
said.
Foote, along with Janice Harrington,
the originator of the BlackSpeak series,
sponsored by Student Y, and Alan Thomp
son, an educational psychology major,
spoke on black identity in crisis in Wednes
day's BlackSpeak.
"It's very, very frustrating," Foote said.
"You're almost schizo. You've got to deal
with white administration, brothers and sis
ters (referring to blacks), and a lot of
others."
Each of the speakers related their back
grounds in an effort to analyze how blacks
form their identities and how the process
is different for individuals depending on
the degree of influence of the white com
munity. Raised in Montana, Thompson lived in
a population with few blacks.
"My brothers and I were the only black
students in a town of 19,000," he said.
Because of this, he said, he feels he is
more aware of his blackness. An important
person shaping his identity is his grand
mother, he said. He added that his mother
and aunt were also prominent because as
librarians they encouraged him to read li
terature about the positive contributions of
blacks to American society.
Conflict with blacks
When he arrived at UNL, Thompson
said he came into conflict with other
blacks because he had an easier time re
lating to whites.
Different areas and ditterent family
backgrounds influence how people relate
to others in society, he said.
"The key is unity. To inc. to he a black
American is to be unified with other
black Americans though they have
different backgrounds.
"I will always want to meet people
different than I am. If unity is going to
exist then that attitude will have to exist."
He further stated that there is a need
for Afro-American students to be aware of
differences and to help others adjust to
college life.
In early childhood, Harrington attended
a segregated school in the South, then a
white Roman catholic school in Nebraska
during her teen years, which influenced
her.
"I.was not allowed to say black in our
house," she said. "We used the word
colored."
"By the time I had graduated from high
school I had internalized every negative
thing ever said about blacks and I was
believing it."
When she entered UNL, she said she
didn't feel she was black because she had
assimilated many of the white's attitudes.
'Couldn't take it'
Her counselor assigned her to a black
literature course, she said. Harrington went
to the class and saw that it consisted of all
blacks. "I couldn't take it," she said.
This is only one illustration of the
identity crisis she developed when she
started attending UNL. One of the contri
buting factors was that in the '60s there
was no one she could approach with her
problems.
"I couldn't go to a white counselor
or to the blacks because they would have
thought I was an Uncle Tom and I was sure
they'd lynch me."
Instead, she turned to reading works of
black poets who popularly expressed angry
viewpoints in the '60s. "I started noticing
that the university had a white
atmosphere." she noted. "I started listen
ing for messages of blacks but there was
nothing but the sterile white environment."
Harrington concluded that she had all of
a sudden developed a black identity but
that it didn't fit because there existed
minimal unity among blacks at the campus.
"I felt angry about our repression,"
she said. "I started losing friends because I
wanted to have an Afro life."
"You can't be black on campus. As long
as you act white you're accepted."
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Foote, who received a bachelor's de
gree in Fort Hayes, Kansas, grew up in a
time and place where integration in schools
was just beginning. He attended a previous
ly all-white junior high school in Wichita
which had just started taking black
students.
He became friends with a number of
whites at first, he said. But after the assas
sinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin
Luther King, Jr., the blacks in the area be
came militant.
"Rioting started,'
on white students."
he said. "We jumped
As soon as he moved and went to
another school, the struggles became even
more intense. The principal of the high
school was killed and several students
underwent brain surgery as a result of
fighting, Foote said.
"At the time, I felt I was a leader in
changing athletic policies in regard to
blacks," he said. As an athlete, he said he
couldn't conceive a "basketball team
without brothers."
The next school he attended had an
enrollment of 5,600 with 12 blacks. Foote
said that a lot of the students had never
seen blacks before.
"I was trying to relate all this," he said.
"I couldn't see how an institution like this
still survived. I didn't hate white folks but
I didn't like them either. All I'd seen was
how they had downtreated us."
White responsibility
Foote noted that in being a token black
in a profession one sees ail the changes.
"You understand why whites are ig
norant. It's not all their fault."
He added, however, that whites do have
a responsibility to learn about other cul
tures. "Blacks are raised in a white environ
ment so they know what it's like." But it's
different for whites. "If you would throw
them in the ghetto, they would know what
it's like."
The director stressed that it's getting
harder for professionals to get motivated to
improve inequalities in attitudes.
"It shouldn't be the black students and
faculty always bringing out the problems
to the white folks," he said.
Harrington noted that the university
atmosphere and programming isn't condu
cive to dealing with the diversity of
cultures.
The number of programs must be in
creased and minority students must learn
to communicate with each other, she
concluded.
Although there is an affirmative action
program on the campus, the office has no
secretary, Foote said. "If we're going to
do something about it, let's be for real,"
"It might be that it is left up to us to
educate whites but it gets frustrating. It
all goes back to playing the game. In the
end 111 learn all the games and still keep
my identity but what is it all for?"
inside thursday
Student sippers surveyed: Housing
office seeks drinking attitudes and
habits page 3
Season's goodies: Holiday festivities
start in the kitchen page 8
Braised and battered: Women's gym
nastics team suffers through some
early season injuries page 1 0
