Opinion
Cultured classroom
Awareness should start in school
A bill that won first-round approval in the Legislature on
Tuesday targets gaps in the education given by some
Nebraska schools.
LB922, championed by Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha,
would require Nebraska public schools to develop and imple
ment multicultural education programs. Proponents of the bill
say such programs would help curb racism by teaching kids
early on to appreciate societies of other ethnic backgrounds.
An amendment to the bill, also given first-round approval,
ensures that the bill wouldn’t force additional hours of instruc
tion on schools. The amendment requires the multicultural
education to be incorporated into existing curriculum.
At a committee hearing on the bill, Chambers said many
rural youths had testified on the absence of multicultural
information in their schools.
“There are instances throughout Nebraska and this country
where great insensitivity is shown to people of different ethnic
and racial groups,” Chambers said. “The purpose of this bill is
to try to do in an educational setting what we all say that we
want.”
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schools develop programs and would monitor the schools to
ensure participation.
Chambers said this provision would give the policy some
teeth. It’s not much power, but no one wants to sec some kind
of multicultural police cruising the halls, either.
While some perhaps overestimate the role of the schools in
perpetuating racism, the best of educations would teach stu
dents about all different groups of people. Children’s minds
must be opened to ideas, customs and values not prevalent in
their own society. Becoming knowledgeable about other
cultures only can enrich our own.
LB922 is a step in the right direction without becoming an
inflexible, state-mandated course of study. The bill would do
little to combat racism in the short term, but because it concen
trates on children, the most important segment of our popula
tion, the potential for long-term gain is enormous.
Only when the gaps in our present knowledge are filled can
we expect a better future. That is the reasoning behind LB922,
and it is admirable.
I_ ■ -. — I
-— LETTERS^ EDITOR
Minorities must stop blaming
My comments arc in response to
the feature article the Daily Nebras
kan ran on Jimmi Smith (“Equal
opportunity architect,” DN, Feb. 10).
I was amazed and incensed by
your (Smith’s) comments. Why would
you be so careless with your words?
As a minority leader in a very influen
tial position who works with minori
ties, surely you must realize the pene
trating impact of your words. Your
comments concerning white students
were very inflammatory and will do
nothing to foster greater understand
ing, greater acceptance or a greater
harmony on this campus among and
towards minorities. The attitudes you
communicated only continue to per
petuate the conflicts and do nothing
to calm the growing storm.
All who are minorities, myself
included, need to ask ourselves why it
is that some of us have been able to
rise above the discrimination and
restrictions placed upon us? Why is it
that whole groups of minorities have
actually flourished within the United
Slates? Human nature seeks to place
blame for its own shortcomings in
stead of accepting individual respon
sibility for what we choose to do with
our circumstances. As minorities, we
are prone to look for an evil enemy to
fight. We point fingers and look for
scapegoats, thereby continuing to deny
personal responsibility. Our attitude
that the repression is increasing be
comes more deeply ingrained, con
tinuing the cycle of feeling helpless.
Recognizing that my attitude is
my greatest opponent, I have made
conscious choices to control its limi
tations on my success. I have chosen
not to point my finger and look for a
scapegoat. 1 have chosen not to focus
on the discrimination that I know is
very real. 1 have chosen instead to
focus on the strengths and talents
given to me, desiring to see them
grow. Mr. Smith, I would challenge
you to make the same conscious
choices.
Stephanie Temples
senior
Russian
Language study needs changes
If the general population of the
earth is slowly adopting English as a
second language, then why is it that
science majors at most universities
are forced to take a foreign language
as a requirement? To answer part of
my own question, I admit that taking
a foreign language could be produc
tive if 1 choose to move to Japan or
Germany after completing my six
year bachelor degree program here at
UNL. Still, a four-year program will
change into a five or six year night
mare because of foreign language
requirements. Admittedly, I have no
interest in learning a different lan
guage, and I believe that requiring
students to take them is a travesty to
grade point averages. 1 believe that a
science major should be allowed to
waive his or her language require
ment in o/dcr to be able to concen
trate more on the major/minor courses
instead of strange conjugates and verbs.
We need desperately to change these
requirements. What about having an
option of taking a slew of humanities
or social science courses?
In closing, a more preferable core
option is needed, and just not in the
College of Arts and Sciences, but in
all of the colleges.
R. Bruce Kitchen II
' sophomore
astronomy and physics
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KIRK ROSENBAUM
Life infiltrates boring race
For a while I was worried the
1992 election season was going
to be a humorless, colorless
exercise in expensive futility.
Nobody has been able to solve the
expensive futility aspect of it for a
few decades, but Gov. Bill Clinton
has guaranteed it won’t be humorless,
and the folks at MTV are trying to
bring bit of color.
Slick Willie Clinton had marketed
himself as the most electable candi
date in the Democratic field, and he
probably was right. He was raking in
endorsements and money like autumn
leaves while crushing the rest of the
pack like a political monster truck.
Clinton might still be the lead dog,
but his campaign seems to be unrav
eling right before the finish line in
New Hampshire. New allegations
surface weekly that suggest Clinton’s
character is barely good enough to
make him president of a bowling
league.
He condemned the scurrilous
midnight pay raise while approving a
70 percent increase in his own salary.
Now it appears that he was too busy
registering in cheap motels to register
for the draft.
That Clinton avoided a war he
didn’t believe in shouldn’t be held
against him. Besides, 92 percent of
the men his age didn’t serve in Viet
nam either. Eventually he drew a high
lottery number that kept him out of
the draft anyway. So why should his
pulling ofa tew strings be held against
him?
Among his reported reasons for
avoiding the draft is that he was too
intelligent to have his talents wasted
in Vietnam. Maybe he has a point.
Why should a Rhodes scholar get
involved in a war when poor blacks
and undereducated whites can go in
his place?
Clinton has offered a lame assort
ment of excuses that paint him as a
man eager to enlist held back by
circumstances beyond his control. At
the heart of all this garbage is a man
who, like Dan Quayle, thought he
was too good to go to Vietnam.
Slick Willie may be an adulterous,
hypocritical draft dodger, but most of
our finest presidents have had at least
one of these qualities. Clinton is a
fine salesman and probably will hang
on in New Hampshire. He has raised
These days, future
candidates must be
ein actinf presiden
tial at conception,
lest the delivery room
nurses remember
them as soft and
whim _
nearly S4 million to this point, easily
outdistancing his rivals.
According to figures supplied by
Tom Bodclt, this would be enough
money for 160,000 nights at the Motel
Six, with some change left over to run
the vibrating bed and rent a few movies.
Then again, Clinton's probably too
good for the Motel Six.
It has been said that Clinton has
been preparing for this campaign for
the past 10 years. Even that may have
been 35 years too late. These days,
future candidates must begin acting
presidential at conception, lest the
delivery room nurses remember them
as soft and whiny.
Let this be a lesson to everybody
who may be considering a run for
office in the future. Planning on spend
ing your student loan money on a
week of binge drinking in Padre next
month? Someone will remember your
drunken, disgusting behavior about a
month before your election. Then he
or she will show up on PrimeTime
Live to recall the entire ugly story in
gruesome detail.
“... Then he cannonballed off the
hotel balcony and into the swimming
pool wearing nothing but an empty
Schaefer Beer 12-pack on his head.
Sam ... it was horrible. He harassed
and fondled every girl on the beach.
Then he started offering money for
drugs and women, saying he may as
well spend it since ne was going to
default on it anyway. We finally had
to lock the monster in a closet.”
After a scene like that, your own
mother probably would vote for
someone else.
Americans enjoy watching a messy
spectacle but they won’t vote for one,
at least not yet. The media has yet to
figure out a way to make candidates
who make fools of themselves look
attractive and smart.
This is why I have decided to get
all my campaign news from MTV.
After infiltrating every other as
pect of our culture, MTV now is
covering politics. It can pack a mean
ingful story on all the candidates in
two minutes and have lime left over
for R.E.M. to tell you why voting is so
important. It is political information
for the ’90s — no visual image lasts
longer than five seconds and all the
“reporting” is done over a soundtrack
of Public Enemy.
According to Jerry Brown, if just
the people who watched MTV went
to the polls, “they could change the
country." He’s probably right. MTV
could generate 10 million new voters.
Of course, the candidate would have
to be Michael Jackson.
The truth is that MTV has a vested
interest in voter apathy. It rather would
have people age 18 to 24 out at the
malls on Election Day buying the
products they see advertised between
videos.
George Bush would prefer this also.
The Bombs and Jesus crowd looks
forward to going to the polls and
rarely misses an election. The last
thing these people need is a massive
rush of MTV youth exercising its
rights and trying to put some crummy
liberal into “heavy rotation.”
They probably won’t need to worry
about something like that happening
this year, however. There are two
ways to gel people to vote — buy
them or inspire them.
Inspiration seems to be out of the
question. Maybe we should go back
to the days of Andrew Jackson when
politicians offered kegs of whiskey at
the polling place. Of course, in the
’90s it would have to be something
else — maybe Bugle Boy jeans or
Hammer cassettes.
Rosenbaum ia a history major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist.
--LETTER POLICY
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