The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current, October 01, 1992, Page 4, Image 4
Opinion Nebraskan Editorial Board University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chris Hopfensperger.■ .Editor, 472-1766 Dionne Searcey...Opinion Page Editor KriS Karnopp.Managing Editor Alan Phelps.Wire Editor Wendy Navratil.....Writing Coach Stacey McKenzie. .Senior Reporter Jeremy Fitzpatrick..Columnist No use Parking problems will never be solved For years, parking has topped the platform of candidates for the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The NU Board of Regents have discussed and re-discussed parking issues. ^ The UNL Residence Hall Association often frets about open lots. Already this fall, issues have ranged from arguments about remote-lot parking to spaces available on football days. Last spring students were upset about the monitoring of metered spaces. It’s fair to say every student for one reason or another has been dissatisfied with parking on campus. The name Ray Coffey, former member of the UNL parking committee, used to be a household dirty word. Now Mike Cacak, interim parking administra tor, is working to figure out a way to make students and their cars happy. Fact is, the parking problems of the university will never be solved. Try as Andrew Sigerson may, there is no way to please everyone. Sigerson, ASUN president, and the rest of the clan tonight struck down a proposal to ban first-year _ students from parking on campus. The plan would have prevented freshmen from buying parking permits. Many large universities have installed such a ban. Granted, the proposal would have freed up numerous parking spaces behind the residence halls, but first-year stu dents at UNL probably would have complained about the plan. And the proposal would have done little to ease the congestion of lots used by commuter students — who, by definition at UNL, are not supposed to be freshmen. RHA voted unanimously Monday to withhold support from the ASUN resolution to ban freshman parking. Sigerson has said a better solution would be to build a large, off-campus lot where every student, faculty and staff member could park. But the plan doesn’t seem all too likely to come into effect in a year plagued by a shortage of funds. The university is not so anxiously awaiting budget cuts from the Legislature. Sigerson, RHA and parking officials will keep dreaming. UNL campus police will keep ticketing. Students will keep circling the lots, hoping to find a spot to park their gas- guz zling, environment-damaging vehicles. In the meantime, the tickets will continue to stack up in the back seats of students’ cars until graduation when they must pay the fines before they drive away with a degree in hand. There is no happy ending. Suff editorials represent the official policy of the Fall 1992 Daily Nebraskan. Policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. Editorials do not necessarily reflect the views of the university, its employees, the students or the NU Board of Regents. Editorial columns represent the opinion of the author. The regents publish the Daily Nebraskan. They establish the UNL Publications Board to supervise the daily production of the paper. According to policy set by the regents, responsibility for the editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of .its students. The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief letters to the editor from all readers and interested others. Letters will be selected for publication on the basis of clarity, originality, timeliness and space available. The Daily Nebraskan retains the right to edit or reject all material submitted. Readers also are welcome to submit material as guest opinions. The editor decides whether material should run as a guest opinion. Letters and guest opinions sent to the newspaper become the property of the Daily Nebraskan and cannot be returned. Anonymous submissions will not be published. letters should included the author's name, year in school, major and group affiliation, if any. Requests to withhold names will not be granted. Submit material to the Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St., Lincoln, Neb. 68588-0448. __SSSSl ■ Minority discontent no surprise The University of Nebraska-Lin coln Racial Climate Survey that was conducted last spring strongly indicates that minorities, es pecially African-Americans, are not pleased with UNL. Really. • The front page of a January issue of the Daily Nebraskan showed a pic ture of a former football player, Scou ---Baldwin, naked and hog-tied as a result of a mental outbreak. Sev enty-five to 100 Afri can-American students met with Daily Nebras kan representatives (with media coverage) and discussed the un -ethical picture. • During a rally protesting the acquittal of four Los Angeles police officers, African-American students called out the names of many people whom they thought perpetuated the racial problems on campus. • High-ranking UNL officials have spoken at several Afrikan People’s Union meetings in the past years and listened to African-American con cerns about racism and discrimina tion at UNL. And 40 percent of African-Ameri cans are not satisfied with the univer W'V 4 Surprise. Surprise. I can’t believe the university took the lime to conduct such a confiden tial survey when they knew of many, many, many African-American stu dents who wouldn’ t hesitate to tell the university or anyone who would lis ten to their stories. Officials now say multicultural education is needed at UNL. Why are so many people a day late and a dollar short? When I first realized I was going to UNL and saw the requirements for my major, I was disgusted when I saw Western Civilization. Western Civilization. Why the hell was I taking acourse that was going to say nothing about the contributions of my people and would not benefit me in the future? Western Civilization is about black people, but many students do not know that. Maybe if the professors who taught these courses spoke about the contri butions of other cultures besides the European culture, or maybe if these professors knew of the contributions of other cultures that were a part of Western civilization, or even maybe if these professors knew who was black and who was white in Western civilization, minorities wouldn’t mind taking such a course. I The Association of Students of the University of Nebraska president Andrew Sigerson said in his State of the Campus address that UNL should not require incoming students to take multicultural courses. He said those students would be upset in being forced to take such a course. Oh my! Are you telling me Afri can-Americans and other minorities aren’t being forced to listen to so much stuff that they know is lies? And I have yet to see any changes to get me out of taking Western Civilization. UNL needs more than just a multicultural curriculum. Actually, if professors incorporated the contribu tions made by minorities into their classes, a multicultural curriculum would not be needed — it would already be taken care of in the manner that it should be. Separate courses arc not going to do any good if students in the sciences can’t associate Dr. Charles Drew (a black man who developed blood plasma for transfusions) with health. Separate courses are not going to do any good if English students do not know that Othello was a black man. For that matter, separate courses are not going to do any good if all students don’t know that some contri butions supposedly made by while MfiV* TT VIMVII TTVIV UVIUUUJ IIIUUV by black men and women. When people don’t see contribu tions in this world made by other races or cultures, they will look down on those races and cultures. And when minorities don’t know of contributions made by people who look like them, they will have no respect for themselves or others. Professors should not be rewarded a thing for integrating information about minorities into their lectures. They should have been doing it a long lime ago. That is an insult to me, my people and everyone else whose culture or race Ifts contributed so much to a nation that docsn ’ t even acknowledge our presence. If anything, professors should be penalized for NOT integrating the information. That way, they would have to find the information them selves, if they have no clue whatso ever about contributions made by minorities. Back to the Racial Climate Sur vey. African-Americans don’t care about this survey. The questions were already answered years ago when those students set fool on this campus. Another question on the survey finds that more than 40 percent of African-American students think UNL recruiting brochures do not honestly describe the university. One year I saw a brochure that went to incoming students. The bro chure had two or three black students on the cover. Less than 2 percent of UNL’s students are African-Ameri cans! The brochures tend to make mi nority students think there are more people who look like them on campus then there really are. More than 60 percent of minority students said that if they could do it all over again, they would choose a dif ferent university. Don’t be surprised after listening to officials say they were going to make a change and do something about the race problem on campus and ain’t nultin changed. Why bother to stay at a university that doesn’t appreciate or respect you or your cul ture? I’m in my third year here, and the only changes I’ve seen are more is sues being raised about the needed diversity on campus and racial prob lems that minorities face at UNL. Nothing has changed. Many Afri can-Americans and other minorities don’t see anything happening any umc nuuii. Officials tell us it takes time. They tell us to be patient. If Rosa Parks were patient, we would probably still be silling injfye back of the bus. The tim^TOdosomething is now. Not tomorrow. African-Americans and other minorities wouldn’t be here today if they waited for tomorrow to come. What extreme will it take to make a change on this campus and other campuses across the United Slates? To sit back and watch the L.A. riots, to see a picture of a naked, hog tied black man (depicting slavery in the minds of many black people) and to listen to so much rhetoric going on — it’s frustrating and upsetting for black people, especially young black adults. We sit here and watch what’s go ing on. We sit here and listen to what’s going on. And we think about our parents and our grandparents. We thi nk about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. We see their struggle. We know of their struggle. And we know that if we don’t do something about it today, we will be doomed tomorrow. We think about the past and re member it. We remember it so that we can say to ourselves, “Never again. Spurlock is a Junior news-editorial and broadcasting major, a Dally Nebraskan night news editor and a columnist