Open your mind
Racism can end; children must lead the wav
Last Monday night, I was driving
through a downtown intersection and
out of the comer of my eye I noticed
a person lying in the street.
I put on the brakes and threw my
car into reverse. As my friend and I
jumped out of the car it became
apparent that the person was a
college student.
The passenger door was wide
open and the student layed face first
in a puddle of vomit.
I asked the kid if he was alright,
my friend stood over him in a panic.
The kid had no response, he was
piss drunk.
Within seconds a couple ran over
to the scene. They seemed very
concerned, the man was ready to run
to a public phone and dial 911.
His wife looked scared, and
expressed the fact that she might cry.
Before the four of us had any
chance to react to the situation the
young man’s friends came running to
the rescue.
I happened to know one these
guys. We explained that their friend
had been lying in the street with the
car door wide open. ♦
They went on to say that it was
the kid’s 21st birthday. He was too
drunk for the bars, so they carried
him out to the car thinking he would
be fine. As I’ve explained, he
wasn’t.
My friend and I thanked the
couple that raced over to help the
young man. We parted and returned
to my car.
We both looked at each other and
let a sigh of relief out, the situation
on the street was quite tense. She
turned and said, “What a nice black
couple.”
I was taken back by her statement
and asked her what she meant. She
explained and I understood.
The gist of her explanation gave
me butterflies. Humanity: The fact
or quality of being humane —
Bob Ray
“We must all remember
that we are all a family,
no matter what color;
race, gender, sexuality,
etc."
kindness, mercy, sympathy, love.
She went on to say “You know
that guy on the street could be
someone who calls African-Ameri
cans n-s.”
That statement is extraordinary.
Imagine now many times a day a
similar situation occurs in America.
It all boils down to the latter,
humanity. Respect for one another as
living, breathing, walking and
talking animals.
When I was about six or seven
years old, a black kid moved into the
neighborhood. I remember wanting
to play with this kid because he was
the new kid on the block.
We became good little friends,
we played and climbed fences and
caused all the problems that most
little boys do on a daily basis.
Today, I remember that his skin
color was different from my own.
Fourteen years ago this little boy
was my friend, not a black, not a
white. He could have had three eyes
and I would have never noticed.
The film “Glory,” represents
many of today’s problems. It’s a
factual portrayal of the first black
platoon in the history of United
States war (The Civil War).
By the end of this film I was in
tears. I felt more patriotic then I ever
have in my entire life.
Black soldiers, The 54th Regi
ment, representing the Union in the
American Civil War. These men
endured hell for their freedom. They
were given nothing, no uniforms, no
shoes and verbal abuse from many
white soldiers.
But these men stood proud,
honored that they were representing
the war cause. No one would stand
up for the 54th but their Colonel and
Abraham Lincoln.
By the end of the film, the 54th
walked into action. Their Colonel
explained that if he was killed in the
battie, that someone take the
American Flag and hold it with
honor.
The Coionci was gunned down,
and the rebel of the 54tn, the black
man who hated the army and was
fighting for himself, grabbed the flag
•and stood with honor and pride.
He was killed.
These men, black and white,
came together for a cause, a mission,
and a passion — to win the war and
capture freedom for African
Americans.
We must all remember that we
are all a family, no matter what
color, race, gender, sexuality, etc.
For some of us, it’s to late,
ignorance has already nestled a
home.
But there is a hope, and it all lies
in the hearts of kids. May this
generation bestow this wonderful
hope upon our children. Small
people are the future, as they have
been since the beginning of time.
Ray Is a senior broadcasting major and
a Dally Nebraskan columnist.
Broken peace
End of Cold War makes future uncertain
How did the Cold War end? We
worried it to death.
Most of the kids I knew — that is,
most of the adults I know who were
kids in the 1970s and 80s —
believed that one day soon the world
would end. Atomic bombs would
rain from the sky, demolishing cities
and poisoning countryside for
thousands of years to come.
For some of us, these ideas were
inextricably wound up in pictures of
the Second Coming. Terrible
pictures, from the Bible and the
Book of Revelations.
This conviction never left us. It
informed all our waking entertain
ments. “Red Dawn” was the most
popular film on video at its release
in that format, and made-for-TV
movies taunted us with visions of
“The Day After.”
In a desperate act of associative
magic, my generation warded off the
nuclear boogeyman by painting
myriad grisly pictures of it on the
cultural cave wall. We dreamed
Armageddon away.
But we paid a price in nightmare
and daytime dread. Far more savvy
than our parents, who learned to
duck and cover in civil defense drills
in the ’50s, we knew the war would
be over in a matter of minutes: attack
and counter-attack made automatic
by game-playing computers.
Those unfortunate enough to
survive would live in barbarism and
fear, scraping together a Mad Max
existence from the tattered scraps of
a demolished civilization, pursuing
each other down wasted highways
into desert landscapes.
The fact that this never occurred
brought it all the more vividly to the
mind’s eye. It appeared, to some of
us then, as if it had already hap
pened: we had only to survive on
canned food and the same recycled
television programs until the end.
It wasn’t so bad, there was
enough mac and cheese to last
forever... and we had the cock
Mark Baldridge
7n a desperate act of
associative magic, my
generation warded off
the nuclear bogeyman
by painting myriad
grisly pictures of it on
the cultural cave wall.
We dreamed
Armageddon away. ”
roaches to keep us company into the
millennium.
We were the slackers. Some of us
were a little older, some younger.
But we barely recognized each other
through the smoke.
Most of us have cycled through
the system by now. We work at
Xerox stores (the head shops of the
age) and watch cable TV. We have
not yet begun to speak. We like
music a lot. We still “hang out” —
though some of us have children
now.
And it is only slowly dawning on
us that the world survived.
The explosion of Western young
people into the former Eastern Bloc
is a rush to see if the evil empire lefl
any gnawed-over bones behind.
Do not point out the Mother
Russia, that is a broken country; it
never could have been the nightmare
state, the pistol-packin’ mama, the
U.S.S.R.
Not that old washerwoman of a
nation.
Which way went Mordor?
During the Nine Day Coup, that
forgotten footnote to the Cold War
that made Boris Yeltsin a hero, I
happened to see the headlines in a
coin-operated news vendor.
I experienced the most disturbing
frisson: It suddenly seemed to me
that I was caught in a Sci-Fi
counterpart to reality, an alternate
future, in which the Cold War ends
in a whimper.
And I didn’t buy the premise.
That feeling stayed with me for
days and indeed has never entirely
left me. I assume some of you feel
the same way, as if the promised
Super Bowl of Wars had been
canceled, replaced with an
infomercial for AT&T: “Have you
ever heard voices coming from the
garbage disposal? You will!”
Those ominous words. That
voice from the past, echoing from
the ’80s telling us what the ’90s
were SUPPOSED to have been. But
somewhere we got lost along the
way:
We did not deal well with peace.
in a way, the exuberance of the
younger set is fueled by a disap
pointed pessimism. We were ready
for oblivion; the prospect of actually
living through the end of the century
fills us with, if not fear, a sort of
unease. Once the future was known;
now it is uncertain.
We need the old alchemy back,
the magic charm to work again for
us. The same mojo that brought us
into this alternate reality where the
world does not end, where WWIII is
just a bunch of letters, can still save
us now.
Only, what could make us use it?
Baldridge Is a senior English major and
a Dally Nebraskan columnist.
Media inquisitions
don’t equal insight
Commentators now say that
Bob Dole has two serious failings
as a candidate. He lacks fire in his
belly and doesn’t have real
vision.
Because I think Dole is a
I decent guy, I asked Dr. I.M.
Kookie, the renowned expert on
i lots of stuff, what Dole could do
; about his alleged lack of vision
I and fire in his belly.
“OK,” Dr. Kookie said. “For
fire in the belly, 1 recommend
Mexican food.”
I don’t think that is the kind of
fire in the belly the commentators
arc talking about.
“Then how about Szechwan
cooking? If Dole just orders the
real hot dishes, he will have
enough fire in his belly to belch
all over the commentators.”
I believe the commentators are
talking about the kind of fire in
the belly that indicates a true
thirst for a political office.
“So, how do they know?”
Know what?
“What he’s got in his belly?
Has Sam Donaldson or Cokic
Roberts ever looked in Dole’s
belly?”
I don’t think so, how could
they?
“Oh, there are these tubes with
little peeping things on the end.
You shove them down the throat
all the way to the belly and you
can take a look. Believe me, it’s
not a pretty sight. But that’s the
trouble with the media. They talk
about what’s not in somebody’s
belly and don’t even take a look
for themselves.”
Yes, the media are sometimes
guilty of superficiality.
“Now, what about Pat
Buchanan? Do they say he has
fire in his belly?”
Absolutely. A raging mlemo.
“See? How do they know? All
those reporters running around
New Hampshire talking about
what’s in Buchanan’s belly. But
for all they know, there’s nothing
in his belly but a few peanuts and
a Twinkie.”
That’s possible.
“What about President
Clinton? The first time he ran,
didn’t they all say that he had fire
in his belly?”
That’s what they said.
“Well, my diagnosis was that
he had ants in his pants.”
There were some who believed
that, too.
“And I would say that his wife
definitely had a bee in her
bonnet.”
Possibly an entire hive.
“Then why don’t they talk
about ants in the pants or bees in
the bonnet instead of fire in die
belly? It would be much easier to
check out the presence of ants in
the pants.”
I don’t know if it would be
! proper to ask a president if he has
I ants in his pants. He would be
I under no obligation to respond.
“They could ask. Is ants in the
| pants any more foolish a question
Mike Royko
“'But that 's the trouble
with the media. They
talk about what’s not
in somebody’s belly
and don t even take a
look for themselves.
lhan fire in the belly?”
I guess not.
“So, as to fire in the belly, I
would say that there is no way for
the commentators to know that,
and they should stop talking
about it until all the candidates’
bellies have been examined.”
Is that possible to do?
“Why not? The next time they
have a debate, they all should
stand behind X-ray machines that
show what’s in their bellies. And
maybe they could be required to
crouch down so we can see
what’s in their heads.”
What would X-raying their
heads prove?
“We would find out if they
have bats in the belfry. If com
mentators are going to tell us
about fire in the belly, we have a
right to lqiow if a candidate has
bats in the belfi'y. And how many
bats. Maybe we would discover
that Dole or Alexander has only
one or two bats and Buchanan has
a dozen. That would help voters
decide if they want someone just
a little batty or real batty.”
That makes sense. Now, what
about the vision thing?
“Right. So they say Dole
doesn’t have vision.”
Very little.
“But Buchanan has vision, is
that right?”
Yes, he’s being hailed for it.
“See? It just shows how little
vision the me.dia have.”
Why do you say that?
“Look at their eyes. Buchanan
squints. Dole doesn’t squint.”
So?
“So how can the commentators
say that somebody who squints
has vision and somebody who
doesn’t squint doesn’t have
vision? They have it backwards.
Instead of these commentators
talking about who has vision and
who doesn’t, they should put my
brother-in-law on TV.”
Who is he?
“He’s an optometrist.”
(C) 1996 Chicago Tribune
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