Garcia says to live’ diversity
versity of Nebraska work more actively
with minority organizations on campus.
He said minority organizations he
spoke with said ASUN didn't seem
interested in the groups’ affairs.
Eric Marintzer, ASUN president,
said all the student organizations on
campus were aware of the student
government’s open-door policy. If a
group thought it wasn’t being given
adequate attention, it should send some
members in to discuss the problem with
an ASUN member.
Human Rights Committee chair
woman Anna Harms said there is a
definite lack of student interest in di
versity-related committees. She said on
many jof these committees, there have
been no applications from non-sena
tors, even though ASUN has tried to
publicize committee openings.
Garcia said he was not trying tc
accuse ASUN, but rather make sena
tors question the attention they were
giving to diversity issues.
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By Tasha £. Kelter
Staff Reporter
Ricardo Garcia, special assistant to
the chancellor for affirmative action
and diversity programs, gave ASUN
senators suggestions Wednesday night
on how they could promote diversity
on campus.
Garcia said students should not
graduate from the University of Ne
braska-Lincoln with no knowledge of
how to deal with members of other
cultures or ethnic groups. As leaders
of the student body, ASUN senators
have a responsibility “to make sure our
students are prepared to be leaders in
the global village,” he said.
Garcia said students could not be
come effective at dealing with diver
sity without experiencing it firsthand.
“You have to live diversity,” he
said.
One of Garcia’s ideas was to form
a committee or subcommittee devoted
to exploring racial and cultural issues
on campus. He suggested that the As
sociation of the Students of the Uni
Speaker US. should back Wald Bank
. By Kasey Kebber
Senior Reporter
The United States can benefit
economically and morally from its
support of the World Bank, an in
ternational trade specialist said at
Wednesday’s E.N. Thompson Fo
rum.
Diane Willkens, president and
founder of Development Finance
International Inc., denounced criti
cism the World Bank has recently
received from the U.S. Congress
and American public.
Congress, Willkens said, has
played a negative role by choosing
not to finance the economic efforts
of developing countries like Bosnia.
She said Congress had recently
declared they would “zero out”
seven of the nine Bosnian economic
projects coordinated by the World
Bank — but it still insisted upon
having a military leadership role in
Bosnia.
Willkens attributed this “lack of
vision” to a young Congress whose
members lack international eco
nomic knowledge.
Willkens said that in 1995, the
United States spent a “substantially
low” 0.1 percent of its Gross Na
tional Product on foreign aid.
Yet the even the “low” $1.5 bil- .
lion U.S. contribution in 1994 was
repaid by $3.7 billion in revenue for
American companies taking part in
World Bank projects, Willkens said.
Beyond lost or gained revenue,
Willkens said the United States had
a responsibility to support the World
Bank because of what it provided
for the international community.
Willkens said the bank loaned
money to countries for the finance
of education, agriculture, health, nu
trition and other projects. In 1995
alone, Willkens said the World
Bank funded 256 projects around
the globe with $21.4 billion in loans.
Criticism, Willkens said, should
end and with a better education on
the World Bank and its purposes,
progress should now be made.
“We just started learning this
game and we can’t stop now,”
Willkens said.
Speaker brings race lessons to UNL
ELLIOT from page 1.
John F. Kennedy Jr. was “our
leader,” and King was “your” leader.
“You aren’t really citizens” was the
message to black people everywhere,
Elliot said.
“I was absolutely furious,” Elliot
said.
So the next day, when students
asked her about the assassination, she
decided to teach her third-grade stu
dents, who were all white, a lesson
about racism.
She separated children in the class
according to their eye color—blue or
brown. Eye color was an appropriate
trait because of its place in racism’s
history.
Adolf Hitler’s Aryan nation was
supposed to be a master race of people
formed primarily on the basis of eye
color, she said. Josef Mengele, known
as the “Angel of Death,” was a Nazi
medicd doctor at Auschwitz concen
tration camp. He conducted experi
ments on how to chemically or
surginalsurgically change eye color, so
if they found any brilliant Jews with
brown eyes, they could be changed to
blue and be part of the master race,
Elliot said.
The eye color also was important
because it was a characteristic the stu
dents had no control over and could
not change.
“That’s the anatomy of prejudice,”
she said. “I created racism in my class
room to see what happened.”
For one day, Elliot told students that
one eye color was inferior and ground
proof of it into their heads by con
stantly putting down or ignoring stu
dents with the “inferior” eye color. The
next day, the experiment was reversed
so the other eye color was “inferior.”
Students with the “inferior” eye
color became withdrawn, self-con
scious and did poorly on tests. Chil
dren with the “superior” eye color were
vicious to the students who were “in
ferior.” The “superior” students per
formed much better on tests and some
dyslexic students even read with sur
prising ease.
When a student with brown eyes
asked her why she, an inferior blue
eyed being, was teaching the class,
Elliot was aghast.
“I thought, well, that little shit! It
wasn’t supposed to happen to me!
“I was shocked at how much they
knew about being a racist,” Elliot said.
“They knew every negative stereotype
ever heard about blacks.”
She told them, as she tells people
today, “It’s time to unlearn your rac
ism.”
When she told colleagues in the
teacher’s lounge about children’s re
actions to the experiment and the as
sassination, one teacher had a reply
that today could get her fired, but then
brought nods of acknowledgement: “I
thought it was about time somebody
shot that son-of-a-bitch.”
The shockwaves created by Elliot’s
experiment soon went much further
than the teacher’s lounge.
Johnny Carson got his hands on a
copy of the local newspaper, which ran
the story of her classroom tactics, and
brought her on TV. Ever since then, she
has been making appearances on talk
shows and news shows.
But it’s not necessarily the way she
wants it to be. She has paid a price for
her notoriety, she said.
“If I had known that my four off
spring would be spit on, their belong
ings destroyed, physically and verbally
abused because they had a nigger-lover
for a mother, I wouldn’t have done the
exercise,” Elliot said. She noted that
she used the term “nigger-lover,” be
cause that was exactly the term used to
describe her.
And it all started with a prayer.
It’s the same prayer she is saying
today: “Oh Lord, make me an instru
ment of Thy peace.”
“Be very, very careful about what
you pray for,” Elliot said.
Elliot said the first solution to calm
racial tension in the United States is to
recognize color differences — don’t
ever say “When I look at you, I don’t
see you as black.”
“In effect, white people are saying
‘In order for me to be comfortable
around you, we have to get rid of this
unfortunate problem of your skin
color,’” Elliot said.
“There is nothing wrong with see
ing (people as they are). We don’t need
a color-blind society.”
It’s what she calls the “Hilex syn
drome”: there’s something wrong with
being something other than.white. The
second solution, she said, is to throw
out the idea that the U.S. is a melting
pot.
“That means we can mix everybody
together, stir and come up with the
‘ideal’ American: a white male,” Elliot
said.
A better comparison, she said,
would be a stir fry — all parts sepa
rate, different, maintaining their iden
tities and values.
“You see differences as a positive,
not as a negative,” Elliot said. “I don’t
want to be tolerated, I want to be ap
preciated.” *
And most of all, people should re
alize what race is: not black, white or
red—human. _
“You are all members of the same
race,” she said. “You are all brothers
and sisters, whether you like it or not.”
Smokeout hopes to help extinguish habit
By Ebin Gibson
StaffReporter
Snuff out those cigarettes, put
down the hip cigars and spit out the
chew; today is die Great American
Smokeout.
For 24 hours, smokers are en
couraged to quit all tobacco prod
ucts and start down the road to bet
ter health, said Kris Waline, public
relations intern at the University
Health Center.
Jamie Fassnacht, development
specialist for the Ariierican Cancer
Society, which sponsors the event,
said trash barrels are scattered over
Lincoln public school and college
campuses today for students to dis
pose of their tobacco. All tobacco
collected will be burned at Lincoln
General Hospital at 3 pjn. today,
she said.
Waline said smokers who need
support can find help from more
than 100 health aides in campus
housing units, who will “take smok
ers under their wings for the day.”
Balloons, gum and information
on the effects of tobacco and quit
ting will be available along with
“survival kits” from a health center
booth in the union, she said.
Those who do not smoke can
also join the effort by adopting a
smokfcr for the day, she said. Offi
cial adoption papers will also be
available at the union booth.
Fassnacht said the American
Cancer Society reports a falling
smoking rate among American
adults, but a lot of young people
starting. The society estimates that
177,000 new cases of lung cancer
will be diagnosed during 1996, and
that another 158,700 Americans
will die from lung cancer by the end
of this year.
Mass grave experts to address Anthropology Club
By Josh Funk
Staff Reporter
Two forensic anthropologists who
have spent their careers examining
mass graves around the world will
speak to the UNL Anthropology Club
Friday.
-Melissa Conner and Doug Scott
will talk about their experiences ex
huming bodies from mass graves in
Rwanda, El Salvador and the forma’
Yugoslavia at 5 pjn. in Bessey Hall
Auditorium.
Conner and Scott examine dead
bodies to determine the cause of death
and gather information about the lives
of the deceased prior to their death.
Most recently, they have been work
ing with Physicians fen* Human Rights
to complete mass-grave exhumations
•. \
in the former Yugoslavia. Their find
ings are being used in United Nations
Tribunals to prosecute war crimes com
mitted during the recent Balkan war.
The two will discuss how forensic
anthropology is used, using examples
from their work in the former Yugo
slavia.
The presentation is free and open
to the public. A short reception will
follow.
