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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 11, 1998)
KELLY SCOTT is a junior news-editorial major and a Daily Nebraskan colum nist. Three weeks ago I sat in the mall waiting for my friend to exchange the Calvin Klein cologne she got for Christmas. I watched the people passing, and this kid about waist high strutted past me. He was garbed in baggy, baggy, baggy Tommy Hilfiger jeans and a lovely T-shirt adorned with Kurt Cobain’s face and a gun pointing at me. I couldn’t help but wonder if he even really knew who good ol’ Cobain was and how old I was because I saw him in concert. My mind wandered some more as three girls about waist high walked past on the other side and checked out the little boy in his big brother’s cloth ing. The little boy realized I was star ing at him, sneered at me, and told me to jack off. I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to him in five years. I remember when I was about his height and heard the old people say that my generation would all end up in prison. But while every one seemed to be so obsessed with how we “Gen X’rs” were going to age, they all managed to overlook the Generation Why? Next batch of children worse than the last little punks in the next generation. If we were really so doomed, I wondered, then why does it seem to me that the generation below us is in even more trouble when it comes to common sense? Take, for instance, the Spice Girls. Kids love them. The pop cul ture landscape these days definitely is lacking in flair and taste. The incredibly classy Spice Girls are ask ing children what they want and telling the same kids that their lover needs to be their friend first. Why do kids need to watch and listen to semi-clothed pom stars (a.k.a. The Spice Girls) to hear this? Is it because they have grrrrl power? Or is it because technology and money have bought the Spice Girls a seat in every home, theater and television Station in the country? It isn’t so much that the Spice Girls have a bad message or any thing, it’s just that kids shouldn’t have to face the issues contained in their message at such a tender age. On one hand, the kids who aren’t spoiled to death by their parents are living lives that require them to face the adult world a lot earlier than a kid should. On the other, spoiled kids are having sex, doing drugs and finding obsessive value in designer clothing earlier every year just like the unspoiled ones. You’ve seen the 12-year-old girls in the mall wearing makeup, Tommy Hilfiger overalls, Doc Martens and tight-fitting belly shirts trying to show off blossoming bosoms, right? These are 12-year-old girls trying to be sexually attractive so that the 12 year-old boys will sleep with them. There are 18-year-old kids con sulting Playboy’s rankings of col leges based on their party aptitude and then deciding where to go to col lege because of its ranking. There are 15-year-old kids in jail for conspir ing to kill their parents for insurance money. Fourteen-year-old girls are having numerous babies and leaving home to live with their older, yet less mature, boyfriends. And the cause behind all these problems? A combination of things, true, but the overriding factor is par ents setting horrible examples for their children to follow. Granted, this is just one more example of how society’s values and standards are slowly declining. But maybe it’s more than just val ues. Maybe it is just an illustration of how, when technological gadgets and pop culture become our new achievements in life, we’re slowly becoming less human. It’s scary to think we are sliding downhill on the evolutionary chain and somehow suffering from mild de-evolution of the skills to survive. Take this for example: Remember the little power outage we had back during the October snow storm? Remember how frustrated you were that all the food in your fridge had spoiled? And then you ate everything you could in cans? You couldn’t even go buy more food at the store, because the cash register was electric and so was the bank’s mechanism on the vault that stored the store’s cash flow. We all helplessly waited as Lincoln attempted to restore power, but secretly all of Lincoln’s 12-year olds thought, “Why wait? I want Spaghetti-Os now.” They plotted to assemble in a gang and pull out their handguns to hit the local grocer for some food. Have we really taught kids that a life of convenience in canned foods is worth life in prison? Yes. This was also displayed in the movie called “The Trigger Effect.” Something in the universe decided to reverse the polarity of the Earth, and as a result, our planet could not use electricity. No electricity, anywhere. No combustion engines without spark for the spark plugs. No facto ries, concerts, Spice Girls or hospi tals. Sure, we’d survive in small num bers, but if something so seemingly trivial, like electricity, something we take for granted, should suddenly fail_ We should recognize that as tech nology and convenience connect our identities and cultures together into a common collective goal (and that the pop culture and entertainment indus try is funding the whole thing 1 through advertising),, we all need to remember those primitive instincts that make you curl up in the fetal position when things get really tough. Because if technology fails us and the can opener breaks, forcing you to fend for yourself in the world, you’re going to need to know more than Spice Girls lyrics and your European shoe size in Doc Martens. Suddenly my mind quit wonder ing and the dismal vision for the future punks of the world dissipated as my friend approached. She had been calling my name but I hadn’t heard her. It was partially because of my daydream and partially because I am partially deaf and dumb after passing through the Gen X fad of loud music and too many drugs. As we left the mall she told me she was excited because she just exchanged her Calvin Klein cologne for some hip Tommy Hilfiger jeans. She wondered if I wanted to bor row them. More than Martin Conservative black leaders also deserve recognition MUIfiJNINlIMG is an advertising and political science major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist. Black History Month is getting old. It seems like the same stories roll around every February. One can often hear the praises of Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Paries, Thurgood Marshall and the like sung through out the month, and deservedly so. But my question is this: Why don’t we ever hear the story of anoth er black leader who has spent his life fighting for the betterment of his people? Why don’t we ever hear the story of James Meredith? Could it be that the man who risked his life in 1962 to become the first black student at the University of Mississippi dared to break away from the liberal establishment of pre vious civil rights leaders? Could it be that James Meredith grew up to be much too conservative and much too Republican to possibly be identified as any kind of capable leader in the black community? Meredith was bom in the heart of Mississippi in 1933, not a good time to be black in the United States, and particularly not in Mississippi. His parents taught him the virtues of hard work and strong family values. At 18, he left home to join the Air Force, where he served for nine years. In 1962, Meredith, after ignoring the question of race on an applica tion, was duly admitted to Ole Miss. However, when the university found out he was black, the admission was withdrawn. Meredith sued, and despite campus riots and attempts by the governor to block his registra tion, he became the university’s first black student with die help of federal troops sent by President Kennedy. Four years later, in what Martin Luther King Jr. then called the “the biggest, most momentous march in his tory,” Meredith led the “March Against Fear;” a march designed to increase voter registration among blacks in. Mississippi, fie was snot oy a sniper and nearly killed during the event. Since then, Meredith has contin ued to do as much as, and probably more than, most popular black “lead ers” today. But because he preaches a message of empowerment through self-reliance, pride and independent thought, and not one of government dependency, pity and collective rea soning, he is, by and large, scorned by the media and detested by the elit ist liberal establishment. Meredith outlined his beliefs in an article printed in the October 1997 issue of Newsweek: “Somewhere along the line, someone in power decided that the proud black race, a people who built cul tures in Africa and many of the phys ical structures of this nation, could not survive without a host of federal programs and giveaways_A ‘dependency mentality’ was created and fostered by black and white lib erals looking to buy power.” This is completely true. Democrats’ message to blacks, no matter how rosy its intentions, was and remains to be essentially this “No matter how hard you try, you won’t be good enough to be success ful in this world. You need the govern ment to do things for you, and as long as you keep on voting for us, it will.” Now Meredith does not deny the existence and reality of racism and its harmful effects in this nation, but he also believes that this “dependen cy mentality” created and encour aged by those running the “Democratic plantation,” as referred to by TV talk show host Armstrong Williams, is equally and possibly more detrimental to black society. This is also very true. A mindset that is based upon dependence on government programs and handouts creates negative results for the group that it is forced upon. Democrats have done a disservice to the black community by promising that government will solve all prob lems. Their ideas and promises, no matter how well-intended, have sim ply not worked. 1 hey have resulted in generations and generations depen dent on welfare, lack of pride in one’s race and often alarmingly high black on-black crime rates. Meredith also writes of a “doomed to fail” attitude that has formed in the black underclass due to the rhetoric of liberal leaders. This attitude is “that try as you may, you can’t succeed, mostly because of white racism.” He goes on: “This way of think ing is self-perpetuating and comes more from a negative self-image than it does from any insurmount able racial roadblock.” This man should know. He stood up to the University of Mississippi in 1962, and he overcame. I will concede that the GOP’s relationship with minorities in the past has often been shaky at best. Mistakes have been made, but I think most Republicans today are more than willing to make up for them and encourage minorities to subscribe to ideas that will empow er them, not retain their dependence. Indeed, Meredith and other blacl conservatives often are chastised and deplored for daring to subvert the dominant paradigm. It is an unceas ing bewilderment for the Jesse Jacksons, A1 Sharptons and Bill Clintons of the world that any black man could think conservatively. No doubt that most liberals con sider Meredith and other black con servatives “Uncle Toms” who are “thinking white.” This is a very dan gerous belief, however, because it promotes the idea that if you don’t eat, sleep and drink like a liberal, you are somehow not really black. This dogma of closed-minded ness and condemnation of indepen dent thought promoted by black and white liberal elitists has and will continue to do more bad than good for the black community. It has led ti a majority of blacks being stuck in one political party that is wrong minded, negligent and generally unaccountable to the black mg movement to a partythatpfo-' motes self-betterment, independence and the values of hard work and strong families. Fortunately though, there has been a steadily growing number of leaders such as Meredith, Colin Powell, J.C. Watts, Alan Keyes, Clarence Thomas, Alveda King (the King niece) and others who have broken free from the “liberal planta tion” and are beginning to offer black society leadership that is based on an intelligent and independent political ideology, rather than a reac tionary and restrictive one. v ■ The ideas of James Meredith have been embraced by these lead ers, and a new kind of civil rights movement is beginning to take place. “Because I feel that I’m right, I will push forward,” writes Meredith. ) “We as blacks are ill-served by being part of only one party. We’re token for granted. I want to change this.” Keep on pushing forward, Mr. Meredith.