EDITOR
Paula Lavigne
OPINION
EDITOR
Kasey Kerber
EDITORIAL
BOARD
Brad Davis
Erin Gibson
Shannon Heffelfinger
Chad Lorenz
Jeff Randall
Guest
VIEW
Hate
elsewhere
Report alerts students
to silent bigotry
The Maneater
University of Missouri
Columbia, Mo. (U-Wire) - “What you
are about to read may shock you” is the slo
gan for this year’s “Hate Report.”
No phrase could sum it up better.
The “Hate Report” not only shocks its
readers, but it leaves them wondering how
students could write words toward one
another for no reason other than discrimi
nation.
Collection-team members documented
428 hate speech terms scrawled on various
walls and desks throughout campus.
It is absolutely
pitiful that in an f•
institution of higher rt i i
learning, people People W/tO
resort to fourth- contribute tO
grade antics of writ
ing on bathroom the hate on
walls instead of dis
cussing these stereo- campus
’Oightnot
umented slurs and realize the
insults focus on sex
ual orientation, but effect their
the graffiti goes » 7
deeper than that. ? WOrOS have
' • It* targets greek nn fUp npnn1p
students, indepen-?4 -Tr P^PP
dent students, aii they name!’
races, genders, reli
gions and even political ideologies.
The hate is not selective. No matter who
students are or what groups they might
belong to, someone on this campus has
scrawled a derogatory term about them on
a campus wall or desk.
People who contribute to the hate on
campus might not realize the effect their
words have on the people they name. The
“Hate Report” takes care of that.
While the main part of the report is the
hate log, the graffiti digs deeper than the
desktop.
Unfortunately, campuswide efforts to
increase awareness and decrease bigotry
cannot eradicate the problem completely.
It seems that no matter how many diver
sity panels the campus sponsors or how
many months or weeks are dedicated to
different cultures or groups, closed-mind
ed bigots will still roam the campus.
A river of hate runs through this cam
pus, sure as the “Big Muddy” cuts through
the state. It’s time to end the hate.
The “Hate Report” staff members have
succeeded in showing the amount of dis
crimination students have toward one
another - but that’s all they can do. -
It is essential that students take it upon
themselves to stop communicating through
desktops and start talking to one another.
liltaiM idbM
EUlluria! riilfcl
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Haney’s
>. VIEW
DN
LETTERS
A planned response
I feel I must address Mr.
Moenning on his blatant attack on
Planned Parenthood and its founder,
Margaret Sanger.
, To make such an attack on a com
munity organization that helps more
than 11,000 women and men in our
area each year is a disgrace, but to
make that slander while unsubtle
ignorance flows from your pen to
your paper is a stigma upon your very
own character.
Your article was obviously done
from a narrow, parochial perspective.
According to your article, Sanger
was paraphrased as saying “More
children from the fit, less from the
unfit - that is the chief issue in birth
control.”
Here, your facts are distorted by
your article from Human Life
International. (You) attribute your
quote to the editors of American
Medicine, who only interpreted an
article by Sanger and then later
chugged out a distorted review of her
work.
Women and men, legislators and
homemakers, look up to Margaret
Sanger not because she was a KKK
cronie or a Nazi sympathizer, but
because she was a champion for
women’s rights.
Some of the principal beliefs
Sanger upheld in her time were a
woman’s right to have control over
her own body and the belief that
women should be able to decide when
or whether to have a child.
Among other convictions that live
on to this day, she believed that every
child should be a wanted child and
that women are entitled to sexual
pleasure and fulfillment, just as men
are.
Sanger also helped to overturn the
so-called “Comstock laws” that pro
hibited publication and distribution
of information about sex, sexuality,
contraception and human reproduc
tion.
If Sanger’s ideology had not been
kept alive, women would still be
dying from medically unsafe “back
alley abortions.” If the “Comstock
laws” had not been reversed, this
country would be in reproductive
chaos.
In regards to your comments
about Planned Parenthood being
racist because they provide abortions
to a substantial amount of African
Americans and minorities: You’re
wrong again.
It’s not that Planned Parenthood is
racist or that it is working to eliminate
minority populations. It’s that we as a
society have ignored the needs, edu
cational and Otherwise, of the minor
ity communities in this country for
decades.
If anything, Planned Parenthood
is heading up the effort to combat sur
gical abortions by providing free or
low-cost birth control and emergency
contraception options.
AlyssaArends
freshman
advertising and design
Mixed message for America
The other day, my wife and I were
returning from dinner at the local
cheap eats when we were passed by a
car loaded with young, black males
and females.
One of the occupants leans out of
the window and says to us,
“Minorities should be with minori
ties.”
At first I was angry and confused.
Was it true that a black man was
telling me that segregation is OK?
Segregation, white-only dinners,
blacks need not apply, blacks to the
back of the bus - sorry Rosa Parks
you don’t count anymore.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he
didri’t mean that at alt Maybe He was;
expressing the need to keep the race
line pure - you know like that
German guy with the funny little
mustache. Gee, I hope I don’t have to
start herding small yellow people into
cattle trucks.
So what did this young man mean
when he told a white man and an
Asian woman that “Minorities should
be with minorities”?
If this young man believes in what
he has said, then our society has done
a great injustice to him, and in doing
so he has done a great injustice to his
culture and those who have fought
and died for a colorblind America.
For those of you who think that a
nation made up of one race or ethnic
origin is great, you are sadly mistak
en. I lived in such a culture in
Thailand, and they found plenty of
difference to discriminate against
each other even among a single racial
culture.
We should stop being black,
white, brown, gay, straight, left-wing,
right-wing or whatever and remem
ber that we are all Americans and be
damn glad about it.
Otherwise, we will never move on
to those things that are really impor
tant. You know education, health care,
poverty - the little things we often
forget.
Christopher Johnson
graduate student
Teachers College
■ - . If
