University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 68, No. 14, Ed. 1 Friday, October 25, 1991 Page: 3 of 6
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University Press
Editorial
Friday, October 25, 1991
Lamar University
Page 3
Duke's kind
sows hatred
Well, Louisiana has certainly
done it again. Every time it looks as
if Texas has cornered the market on
being the brunt of national humor,
our friends across the Sabine do
something to put us back in our
place.
Who cares if Texas is about as
progressive as your average turnip
when it comes to reform in govern-
ment, education and social pro-
grams? As long as the folks from the
“sportsman’s paradise” continue to
act and think the way they do, we
will always have someone to point
toward and laugh at.
The notion that a former Grand
Wizard of one of our nation’s more
notorious hate groups, the KKK, is a
legitimate candidate for governor is
one that sends the mind reeling into
open space. He is a particularly wor-
risome predator of the worst kind: a
redneck who doesn’t come across
like an extra from the movie
“Deliverance.” It’s almost as if his
sociopathic philosophies have a type
of, dare I say, mainstream appeal to
his supporters in the bayous, bogs,
swamps, cities and fields of
Louisiana.
Frankly, the toxic flow of the river
Duke should be avoided. I wonder
what he is going to declare open sea-
son on if he is able to slither his way
into the governor’s office of the
“Great State of Louisiana.”
At the risk of sounding reac-
tionary, the Duke of Hate gives
white folks a bad name. Indeed, a
comparison of Duke to a barnyard
sow would straighten more than one
curly tail. We’re not all card-carrying
bigots who like to run around in
starched white sheets, spewing racist
epithets unworthy of civilized
thought.
I believe that a majority of us
would like to see an end to the type
of ethnocentric, racially-based class
warfare Duke and his ilk promote.
The focal point of hatred, as a creed
for any group, is inevitably destruc-
tive to all.
Another dismaying aspect of the
recent political success of the
“Imperial Grand Duke” is what
Duke's supporters
could all be suffering
from swamp-gas on
the brain and the sub-
sequent side-effects of
oxygen deprivation
over a prolonged peri-
od of time.
appears to be a conscious state of
denial on the part of a number of his
constituents.
The “Dukester” has compared
himself to criminals who have spent
a number of years in jail and
reformed. The implication is that he
has gone and “got religion” and has
seen the error of his ways.
His charismatic candor has evi-
dently convinced some voters that
he is no longer a self-interested
cretin who is willing to forward his
own vile ends by whatever means
necessary. Machiavelli would be
proud to see this latter-day prince in
action.
Maybe I’m being a bit skeptical
— or is it hopeful? — about a collec-
tive state of conscious denial on the
part of Duke’s supporters. Duke's
supporters could all be suffering
from swamp-gas on the brain and the
subsequent side effects of oxygen
deprivation over a prolonged period
of time. Just think, if Texans were to
break out the paper baggies and huff
a few gallons of industrial-strength
paint thinner, then we may also be
willing to elect a “reformed” neo-
Nazi to the office of the guv’ner.
To think that some high-minded
individuals have had the audacity to
refer to the average Texan as a “red-
neck” is amazing. All one need do to
ferret out the folly of this pejorative
attack is cast an eye toward Duke’s
mosquito-bitten henchmen to the
east.
Compared to them, Texans seem
to be downright progressive — “and
that’s no bull.”
Our country needs
realistic gun laws
The FBI Uniform Crime Reports’
statistics indicate that of the 20,045
homicides nationwide last year,
12,845 involved firearms. Broken
down, that amounts to 9,923 murders
by handgun, 743 by rifle, 1,237 by
shotgun, 24 by other Firearms and
920 by Firearm not stated. In addi-
tion, 104 deaths were gang-related
and 679 were attributed to juvenile
gang killings.
Only in America.
It used to be that if someone cut
off another motorist in trafFic, the
offended driver would simply shoot
the finger. Nowadays, people are
getting shot to death with handguns
on the nation’s highways. Innocent
bystanders on street corners are
blown away in the major cities.
Arguments over lovers and property
are settled OK-Corral style. Not a
hunting season goes by that some
drunk yahoo doesn’t mistake another
hunter for an animal. And every so
often, there is another massacre like
the one in Killeen.
The saddest part of all, though, is
that it is not likely to end.
Gun control laws are the knee-
jerk reaction to mass slayings by a
lone gunman. That George Hennard
— nicknamed “Weird George” by
people who knew him — purchased
his Glock model 17 and Ruger P-89
9mm legally through a mail order
house in Nevada infuriates many
people. However, there was nothing
other than an obscure drug use
charge in “Weird George’s” record to
prohibit him from obtaining a hand-
gun. As far as anybody knew, he was
just another red-blooded, law-abid-
ing American.
In Beaumont, a citizen can go to
any pawnshop or gun store, prove
residency with a valid driver’s
license, fill out a yellow sheet for the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms, plop down the cash or
plastic and walk out with a handgun.
At that point, the choice of whether
or not said citizen kills somebody
with that weapon is completely up to
him.
What a frefedom.
Anti-gun-control organizations
like the powerful National Rifle
Association donate substantial time,
money and energy to defeating any
and every gun control legislation pro-
posed at the local, state and national
levels. Just recently, the House tried
to prohibit the sale of assault
weapons like AK-47s and limit the
magazine capacity of ammunition
clips to seven rounds, so that the
average joe couldn’t fire 17 bullets in
one sitting. The bill was defeated.
The Second Amendment is con-
stantly brought up as a reason for not
passing such measures. But remem-
ber that at the time the Bill of Rights
was added to the Constitution,
America consisted of 13 states and
had a small standing army. The
American Revolution had been
fought by farmers and artisans who
grabbed their hunting rifles and went
off to fight the Redcoats.
Additionally, westward expansion
had not yet begun and there were
still Indians to contend with. But all
of these conditions no longer exist.
Another argument is that gun con-
trol laws would not keep criminals
from getting guns. That is true.
Criminals don’t buy their guns in gun
stores. They steal them from the
houses of law-abiding citizens who
bought their guns in gun stores.
What would American society be
like if it were rid of all guns?
Well, the murder rate would cer-
tainly go down. Accidental deaths in
the home because of children playing
with guns would cease to exist Mass
slayings would still happen, as in the
case of the 87 people who died in a
New York City nightclub fire deliber-
ately set by a Cuban immigrant last
year, but the kinds of horrors that
went on in that Luby’s last week — a
man stalking and Firing at random for
10 minutes — would be unheard of.
Of course, that would mean that
America would have become an
orderly society by then. And with cit-
izens who will not part with their
handguns until they are pried from
their cold, dead Fingers, an orderly
society is impossible.
My father-in-law has the Clarence
Thomas-vs.-Anita Hill mess all Fig-
ured out.
“Well, the brother probably did
hit on her,” he says. “But it probably
wasn’t as bad as she remembers it
and it was probably worse than he
remembers it Memory can do funny
things in 10 years.”
“Yeah, but he Sure sounded arro-
gant,” my father-in-law’s wife
chimed in. “He acted like he was too
good to even be questioned about
it.”
Ah, yes. Whatever else you may
think of Supreme Court Justice
Clarence Thomas’ confirmation pro-
cess, you have to admire the way it
has brought Americans together, first
to watch it, then to argue about it.
Among blacks, like my relatives
mentioned above, the sight of a fel-
low African-American facing off a
hostile tribunal of white men on
prime-time television probably was
the best thing that could have hap-
pened to Clarence Thomas’ popular-
ity.
A Los Angeles Times poll taken
on Oct. 12 and 13 (after Thomas’
defiant prime-time speech and
before Hill passed her lie-detector
test) showed a higher percentage of
blacks than whites believed Thomas
should be confirmed — 61 percent,
compared to 50 percent for whites.
An ABC News-Washington Post poll
released Oct 13 found 70 percent of
blacks wanted Thomas confirmed,
compared to 50 percent for whites.
Previous polls showed black
Clarence
o
Page
tm*
Americans to be divided just about
evenly between those who thought
Thomas should be rejected because
of his conservatism and those who
thought he should be confirmed
because any black on the high court
is better than no black.
That’s my people. We talk big,
but we’re willing to settle.
Thomas knows his people too. To
me, his prime-time speech indicated
a keen awareness of the Rally-
Round-the-Brother Syndrome. His
calling the hearings a “high-tech
lynching for uppity blacks who ...
deign to think for themselves”
touched all the right buttons, particu-
larly with black males, who suddenly
saw “Uncle Thomas” replaced by a
proud brother under fire from white
folks.
Never mind that his accuser was
black. Thomas also had in his favor
the “Jezebel Complex,” as one male
caller to a local black Washington
radio station called our tendency to
look for a black woman to blame
whenever a black male gets into trou-
ble. Some Washington-area blacks
are comparing Anita Hill to Rasheeda
Moore, who lured former Mayor
Marion Barry into the FBI’s cocaine
trap, the caller said.
Indeed, news accounts, talk radio
and my own personal survey tell me
many black Americans are groping
for a grand conspiracy theory to
explain it all. For many, the notion
that white liberals and Republicans
conspired here to destroy black
America by putting two otherwise
fine, intelligent, young up-and-com-
ing black professionals up to public,
ridicule serves quite nicely.
Who am I to argue with such
razor-keen analysis? Nevertheless,
I’ll try.
The possibilty that the Senate
Judiciary Committee conspired
against black folks is less likely than
another possibility, that they simply
were inept at reading the importance
of the sexual harassment allegations
when they put them aside without
interviewing Hill and panicked at
the stormy backlash when the
charges became public through an
inevitable leak. The second set of
hearings was held in the open
because, burned once, the commit-
tee didn’t want even the appearance
of a second cover-up.
As for Thomas’ “lynching,” a
word the conservative Wall Street
Journal made popular as a descrip-
tion of Robert Bork’s rejection, it was
interesting to see a man who has
admonished his fellow African-
Americans not to blame their trou-
bles on racism suddenly blaming his
troubles on racism.
Thomas used strong words, pas-
sionately delivered and quite irrele-
vant to his charges. He was not being
questioned because he was an uppity
black who thinks for himself. He was
being questioned because he might
be an uppity male who failed to keep
sleazy thoughts to himself.
President Bush never would have
nominated a man of his youth and
inexperience were he not black, nor
would the Senate Democrats have
been so easy on him in their ques-
tioning.
Nevertheless, when caught in a
pinch, Thomas whipped the race card
out of his hip pocket as adroitly as
Democratic Rep. Gus Savage of
Chicago did when he faced charges of
.sexually harassing a Peace Corps vol-
unteer in Zaire a few years ago.
It was a confirmation conversation
outdone the next day when President
Bush, who has pressed Congress to
broaden the use of lie detectors in
criminal prosecution, ignored Anita
Hill’s lie box.
The ploys appear to have worked
well for Thomas. He put his critics on
the defensive, in spite of stunning,
unwavering testimony by a com-
pelling Anita Hill —and he undoubt-
edly persuaded quite a few liberal-
left-progressive black folks that there
might be some hope for this brother
yet
Indeed, if nothing else, Thomas’
“Kafkaesque” experience, as he calls
it, should enhance his appreciation
for the rights of the accused.
Tm not Lamar Proud. I am Lamar Embarrassed,' says student
Letters to the Editor
Editor.
Last Friday, the UP printed two
articles on the front page pertaining
to the recent budgetary woes here
at Lamar. The first was about cuts
in the library’s budget, which with
inflation will result in the loss of
$70,000 worth of journal subscrip-
tions and $21,000 of new books.
The second article concerned
the physical plant’s need for more
student help in maintaining the
campus. The physical plant lost
$300,000 in the crunch.
The suggestion was made that
the students should volunteer to do
routine maintenance on their own
buildings. The Physics Building
and Business Building were used as
examples — a physics group could
maintain their building and a busi-
ness group could maintain theirs.
This caused me no small
amount of anger, as a physics
student. I realize that this is only a
slight inconvenience, but added to
everything else we have to deal
with, it is insulting.
I have heard that Lamar is trying
to get away from that image and to
After this semester, I
will need only one
more hour to graduate,
but I will take it some-
where else. I may lose
hours, and it may take
me even longer to get
my degree, but it is
worth it to me to have
a degree from a uni-
versity with a bit of
integrity.
transform itself into a liberal arts col-
lege, but from what I see, the
University is only turning into a
haven for overpaid administrators. In
fact, just a few weeks ago, the UP
and the Beaumont Enterprise report-
ed that due to INCREASED funds
from the state, the university was
able to renew an administrative
position, at a cost of around
$117,000.
However, I am quite long-suf-
fering, as are all the students at
Lamar. Today, something hap-
pened that put an end to my
patience.
I went to the financial aid
office to apply for a fee waiver to
take my GRE. I explained that I
had to have my registration post-
marked by Nov. 4. Unfortunately,
financial aid will not be able to
help me for several days. It seems
that they are still unpacking boxes
because of the move from
Stadium Hall.
I went, to student financial aid
and was told, in essence, that
because of a situation over which
they have no control, I will proba-
bly not get to take my GRE in
December, which will result in
missed deadlines for graduate
school applications — which will
result in no graduate school for me.
I am not Lamar Proud. I am
Lamar Embarrassed and Lamar
Ashamed. After this semester, I will
need only one more hour to graduate,
but I will take it somewhere else. I
may lose hours, and it may take me
even longer to get my degree, but it
is worth it to me to have a degree
from a university with a bit of integri-
ty-
Here at Lamar, we have assem-
bled some of the greatest faculty any-
where. We have some of the smartest
students. Something here is going to
change. Either the administration
will begin to act responsibly, or the
good students will choose to go else-
where, as will the faculty.
Rhea Bays Wood
Humble senior
Editor's note:
The UP student management wel-
comes letters to the editor. They
should be limited to 400 words. The
editor has the right to edit material
for grammar, style and libel.
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Casey, Jay. University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 68, No. 14, Ed. 1 Friday, October 25, 1991, newspaper, October 25, 1991; Beaumont, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth499676/m1/3/?q=Lamar+University: accessed June 9, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Lamar University.