page 4- The Behrend College Beacon. Thursday , January 14 , 1999
The Behrend College Beacon
published weekly by the students of Penn State Erie, The Behrend College
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Shannon Weber
Associate Editor
Angela Rush
Editorial Page Editor
Natalie Gallium)
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Jaime Davis
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Rose Forrest
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Jim O'Loughlin
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9288.
A view from the lighthouse
Where’s the support?
Pack the Gym Night was
held last Saturday to
increase support of the men’s and
women’s basketball teams on cam
Free tickets, valued at three dol
lars a piece, were distributed in the
mailboxes in the attempt to persuade
students to attend the event. But did
a lot of students attend the event? No.
Pack the Gym Night was hardly an
appropriate name for the affair. “Easy
to Get a Seat Night” would have been
a more suitable name. What does this
say about Behrend’s spirit and sup
port towards athletic teams? There is
none.
The student body’s support of ath
letic teams plays an integral role in a
team’s success as a whole. The rea
son for this is that the more encour
agement a team receives, the more
motivated they are, and the more
Dofe
Editor in Chief
Will Jordan
Managing Editor
Avodele Jones
Features Editor
Jon Stubbs
Layout Editors
Mike Perkins
Rose Forrest
Advertising Managers
Erin Edinger
Carey Smith
Wire Services Editor
Katie Galley
Photography Editors
Andrea Zaffino
Jason Blake
Letter Policy: The Beacon
encourages letters to the editor.
Letters should include the address,
phone number, semester standing and
major of the writer. Writers can mail
their letters to behrcoll2@aol.com.
Letters must be received no later than
spm Tuesday for inclusion in that
week’s issue.
likely they will be victorious—both
spiritually and physically.
Considering the absence of support
and attendance at the event, both the
men’s and women’s basketball teams
are to be congratulated for still man
aging to come away with a victory.
However, more students need to at
tend athletic events and demonstrate
their support in order to bolster the
teams’ winning records.
Sports Editor
Jason Snyder
Live From Guyana
Is the Dream still alive in America?
"I still have a dream. It is a dream
deeply rooted in the American dream
that one day this nation will rise up
and live out the true meaning of the
creed —we hold these truths to be self
evident. that all men are created
equal.” As citizens of the world, we
all recognize these words as the
hopes, dreams, and prophecies of the
late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Ev
ery year around this time we are re
minded of his dream, a dream which
has not yet eradicated the walls of big
otry and racism. Of course there have
been great strides in achieving eqral
ity for all, yet these great accolades
have been accompanied by some ma
jor setbacks. These relapses or rather
regressions remind and alert us that
we are not accomplishing the tasks at
hand.
This summer James Byrd Jr., a 49
The Lobster and the music to the dance of li
Clinton is confident at the State of the Union Address
Last Tuesday, history was made
Bill Clinton became the first Presi
dent to give a State of the Union ad
dress to the same congress that voted
to impeach him. The very fact that
Clinton gave his address testifies to
his confidence in his future and sense
of continuity.
Most Republicans and many
Democrats wanted Clinton to post
pone the address or even deliver a
hand-written report (the constitution
doesn’t say the President has to give
an address). They felt that it
wouldn't be proper for him to speak
to them, but I feel that they, not
Clinton, would have been uncom
fortable with the situation.
The address, I feel, was marred by
the Republican altitudes and the
overhanging cloud of impeachment.
Last year, the standing ovation
Clinton received when announced by
the sergeant-at-arms was over two
minutes long. This year it was far
shorter, with most of the Republicans
clapping only enough to barely be;
considered polite. Several people ini
MLK Jr. Lifted Burden from white folks, too
By Leonard Pitts Jr.
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
Somehow it’s not quite Martin
Luther King Day if you don’t get at
least one Klan rally in protest. Sure
enough, the Klan staged a demonstra
tion a few days ago on the steps of
the Indiana statehouse. It was the
usual pathetic affair. Thirteen losers
with a raggedy sound system yelling
“White pow'er!” to an audience of
about 500 cops and 50 protesters in
12-degree weather. Their rhetoric,
predictably, fell on largely disinter
ested ears.
But it occurs to me that there’s at
least one part of the Klan creed that
mirrors the beliefs of more than a few
white Americans. Meaning the part
that sees King and his holiday as
something purely for blacks. It’s
something one hears white folks say
occasionally - and not just those guys
in the pointy white dunce caps, either.
Late in 1997, white parents in Riv
erside, Calif., were up in arms over
plans to name a majority-white high
“South Park” Doesn’t Deserve Criticism
By Richard Parker
The Crimson White
The University of Alabama
What’s the most popular show on
television today? If you answered
anything other than “ South Park, ”
you may not be in the loop.
For those of you who don’t know,
“South Park" has been the hottest
thing to hit television since “ The
Simpsons, ” yet it is beginning to draw
a lot of fire from people who misun
derstand the show’s humor or haven’t
even see-, an episode. Many people
complain that “ South Park" is inap
propriate for children. Well, no joke!
That’s why they have the really big
“TV-MA” symbol on screen before
the show starts along with a dis
claimer that the show may be inap
propriate for some viewers.
It is troubling that department
stores are selling Stan, Kyle, Kenny,
and Cartman dolls to kids. Even more
disturbing is that 8-year-olds know all
Editorial
year old man, was chained to the back
ot a pick-up truck and dragged to his
death on the rural roads outside of
Jasper, Texas.
Matthew Shepard, a 21 year old
gay student at the University of Wyo
ming was beaten and tied to a
wooden fence for up to 18 hours, He
was discovered by a passerby and
later died of his subsequent injuries.
In the latter part of the year,
Dr. Barnett Shepian, a 51 year old
doctor who provided abortion ser
vices, was shot and killed in his
Amherst. New York home. He was
>ften targeted by anti-abortion pro
testors.
These biased attacks only rein
force the idea that we are not being
judged by the “content of our char
acter,” but rather the color of our skin,
case of Dr. Shepian, our profession.
the gallery also booed the President
extensively until his address started.
Normally the President shakes hands
with both people from both sides of
the house, but this year, it seemed the
Republicans were moving away and
avoiding him. Rude? I would think
His address opened with an ex
planation of what was accomplished
since his last address, and it moved
into his plans for the next year. In
perhaps an attempt to strike back at
the Republicans, Clinton urged co
operation between the parties, but he
announced his plans for the budget
surpluses for the next 25 years. None
of that money will be used for the
Republican’s top priority, tax cuts.
Rather, more than half will be used
for Social Security, while the rest will
be spent on Medicare and education.
The Republican party has been dead
set against using money to save So
cial Security, so it must have been
devastating to hear that so.much
money, several hundred billion dol
lars, was being used to salvage it.
school after King. He helped free
black people, goes the thinking, but
he didn’t do squat for the rest of us.
So it seems appropriate, as we ap
proach his holiday, to say what ought
to be obvious: Martin Luther King
freed people. If you don’t understand
that, you don’t understand America.
There were two groups in bond
age during the Jim Crow years.
Blacks were one, whites the other. I
don’t mean to suggest that their ex
periences were equivalent - African
Americans bore the weight of segre
gation, denigration and oppression,
particularly in the South. And yet, if
Jim Crow bound black people to lives
of poverty, suffering and toil, it also
bound white people to blacks, linked
them in ways neither would have
chosen.
Hatred, you see, is hard work. It
requires vigilance - an ever-readiness
to envy the gains, impede the ad
vances, prevent the successes of
those you despise. I don’t know about
you, but I’d hate to have to be like
that, hate to have to think like that,
of the characters including Mr. Hat,
the gay hand puppet of Mr. Garrison
the school teacher. But should the
show’s creators, Trey Parker and
Matt Stone, be blamed for all of that?
No! Try leveling criticism at the par
ents out there who aren’t exercising
enough control over what their kids
are watching on television.
Critics of the show also rant about
it when they either haven’t even seen
an episode or haven’t taken the time
to let the story line sink in. Take The
Birmingham News, for example. It
described the ever-lovable Chef as
the school’s exploited, black janitor.
The Chef is hardly exploited. He is
one of the pivotal characters on the
show. And Isaac Hayes, who does
the voice for Chef, was the perfect
choice. It’s hard not to laugh every
time the Chef asks students, “How
are my little crackers today?” The
Birmingham News also goofed when
it erroneously printed that the child
character Kenny is “murdered” on
case of Dr. Shepian, our profession
The Constitution of the United
States is the most powerful instru
ment of equality, and I wonder if it
is truly effective. There are certain
inalienable rights guaranteed to a
person upon birth, and yet the Con
stitution did not outlaw “involuntary
servitude” until the thirteenth
amendment. It did not grant African-
Americans and women the right to
vote until the fifteenth and nine
teenth amendments respectively.
These amendments can be regarded
as afterthoughts. If they were con
sidered pertinent in the beginning,
they would have been included in
the “original” document. Equality
is not something that is amended,
added, or adopted, but rather it is a
birth right. If the founding fathers
should the generations after them do
Clinton wants to expand Medicare
benefits and add a Patient’s Bill of
Rights, which is another bill the Re
publicans didn’t like. In fact, the only
new peace of legislation that Clinton
proposed that gathered a Republican
response was a call for increased de
fense spending.
The Republicans responded to
Clinton’s ideas by sitting silently,
while the Democrat side of the house
spent most of the speech on its feet
cheering.
I applaud Bill Clinton for his new
agenda. It seems that he is willing to
take the steps to fix things in this
country. Social Security would be
bankrupt in only a few years if it
wasn’t saved, but the Republican’s
don’t care. They voted against it be
ing created in the first place. How
ever, millions of elderly Americans
depend on it for food, clothing and
other necessities. By taking action
now, Clinton will insure that Social
Security is secure for the next sev
eral decades.
I have long been a fan of the Presi-
hate to have to “hate” like that, espe
cially knowing I’d be ostracized for
bucking the system, for offering some
black guy simple human respect. In
the Jim Crow years, white people as
much as black ones were forced to
live by an unspoken code that gov
erned behavior down to the most
trivial interactions. You didn’t extend
certain courtesies to blacks -
take off your hat upon entering their
homes, for instance - on pain of ridi
cule or reprimand.
If the first effect of Martin Luther
King’s crusade was to liberate Afri
can Americans from subjugation,
then its secondary effect was to free
white Americans - those who had the
courage, at least - from the burdens
of “supremacy,” from the need to
maintain that silly system. He lifted
from them a wejghi.
A few weeks ago, I received a call
from one of the beneficiaries of that
gift. Steve Fischer is a 50-year-old
white guy who works for a Dallas
software company. He told me that
as a young man, he was one of those
every episode. Everyone who
watches the show knows the line, “Oh
my God, they killed Kenny!” While
Kenny indeed dies on every show,
he’s no more murdered than is Wile
E. Coyote, who has an infinite num
ber of anvils dropped on his head; it’s
the same concept. Recently, for ex
ample, Kenny was killed when Ozzy
Osborne bit his head off. Yes, it was
sick, but it was funny! Kenny has also
been killed by wild turkeys, pet gold
fish, the Chinese national volleyball
team, and a falling pine tree.
“South Park's" critics also like to
lament about the show’s language. If
you don’t like what Cartman has to
say, you can always catch NBC’s
“Law & Order” which airs during the
same time slot.
For those folks appalled that any
one could defend the show, bear in
mind a paraphrased thought from
comedian George Carlin: If you don’t
like “South Park," there are a couple
of buttons on the remote control
AYODELE JONES
should the generations after them do
As a society we have made huge
technological advances. As a commu
nity and as a people, we have failed
to improve our tolerance of those
“different" from us. Proposing legis
lation and having town hall meetings
will not resolve the problem of intol
erance. We must break down the
walls built of racism, stereotypes and
prejudice to make way for a society
of people free of ignorance but full
of respect and equality. How do we
accomplish such a feat is unknown
to me; I am only a college student. I
only know the desires of my heart,
and that is my starting point. What is
yours?
Ayodele Jones is ihe managing editor of the
Beacon. Her column appears every three
MIKE PERKINS
dent, and my faith in him has never
wavered during his whole scandal.
Bill Clinton is not a good man, but
he is a great leader. He has taken the
nation from a deep recession at the
start of his term to the largest peace
time economic growth in the history
of the United States. We have a bal
anced budget, with a surplus, low
crime, better education, and the low
est unemployment rate in more than
40 years.
By giving the State of the Union
address and keeping with tradition,
Clinton has shown his courage and
his desire to lead the country forward
no matter what the Senate will decide.
He took an oath to serve this country.
He has always upheld that oath, and
he always will, even if the Republi
can party is trying to destroy it.
Mike Perkins is layout editor of the Beacon.
His column appears every three weeks.
who didn’t see what King’s work had
to do with him. But in the years that
followed, Fischer was hired by a
black guy, met black co-workers who
became invaluable friends, had black
girls join the soccer team he coaches,
gave a job to a black woman who
became “the light of the office.” He
says, “And I got to thinking, if it
wasn’t for Dr. King, I would never
have had a chance to know these
people.”
It really is as simple - and pro
found - as that. King changed
America. Offered a redemptive ex
ample that changed the world.
And though you lament the dull
ards who shivered in the cold ot an
Indiana winter while shouting white
supremacist slogans, the truly pitiable
ones may be those who insist on seg
regating the man’s accomplishments
behind some mental and emotional
door marked “Blacks Only.” Steve
Fischer surveys the richness of his life
and realizes that the door speaks a lie.
“Martin Luther King,” he says, "freed
me, too.”
one that changes the channel, and the
other, which turns off the television.
The same controversy now sur
rounding “South Park" once targeted
“The Simpsons," “King of the Hill,"
and the now legendary “Beavis and
Butthead. ” After a while, those shows
were, in the words of one of my fra
ternity brothers, “co-opted,” meaning
that they were commercialized and
toned down. Let’s hope “South Park ”
isn’t destined for the same fate. The
show wouldn’t be as funny if Stan
said “gosh darn it” or Kyle said “you
dummies” after an “Oh my gosh, they
smacked Kenny!”
“South Park ” is not suitable en
tertainment for everyone. But some
people shouldn’t have the right to
determine what everyone else is able
to watch on television. That is an in
fringement on our right to choose.