Thursday, September 12, 1991
Bush wrongly pushes court
by Jennifer Flanagan
President Bush seems to
be a better card player than .I
once gave hirn credit for. He
certainly has played his cards
to his own political advantage
in nominating Judge Clarence
Thomas to replace Judge
Thurgood Marshall's seat on
the Supreme Court.
Bush claims Thomas is the
best qualified man in the
country for the job.
Interestingly enough, two of
the fifteen members of the.
American Bar Association
stated that Thomas was
unqualified. The only other
nominee who has been
declared to be unqualified by
the Bar Association was
Robert Bork and he was
defeated.
So why is the Thomas
appointment almost a sure
thing?
icy c hoos i ng a candidate
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Race has no place in N. Y. accident
by Mike Royko
Maybe I missed something.
Or if I didn't miss something, I'm
too dense to understand the social
significance of news events.
There was this tragic accident
in a New York neighborhood.
You probably read about it or
saw reports on TV.
A motorcade had been moving
through the Crown Heights
neighborhood, in which many
African-Americans and Hasidic
Jews live.
The Jews are members of the
Lubavitcher sect, and they have
great reverence for their very old
chief rabbi.
That's why they had the
motorcade. When the chief rabbi
goes somewhere, many of his
followers travel with him.
While returning from a trip to
a cemetery, the driver of one of
the cars lost control. The car
struck and killed a black child.
The driver was sober. It's
possible that he was negligent or
reckless. But there is no reason to
believe that he intentionally
killed the child. Yet the accident
was quickly turned into a racial
incident. Al Sharpton, the
notorious racist preacher, was one:
of several agitators who moved in
to stir up black anger. Old
grievances were voiced: The
Jews receive better city services,
they are more prosperous, they
==Ci=
The appointment will pusn
the Court's majority even
further to the right. With the
increasingly conservative line
the Supreme Court has taken
on civil rights and women's
issues recently, I fear that
such an appointment will
threaten many personal
liberties, not the least of
which is the right to
reproductive freedom.
Abortion rights are
perhaps the most endangered
personal liberty. The solidity
of the Roe v. Wade decision,
giving women control over
their own bodies, is rapidly
being chipped away by recent
Supreme Court decisions.
Should Thomas be appointed,
his Stance will undoubtedly
give conservatives the pivotal
vote needed to Ove!WM Roe
v. Wade.
Although Thu
actual' given his
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Y given --asn't
abortion ri Statics
hasn't a !hie ;Thomas °I)
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look down on their black
neighbors, they try to take over
the community.
Of course, none of this had
anything to do with the tragic
accident.
But there were four nights of
what some might call protests
and others would call rioting. It
would depend on whether you
throw the bottle or if you get hit
on the head with the bottle.
One incident could be
described only as murder. A
young Jewish scholar from
Australia was stabbed to death on
the street.
Now let's look at another
highly publicized accident in the
same city.
The motorman of a subway
train is accused of getting blind
drunk on Scotch whiskey and
beer before reporting for work.
Authorities say he was so
drunk while driving the train that
he might have passed out or
fallen asleep.
In any case, the train was
speeding about three times as fast
as it should have been when it
derailed and crashed.
Five passengers were killed.
About 200 , others were injured,
SQlfle, seriously, It was New
York's worst subway accident in
more than 60 years.
It happens that the motorman
is black.
But there have been no
The Collegian
I'll go down to the corner
church and talk-to a priest. I
certainly don't want it from
the Supreme Court. In case
Mr. Thomas has forgotten,
there is a division between
church and state.
Abortion is not a religious
issue. Religion in this
country, as I understand it, is
optional and it has nothing to
do with government control
of my body.
Even without Thomas, the
Court has already delivered a
Jennifer
Flanagan
devastating blow to women' s ;
rights through the Rust v.
Sullivan decision of last May.
The decision allows f or the
d
eo f feder al funds to nial that dis nse
stxiid *Sondes
any information on
A goo d portion of %Dv
women who use t he alth
clinics do not'have e $11,_„,,
to go elsew h ere fo r now
care This decision takes
a d ve m ide of such women
controlling the wand
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So why is race an issue when
an Orthodox Jew drives stupidly,
carelessly, negligently or in
whatever fashion the law will
determine but not a factor when a
black man gets drunk and crashes
a subway train?
MIKE
ROYKO
The answer, it seems to me,
is that race wasn't a factor in
either tragedy. But in the case of
the dead child, politicians, alleged
community leaders and the media
They are being force-fed
Bush's conservative views
without any way to defend
their rights. Health care is not
a privilege to be given only to
the upper class.
All women deserve to be
informed about all of their
alternatives, not simply the
choices that suit Bush and
Company. With the decreased
spending on social projects,
and welfare programs, I'd
like to know who is going to
take care of these unwanted
children. Anti-abortion
activists seem to care about
these children only while they
are fetuses, not giving much
thought to providing for them
once they are born.
The last thing the Supreme
Court needs right now is
another conservative judge.
But with the PC crusade
going strong, many groups
with the power to sway their
senators hesitate to condemn
Thomas because he is black.
The color of his skin,
however, is not the issue.
His legal qualifications, his
Position on civil rights, his
Philosophy behind his
Political decisions, his
attitudes toward the lower
oboes. and his conserVtitiVe
kbXOOgY ale the WM*
Groups that have looked
Pea hot skin ookn* in the real
allowed black racists to turn it
into an issue.
Maybe it took more political
courage than the mayor of New
York has for him to have pointed
protests, no riots, no attempts to
turn the subway crash into a
racial incident.
The Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan
Nation and the Skinheads haven't
shown up to rant that this is
evidence that blacks do not have
the intellect to operate a subway
train, that whites should not be
forced to ride public
transportation with blacks at the
controls.
Why haven't they? Because if
white demagogues and haters tried
to exploit the tragedy, they'd be
treated with the contempt and
derision they would deserve. They
would be hooted, jeered and
wouldn't get a moment on TV or
a line in the New York Times.
If the motorman was as drunk
as investigators say, it could
mean that he is a damn fool or a
weakling or has psychological
problems or is a habitual lush.
But it doesn't mean that he, as a
black man, set out to get people
killed and injured.
In short, his race and the race
of the passengers aren't a factor.
The history of public
transportation -- on land, sea and
air -- is stained with cases of
white boozers and dopers at the
controls when disasters occurred.
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right
issues include the National.
Association for the
Advancement of Colored
People, the AFL-CIO, the
United Auto Workers, the
National Education
Association, the National
Organization for Women, the
National Abortion Rights
Action League, the Mexican-
American Legal Defense and
Education Fund, the National
Baptist Convention U.S.A.,
and the National Council of
Churches.
Collectively these groups
and other individuals who
oppose the Thomas
appointment have the power
to defeat him by , phoning and
writing their local senators. It
only takes a second. After
all, the politicians work for
us.
It's ironic to me that a
group of nine people are
selected to make final
decisions on the constitutional
nature of laws that affect all
of us, and those nine slots tut
deliberately being filled with
hard- line conservatives from
the Republican party.
Somehow that doesn't seem
very constitutional to me.
JentiroPkawqm as a sixth
semester Engitsh ma er
column aPPeore ever? other
week in The collegian,
at Sharpton and said: "Ignore
this man. He is a racist jackal
who feeds off tragedy."
rm sure the mayor would
have said as much about the Klan
or the Skinheads. Sharpton is no
less a racist; he just works the
other side of the street.
Deep thinkers are now
pondering the underlying causes,
the simmering grievances, that
led to the outbursts in New York.
In other words, the riot as a
social statement.
Since when is it a social
statement to stick a knife in a
defenseless, non-belligerent
young man or to scrawl Nazi
symbols on a house of worship?
Does that mean that lynching and
cross burning were social
statements?
A child is dead. I can't write a
sadder sentence than that. But the
child wasn't killed by society or
racism. He was killed by a car
driven by someone who screwed
up terribly. And the driver's skin
color had nothing to do with it.
And anyone who insists that
race was a factor in the child's
death should offer to share guilt
in the subway crash. I don't
expect Al Sharpton to be the first
to volunteer.
Mike Royko is a C hicago
based , nationally syndicated
columnist. His column appears
each week in The Collegian.
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