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The Red and Black Tuesday, February 9,1WM
Opinion
THE RED AND BLACK
Established 1893 Incorporated 1980
Editor-In-Chief: Lauran Neergaard
Managing Editor: Hector Varga*
Opinion* Editor: Julie Carey
America" Newapapert PuMahera Aaaooalor
MWP/A
TO AOVANCE the CAUSE Of A FREE PRESS
An independent newipaper not affiliated with the Unhertlty of Georgia
Lower the flag
The Confederate battle flag has been part of Georgia’s
state flag for decades, flying above the stench of the contro
versy it causes.
That controversy surfaced on campus again last week at
a “Southern Heritage” lecture sponsored by the Culture of
the South Association.
The CSA promotes increased knowledge of the South and
preserving Southern heritage. The group invited Richard
Hines, assistant editor of The Southern Partisan magazine,
to speak about current misconceptions of the Civil War and
the Confederate battle flag.
Hines emphasized that the Confederate flag was a
“symbol of loyalty” to the Southern cause and way of life.
But the flag is a symbol of the injustices of slavery to
many Georgia citizens today. When issues were put forth for
secession from the Union, they were based on economics.
The South wanted economic freedom from the Northern
states, whose residents didn’t understand the Southern de
pendence on agriculture. Slavery was needed economically,
Southerners felt, and the North used this moral issue to fire
up the fighting.
Scott Starling
History of unfair registration
Current views of the
causes of the Civil War may
be inaccurate, but the feel
ings that accompany them
are separating the citizens of
this state.
Slavery was a Southern
economic issue, and blacks
were treated badly in the
North too, but this doesn’t
justify making a symbol of
their persecution the symbol
of their state.
The Confederate flag
hasn’t always been on the
state flag. Rather, it was
adopted as an act of defiance
against the 1954 Supreme
Court ruling in Brown v. the
Board of Education of To
peka, Kansas that segre
gating schools was
unconstitutional.
This act of defiance still
“They treat the vote as a gift to the chosen few
and not a right to those who fulfill the require
ments of the voter regulation acts.” — Jack Wil
liamson, student and candidate for Athens
mayor who was denied voter registration No
vember 9, 1967.
“They're afraid of what a student could do. If
students voted en masse, they could sway an
election here.” — Chris Robbins, a student al
leging harassment by elections officials Feb
ruary 3. 1988
flies in the face of Georgia
blacks. Alienating a segment of the population with a
symbol is ridiculous. State and federal laws prohibit dis
crimination of any kind, yet with the Georgia flag we’re
doing tantamount to the same thing. By flying the memory
of persecution, we're dividing our state.
The state flag should be a symbol of pride to all who live
under it. Thus we advocate changing it to resemble the flag
before our forefathers attempted to defy the federal govern
ment. The Georgia seal against a blue background in once
corner, with red, white and blue vertical striped completing
the flag, should help unite our society.
We can never erase that part of our history, nor should
we. The era of slavery should remain a constant reminder of
how we must safeguard the liberties of all our citizens. But
at the same time, we musn’t glorify the era by waving the
Confederate battle flag proudly as a symbol of our state.
Editorial: 343-1809 Advertising: 543-1791
N«wi Editor Jeff Turner
Entertainment Editor Jim Farmer
Sport* Editor Curt Rogers
Front Page Copy Editor David Winfrey
Chief Copy Editor Peggy McLain
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Associate News Editors Keith Phillips, Char
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Sports Writer Chriitopher Ukns
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Senior Reporter, Amy Belle*. Carlyn Bland,
Ann Buffington. Rich Faulkner. Sarah Hawk,
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Jon Tully Kevan Ward
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Student Advertising Manager Mark Smith
Advertising Representatives Sharyn Curtis,
Mary Catharine Ginn, Mary Laney, Maria
Moraitakis. Sonya Morehead. Christine Pat
rick. Scott Scaggs. Gary Thacker. James F
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Letters Pol icy
The Red and Black welcomes letters to the editor and prints them
as space permits Because of space limitations and legal consider
ations, all letters are subject to standard editing for libelous
material, length and Red and Black style Short letters are preferred
and stand a better chance of running
To be considered for publication, letters must be double-spaced on
a 60-space line They also must include the name, address and day
time telephone number of the writer Please include student classifi
cation and major or other appropriate identification (professor,
Union officer, alumnus, etc ). We can omit your name in print for a
valid reason upon request.
Letters can be sent by U S mail or brought in person to The Red
and Black s offices at 123 N. Jackson St , Athens, Ga 30601
bid.
Although the situation concerning student
voting rights in Athens has improved, there are
still attitudinal and structural barriers which
preclude meaningful participation by University
students.
In 1967, Jack Williamson entered the race for
mayor of Athens as a Republican write-in candi
date He was informed that he could run for
mayor only if he was registered to vote. How
ever, when he went to register he was turned
away and told that students couldn't register in
Clarke County
Determined to exercise his right to participate,
Williamson appealed the registrar's decision to
the Clarke County Superior Court. The Superior
Court put his appeal on its January docket,
which meant that his case would be heard after
the upcoming general election. Frustrated, Wil
liamson filed a voter registration complaint with
the U S Department of Justice.
As a last-ditch effort, Williamson's attorney
sought a temporary injunction in Federal Court
which would have stopped the Athens election
until his complaint had been heard Federal
Court Judge W. A Bootle denied the injunction,
effectively terminating Williamson's election
Yet, the struggle for student voter registration
soon turned around,
In 1970, the Tennessee Voting Rights case set a
precedent allowing students to register to vote in
the county of their school
After this, the struggle for student partici
pation in Athens city government met a new kind
of barrier.
In 1971, new ward boundaries were established
for the city of Athens. These new divisions effec
tively divided the University residence popula
tion into four of Athen s five wards, thereby
muting the effect that a student block vote might
have The authors of the new ward divisions
claimed that their intent was only to ''equalize"
the populations in each ward. However, past city
council members have acknowledged that other
ways of equalizing the populations were avail
able. It's no wonder that although students have
generally constituted one-third of the Athens
population, they've never had an elected, voting
representative on the City Council.
In February of 1984, a new campus group, the
Student Voter Registration Coalition, began for
mulating plans to hold on-campus voter registra
tion drives.
Their plans were dashed, howver, when the
Clarke County Election Board flatly refused
their request Board secretary Patty Curtis said,
then, that “there is no demonstrated need for
having voter registration on campus,"
The group submitted a second request, this
time accompanied by letters of support from the
National Student Campaign for Voter Registra
tion and University political science professor
Loch Johnson. Again, they were denied.
Instead of encouraging voter registration by
cooperating with the SVRC, the board began dis
cussions with Vice President for Academic Af
fairs Dwight Douglas.
After much study and esoteric language had
transpired, the board decided to deputize a Uni
versity administrator, Gary Moore, to work in
the Academic Building on North campus
The board has been under fire from other
quarters, too. In the summer of 1984, the NAACP
and about 30 other voter registration groups filed
suit against the state of Georgia because certain
boards such as Clarke County's had been uncoo
perative in organizing voter registration drives
At this time, Mathew Ware, chairman of Citi
zens for Better Government, charged that the
board denied clearance for voter registration
drives designed to register minority voters.
Laughlin McDonald, the director of the
Southern Regional Office of the ACLU said, then,
"The state's voter registration system is a re
strictive one The student situation in Athens is
typical of this.”
Today, the Clarke County Board of Elections
at best tolerates student registration. The fact
that the ward lines of Athens are gerrymandered
against the student population promotes student
apathy The board's latest ugliness involved ha
rassment and stalling tactics to discourage the
registration of several students. With a history of
more than 20 years of oppression, the Board is
expert at its craft — changing, chameleon-like,
when the glare of publicity shines and later re
verting to its low-profile campaign of repression.
Scott Starling is a staff writer for The Red and
Biack.
Noel Maveske
Names drop from my memory
1 just bet I'll forget my kid's name when he or
she's born
Whenever that day arrives, somewhere far
down the road. I bet I'll lose all rationality. The
little wife and l will have a good name all
planned out for the baby, all ready to go.
Christine if it's a girl, Woody if it’s a boy Fine
Nervously, I'll pace the hospital waiting room
on the day of the expected birth, staring at the
ceiling, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for the
baby to emerge into the world
Suddenly, the doctor will swing wide the doors
and beckon me triumphantly into The Room
There'll be the newborn baby, crying, dribbling,
crying — and nameless There he'll sit, looking
at me, ready to be named, and there I'll be,
ready to pronounce his name to the world for the
very first time. I'll wave my hand with a proud
flourish in preparation of the big announcement
And my mind will go blank
Yep, I'll forget the name we had planned Des
perately, I'll comb my mind for the missing
piece of information, but won't find it. Franti
cally, I'll actually try to come up with a replace
ment name, so as not to break the momentum of
the feeling in The Room All the nurses and doc
tors will hang in mid-motion, suspended in ex
pectation, staring at me in disbelief with mouths
agape
Frenetically, my brain will recall what I had
for lunch that day. and I'll shake the rafters of
the hospital with my pronouncement of this gur
gling newborn's name
Later that day, several nurses will be treated
for cardiac arrest, and I'll be divorced, because
for the rest of his life this bitter, rueful boy or
girl will have to sign
his name, "McNugget
Mayeske."
Okay, okay, so that
scene was more like a
reject from a Monty
Python movie than
anything that could
really happen, but I
had to get a point
across. And the point
is that I have this
problem with names. I forget them.
I know this happens to other people too, but for
most it only shows up at the beginning of a
school year or after a holiday. You'll see
someone you haven't seen for awhile, and their
name might slip your mind. So you have to
search your mind like an idiot to come up with
the moniker of someone you've only known for,
oh, two or three years
My problem is that this happens to me all the
time Maybe that's why I dream up so many
goofy nicknames for people Anything to help me
remember
Also, I have developed several techniques for
obtaining a forgotten name from the disorga
nized shelves of my memory. When faced with a
friend whose name I can't remember, I might
surreptitiously ask for some of their notes from
last quarter
"Do you sti'l have those French 216 notes from
last quarter? i thought those were — exceptional
notes.”
Amazed and flattered, they hand me their
notebook. I flip through it, praising the crisp,
economical use of punctuation, until finally 1 see
a page with their name at the top. Mission ac
complished
Another sleuthing method I employ is sort of a
new-age/mystic techinique. While in the pres
ence of the person, I stare into his eyes and try
to pick up what I call an "aura of nomencla
ture If I concentrate hard, I can come up with
a ballpark part of the alphabet in which to begin
their name.
"It's in that L area,” I think to myself. “Or
could it be more M-ish or N-ish?”
All of this taking place in the blink of an eye, I
visually absorb all their features and arrive at a
stereotypical appraisal of their background: rich
'n' trendy, poor n’ trendy, rich ’n' conservative,
whatever. Then 1 coagulate all the data and cau
tiously issue the name I believe their parents
would have chosen, within that letter of the al
phabet
"Ahhhhh . Louise!”
She smiles I sigh in relief.
It's the worst when I see somebody regularly
for months and cannot for the life of me re
member his name. It simply would be too em
barrassing to just ask after knowing him so long.
1 have several friends like this whom I talk to
often but whose name I still don't know
So, until my memory improves, I guess I’ll
just continue down this strange trail of absent-
mindedness Until then, be kind if 1 meet you and
your name eludes me. At least I'm not naming
your kid.
Noel Mayeske is a senior reporter for The Red
and Black.
One for Huh hilt
TO THE EDITOR:
This letter is in response to Jeff
Turner's column on abortion
First Bruce Babbitt personally op
poses abortion, but he understands
that many disagree as to exactly
when an embryo becomes a viable
living being He doesn’t wish to see
the Roe v. Wade decision reversed
because he believes that everyone
should be allowed to choose in
accordance with their own beliefs
While I'm not suggesting lhal we
elect Babbitt president on the basis
of this one issue, it's certainly a
point in his favor
Second, I think that if you would
talk to a few women who have had
an abortion or who are contem
plating having one. you would re
alize that most don't view an
embryo in the same way as they
view coffee grounds Most have
thought long and hard about their
decision to terminate the preg
nancy.
Third, I disagree with your
statement that , 'the burden of re
sponsibility rests more on the
woman. " This is incorrect. The
truth is, the burden of the conse
quences of an unplanned pregnancy
rests more on the woman By conse
quences, I mean the stigma, guilt,
and other hardships that are asso
ciated primarily with out-of-wed
lock pregnancies (which account for
the largest portion of abortions).
The responsibility for contraception
and child care rests on both the
male and the female Unfortu
nately. many men are unwilling to
accept this responsibility. JOI those
who do accept responsibility, many
view abortion as a responsible
means for dealing with an unfortu
nate and unwanted situation.
Finally, you were correct when
you stated that unwanted pregnancy
is more the symptom than the dis
ease Except in cases of contracep
tive failure, unwanted pregnancies
stem largely from the lack of con
traceptive resonsibility. We do have
a cure for the disease, Mr Turner.
It's called contraceptive responsibi
lity Kelly J . Black
graduate, psychology
INDISTIN
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