Newspaper Page Text
Friday, November 22, 1968
MAROON TIGER
Page 3
The Student Feedback section
of the paper will consist of stu
dents’ opinions regarding articles
published in the Maroon Tiger
and to pressing events on the
campus. All articles for this sec
tion will be welcomed.
dipole
tend with no sweat at all.
Archie Powell
Dear Cheerleader:
You don’t know me personally
nor do I know you, but I feel
that I do because I’ve noticed
your participation on the Cheer
ing Squad.
As a member of the Morehouse
College student body, let me be
the first to extend an apology
to you for the harsh and cruel
attack on your person in the
underground newspaper entitled
The Word. I feel that an apolo
gy is due because anyone, whether
black, yellow, or white, who helps
to cheer the Tigers on even when
victory is nowhere in sight has
true loyalty and school spirit,
which is more than what I can
say about the “bottled” spirit that
my brothers have at the football
games.
My only hope is that you con
tinue with rededicated strength in
leading the team on to victories.
A concerned student
^Alienation present
Freshmen usually don’t voice
their opinions about anything that
goes on here at the college dur
ing their first year. I am a fresh
man and I must be heard.
Being a city student, I have
been a victim of many incon
siderations by all factions of col
lege life. All too often meetings
have been planned solely for the
convenience of the campus stu
dent, allowing him to casually
walk over to the dining hall and
take his time to eat, knowing
he has plenty of time to make
that seven-thirty meeting. The
city student, on the other hand,
must do one of three things: (1)
rush home, speeding through din
ner, and fly back (hopefully
without picking up a ticket or in
digestion in the process); (2) re
main on the campus after his last
class and eat in the dining hall,
go to the library, or visit a friend
who resides on campus; (3) go
home after his last class and just
“hang it all up.” Because many
city students prefer to do the
latter, one can easily see how
this can lead to complacency.
These commuting students pay
tuition just as their brothers, and
therefore have the right to par
ticipate in anything that may
interest them, so why make it
difficult? Let the future bring
forth meetings with the city stu
dent in mind so that all may at
dAtudentd (jet (jund
A rather ironic situation exists
and is perpetuating itself on the
Morehouse campus. The students
are buying guns. Guns. Some of
the guns are relatively small pis
tols; others are more deadly—
thirty-eights and forty-fives. The
calibre, the make, the quality,
these are unimportant data; what
is important is WHY? Why does
a freshman possess a gun? Why
does he buy a gun? These are
questions I have asked myself and
questions that everyone attending
Morehouse should ask himself.
In large cities black men are
arming themselves for confron
tations primarily with white po
licemen. Why? Many white po
licemen have openly exhibited a
willingness to shoot first and ask
questions later in dealing with
blacks. However, there must be
another method to deal with the
problem. If this other method
is not found or not implemented
properly, there will be just cause
for fighting fire with fire. This
brings me back to my original
point, A RATHER IRONIC SIT
UATION EXISTS AND IS PER
PETUATING ITSELF ON THE
MOREHOUSE CAMPUS. We at
Morehouse are preparing our
selves for confrontations with not
only a vague and somewhat un
identified group of people, but
also a black group of people.
Where is our conscience?
We have a problem with a
black group of children that we
have handily labeled “block boys.”
We have, many of us, already
taken to packing revolvers with
which to defend ourselves. We
boast of the great effectiveness of
our revolvers and, on request, we
even show them to our friends.
This is usually followed by our
telling magnificent stories of how
we deal with the terrible fiends,
as our chests swell while we boast
and brag about what we have
done and hope to do.
What are we becoming? What
kind of fiends are we becom
ing? I do not believe that our
only alternative is to fight fire
with fire. We are supposed to
be students training to be think
ing, ^ reasoning adults, educated
men, future leaders. What are
we in fact becoming?
Worried
Has Religion Become Irrelevant?
By Carthur Drake
Has your cycle of reasoning
led you to become unchurched?
Do you feel that you have out
grown the existing churches?
Perhaps your feeling can be sum
med up in this article.
—Are you dissatisfied in an
orthodox church because the re
ligion seems immature, unreason
able or spiritually lacking to you?
—Have you lost interest in the
orthodox religions because sci
ence and common sense have
made many creeds and doctrines
seem unsound to you?
—Have you felt that juggling
the interpretation of ancient
creeds in order to make them fit
new facts is not an intellectually
honest procedure?
—Are you one of the many
people who have sought in vain
a soul-satisfying religion which
can fulfill the ideal of being ac
ceptable and welcome to persons
of every color, race and class
throughout the world?
—Do you feel that the church
gatherings have become a place
for fashion display and gossiping j
sessions rather than a place
where religious principles are
applied to correct social prob
lems?
—Do you feel that no one
church has all the truths of re
ligion and therefore cannot prop
erly dictate what you shall be
lieve in matters of theology?
—Finally, do you feel that your
church has been used as a ve
hicle of prosperity for your re
ligious leaders and that you were
the direct victim?
These are some of the problems
that have engulfed the minds of
many of the young generation.
Perhaps you hold the same con
victions.
For a solution to the growing
number of unchurched Ameri
cans, let us look at a major cause
which has contributed to this
blasphemy among most young
people. This major cause can be
ascribed to the church itself.
Former Republican presidential
candidate Barry Goldwater stated,
after concluding a nation-wide
j tour of 56 college campuses, that
he found young people are “very
well informed — and they think.”
He stated further, “They’re con
cerned. They ask a lot of ques
tions.” To describe them further,
one might conclude that they are
mentally energetic and physically
excited. The younger generation
would, therefore, require a ra
tionally energetic and socially ex
cited environment in which they
might exercise their beliefs.
Here, I feel, is where the reli
gious community has failed. It
has failed in its task to provide
a religious structure which would
satisfy the searching minds of the
young people. People are not go
ing to base their lives on shaky
doctrines and traditional habits
which do not conform to a chang
ing society. Old habits are not
the solution to new problems.
And this impious attitude will
continue to increase until the ex
isting churches realize that doc
trines are like cloth and that they
should be adjusted and tailored
to fit the people they serve.
Dke Qietto WJL Wait C^ome
2^
own
By Frederick Longsdale & Philip James Boykin
The Civil Rights Commission, in
a new report based on the testi
mony of numerous residents of
big-city ghettos, has destroyed
three cliches about Negroes that
have gained much currency and
done considerable damage.
The first of those cliches is
that Negroes are only another
in the long series of minority
groups—the Irish, the Italians,
the Jews, numerous Eastern Eu
ropeans—that have migrated to
the United States and ultimately
fought their way out of the slums
and into an accepted place in
American life.
The second is that if Negroes
would try as hard as those other
minority groups did, they too
could move out to the suburbs and
up to the middle-income brackets.
And the third is that, while con
ditions in the ghetto may be bad,
it would be wrong and unwise
to “reward violence” by doing
something about these conditions
in the wake of the past summer’s
riots.
The first of these cliches is the
hardest to deal with. Not only
is it standard liberal doctrine that
Negroes are like other human
beings, only with black skins; but
to assert that Negroes are differ
ent from Poles and Italians is
to invite the charge of racism.
Nevertheless, the Civil Rights
Commission points out, the analo
gy to other minority groups is
“misleading and dangerous.” Ne
groes, for one thing, are not in
vading migrants, but have been
Americans. Unlike the Europeans
who once flocked to the U. S., Ne
groes are not fleeing the repres
sion of tyrannical foreign govern
ments of bad economic conditions;
their problem is the attitude to
ward them of the society to which
they rightfully belong, and the
economy in which they seek a
living.
Within that society, and in vir
tually every segment of it, “the-
legacy of slavery continues in the
form of racial segregation, dis
crimination and prejudice.”
Even so, Negroes might climb
over these invisible walls if the
traditional means—education and
work—were as available to them
as they once were even to dis
advantaged Irish and Italian
immigrants. But they are not.
Their schools and teachers are
generally inferior, and in the city
ghetto de facto segregation is vir
tually the rule, whatever the state
and federal law.
And even in the rare instances
when the unusual ghetto school or
the exceptional ghetto pupil re
sults in a human being capable
of playing a useful role in a tech
nological society, he may find the
job market closed to Negroes. Or
he may find advantageous em
ployment available only in non
ghetto communities where dis
criminatory housing practices pre
vent his migration.
This practical imprisonment of
the Negro in the ghetto, this lin
gering and subtle racial segrega
tion, is at the root of the riots.
A San Francisco Negro is quot
ed in the report of the Civil Rights
Commission as saying:
“Now, what black nationalist
groups are telling them is,
‘Look, baby, nobody is going to
help you but yourself, and what
you had better do, you had bet
ter realize that with all the lib
erals in the world, that you still
have these conditions that you had
when you met these liberals, and
until you can do something about
it for yourself they will be here.’ ”
That is why the most damaging
and shortsighted cliche of all is
an insistence that violence must
not be rewarded.
These destructive, fruitless,
hopeless uprisings themselves are
telling us that the Negro is de
termined to tear down the condi
tions that surround him, the walls
that contain him, and as one black
militant testified, if the demo
cratic processes fail, “then we will
have to do whatever is necessary
to make these changes.”
To attack these conditions from
the outside, to make that attack
the nation’s “first priority,” as
the Civil Rights Commission rec
ommends, is not rewarding vio
lence. It is preventing violence,
and nothing else will do it.
Too often black people exalt
those who yell the loudest and
curse the most, and who, when
they cannot open the door,
threaten to kick
it in. Some have
the nerve to call
such people
“black leaders.”
I prefer to call
them multi
mouthed pseudo
leaders, for they
would have us
believe our
doubts and doubt our beliefs;
they call us “brothers” to our
face and “bastards” to our back;
and they tell us to “get together”
Think Before You Act
while they radically and success
fully pull us apart. These pseudo
leaders articulate beliefs that
would disgrace a nation of sav
ages.
Some black brothers have ask
ed me why I care about the way
they think. “If an individual’s
beliefs are his personal posses
sion,” they argue, “then why
should anyone be concerned with
the beliefs of others?” My an
swer to this question is not orig
inal; nonetheless, it is my answer.
“No belief, however trifling and
fragmentary it may seem, is ever
insignificant; it prepares us to
receive more of its like, confirms
those which resembled it before,
and weakens others; and so grad
ually it lays a stealthy train in
our inmost thoughts, which may
some day explode into overt ac
tion, and leave a stamp on our
character forever.” (W. K. Clif
ford)
An ultra-militant brother told
me, “In our revolution the masses
of black people must not be al
lowed to question, to evaluate or
to analyze the beliefs of our rebel
leaders, for it does not matter
what a brother believes as long
as he acts.” THIS I REJECT!
History has proven that the seeds
of decay begin to sprout the min
ute an individual or group acts
without thinking, without evalu
ating and analyzing the conse
quences which inevitably follow
action. To nothing so much as
the abandonment of reason does
humanity owe its sorrows. Think
before you act, because once an
act is done it is right or wrong
forever.
So I reject the idea of blind
followership compulsory or com
placent, the faith that is swal
lowed like pills, whole and at
once, with no questions asked.
Now is the time to question. In
the words of Robespierre, “It is
time to distinguish clearly the
aim of the Revolution and the
term to which we would arrive.
It is time for us to render ac
count to ourselves, both of the
obstacles which still keep us from
that aim and the means which
we ought to take to attain it.”
Let us review our aims as a
people, always remembering that
self-assessment is not self-defeat
ing.
When the Black Revolution is
over, I pray that history will look
on the actions of black people
and record the words of Mose:
“Ain’t I the damndest thing
you’ve ever seen? I’ve been treat
ed like a mule and turned out to
be a human being.”