American Day

Vol. 13, No. 3 : The University Community's Feature Paper: October 14,1991 m ·I - I II e . ;, . r - I r - ~L: ' ; II NATIVE I AMERICAN DAY I Kay WalkingStick, Is That You? 1,1989 m I I -- · I ' I I ·I TICI - - I -r II II II A Professor Inside Judging comments on the unfit What Lurks Inside the Bush Judge Thomas p.2 p.13 I , - - 1' SPECIAL FACULTY COMMENTARI science can lead to social misery although Capitalist) exploiting or condemning the the initial down-trodden (read minorities or women error was based on a helpful or labor). It is also a mistake to believe that intent. it is difficult for us today to believe because so many eras and so many people that in the early 1700's masturbation was were mean-spirited to others, that we considered a cause of human biological should not do any thing about that and mental degeneracy, including the deplorable attitude. masturbator's children. It is even more Native Americans, like indigenous difficult to imagine a physician in 1899 people everywhere who have been believing that vasectomy could be a conquered, were often exploited and treatment for the prevention of treated as an inferior people with bad masturbation thereby restoring the habits that legitimized their oppression or consumptive masturbator to good health neglect. We know that such beliefs are (and as an alleged side benefit, helping usually based on ignorance, deception, and society by cutting off the flow of error. The best corrective to such prejudice degenerate sperm from the masturbator's is education and that includes: past practice). Yet it was this idea, by an appreciation of human diversity; the physician Harry Clay Sharp at the universality among all ethnic, racial, and Jeffersonville Prison in Indiana that led to religious groups of a common chromosome his successful campaign between 1902 and number; a single species identification; the 1907 to get the State of Indiana to pass the prevalence of cultural over biological first compulsory sterilization law and to determinants of human behavior; and the campaign for nation-wide adoption of such recognition that all races and ethnic groups laws. Some 33 states eventually passed are dynamic and not static collections of these laws and they were uphed by an 8-1 heredities that slosh about across the vote of the Supreme Court in 1927 with generations. Our ideas do not come from one of the most liberal justices, Oliver our genes. They are learned, and what Wendell Holmes Jr., writing the majority four generations to cleanse the ottense or divides us as a people and makes us one opinion! Why do we do this to one another? the original wrongdoer. People have been group manipulate another is primarily While there may be no "lessons of victimized because they were of the wrong what we learn. history" and one certainly cannot condemn A special guest faculty commentary by: race, nationality, religion, political I have just written a book, not yet liberals for bad judgements that were Distinguished Teaching Professor Elof philosophy, or social class. They have published, that treats this theme of "the abused largely by racists and uncaring or Axel Carlson been accused of being degenerate or unfit" and it bothers me that contrary to my selfish people later on in this century (what Department of Biochemistry and Cell immature or inferior or parasitic or wishes , it is not the bad guys vs the good we would call reactionaries), we must Biology; Master, Honors College depraved by virtue of their birth in one of guys, the reactionaries vs the liberals, the arouse in our consciences the constant these categories of allegedly dysfunctional bigots vs the martyrs that characterizes this question of how we are treating our fellow people. The "unfit" as they were called in history. Instead I have learned that people human beings. Anytime we attribute to Humans have scapegoated other humans the 19th and early 20th centuries included of good will, reformers what we call groups a biological or genetic basis for the for as long as recorded history. The Old the insane, the retarded (then called the liberals, scholars, and physicians, were differences in our behaviors and theirs, Testament reveals how the Amalekites feebleminded), paupers, vagrants, and often among those whose ideas and watch out- it is a largely unproven, based hectored the Jews as they fled Egypt and repeated criminals. approaches lead to what later became the on shallow methods that are often indirect, how God reminded Moses to exterminate The path of injustice from antiquity to eugenics movement. It is a sobering and may reflect unexamined prejudices the Amalekites down to their last child. the present is by no means direct or casual, finding because it supports Hannah against "others" that reside within our fears What we would consider to be the innocent but each generation has its own reasons Arendt's idea of "the banality of evil" but and ignorance. generations of the future were condemned and traditions for singling out people who unlike the non-ideological paper-pushing when children born of forbidden unions are victimized. This is true today of left- Eichmanns of our times, these progressive Ed. note -Thanks to Prof. Carlson and a (mamzerim) and their children in turn were wing and right-wing states, of Christian, and idealistic contributors largely without special thanks to Phyllis in the Office of excluded from good standing in the Jewish, Hindu, or Islamic people. The poor malice laid the basis for what became our University Publicationsfor supplying the community for 10 generations or more. can be as vindictive as the rich can be compulsory sterilization laws and asylums photo of Prof.Carlson. Frequently, those who transgressed the oppressive. It is a mistake to believe that and restrictive immigration laws. Even traditiorp of that society were punished fpr this bias is exclusively the privileged (read more disturbing to me is the way errors of s~u~a~~ I2VEh% Ula~Hrl";r~ES * by MJXII exists in "the land of the free." temperatures in the classrooms. The barely receives ah education worth $2,900. He spins his tale beginning with the science and art departments have little or Over the course of 13 years, the difference "Every year in February we are told to poor, primarily black, victims of racial no supplies. is clearer-$38,000 spent on the black read the same old speech of Martin Luther inequality who live and go to school in But besides listing the horrible children, over $100,000 spent on the white King. We read it every year. 'I have a East St Louis. The setting these children conditions that exist in the poor urban ones. dream...' It does begin to seem-what is the face daily as they trudge to filthy, schools, he contrasts them with the wealth In the Public Schools of New York, the word?" The 14-year-old girl with the black overcrowded, segregated schools is bleak. that exists sometimes only a few miles racism is just as persistent, just as curly hair pauses for the right word which The skyscape is muddied with the away, where the white people live. He damaging. Black males in the educational is 'perfunctory.' disgusting outpouring of smokestacks, contrasts the poor children of Chicago's desert of New Yorks inner-city have more "We have a school here in East St. Louis belonging to the Pfitzer and Monsanto Du Sable High with New Trier's wealthy of a chance of being shot, or going to jail, named for Dr.King. The school is full of chemical plants. Children on their way to "gifted" children of Anglo-Saxons. The then they do of graduating. Kozol tells of sewer water and the doors are locked with school breathe this filth and now have one kids of Du Sable are crammed into a dingy poor schools under noisy elevated public chains. Every student in that school is of the highest rates of asthma in the poorly lit, poorly kept building. The transit lines, next to morticians offices, black. It's like a terrible joke on history." country. They walk to school past open children in New Treir have 27 acres of built into an old roller-skating rinks. It may seem odd that a young girl living garbage pits always smouldering, infested fields for sports and buildings where they Windowless places whose capacity is 900, in this kind of squalor would be capable of with rats. Always there exists the threat of attain one of the most thorough and but that cram 1300 in, places where such insight. And it very well may be true chemical spillage on the lead-infused soil. esoteric educations in the country. Kids in carpets are torn and worn, where no that in these conditions insight like this is When they get to school, often they go urban schools in Illinois drop out, barely encyclopedias or reference materials exist rare, but Jonathan Kozol, in his new book unsupervised in overcrowded classrooms, graduate reading on a sixth-grade level, or in a library of only 700 books. "We don't Savage Inequalities: Children in America's as the state will not spend enough money are simply unprepared for college. Kids a have encyclopedias in classrooms," says a Schools, manages to capture poignant and to hire enough teachers. They eat in dirty few miles away end up in Yale or Harvard. teacher in North Bronx, "That is for startling accounts, such as the one quoted lunchrooms. If the bathrooms are working The state spends an average of $7,800 on a suburbs." above, with an impelling style that makes and not overflowing with sewage, the heat white, elementary school age child for the reader reevaluate the balance of power, isn't.

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