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^ of the College of Staten Island/CUNY •A^ Spring 2008 | www.ThirdRailMag.com r jST
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G O ia I^ M N A M ER ieA l) APARTHEID
COLLEGE OF STAHN ISLAND IS Look Who
Teach atCS
Dr. Chalmers Clark Formerly of the CSI Department of Political Science, Economics and Philosophy. His background is in the naturalized epistemology of W. V. Quine. His interest is to extend Quine’s scientific holism into the domain of moral and political thought. The result has been research and publication in several interdisciplinary forms. Current work is on trust relations in the professions (medicine especially), the professions as stewards of public trusts, and the role public trusts play in the basic structure of a free society.
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R ead CSI’s only aw ard-w inning journalism from the com fort of your hom e! ASSOCIATED COLLEGIATE PRESS WWW. RAIL .com I ^ T h i r d A l h h d R a i l A Third Rail R a i l THE COLLECTIVE C S r s o n l y (in alphabetlral order) JOSEPH BRUSH auuard-Lulnnlng Business Manager CHUN HOWl student publication Pacifist IVledLtator c o n te n ts MEREDITH FOGELMAN Poetry Editor MICHAEL GUALTIERI E i SPRING Distribution AAanager . m 2 0 0 8 JEFFMCGRAHAM T h e N a t i o n . Won-Fiction Editor MICHAEL MILEV 0 4 CSUCUNV THIRD Stalinist Bureaucrat Neuus Briefs W © I L a t o T.J. RILEV RAII- Associate Editor NIKKI SAINT BAUTISTA Q g Rim baud Ponderer of Alllhlngs I V I A C 3 NEILSCHULDINER 07 Enlightenment Layout & Design • c o m KATHLEEN VANMANEN Q g CSI P eace UJeek Secretary ■ ANTHONY VIVIRITO Armed Security Detail 10 Phony S o ld ie rs? CONTRIBUTORS 15 Rush Llmbaugh ILLYAGELLER f o r OxyContln JOHN ELLIOTT SHELOON J. BOURNe"^^;. |g Iraq Uar Index THOMAS GOOD C : : D HAYUKO la |g Love Poem PETA EARTHSHARE 10 Tainted Love RONALD B. MCGUIRE, ESQ. 20 American Apartheid & THE CUNY EMERGENCY LEGAL DEFENSE FUND Legal Department 3 2 a poem W t e [RteDD PROFESSOR BRIAN COGAN Faculty Advisor 3 3 PETA: Ulhat’sthe #1 c a u se of CONTACT glo b al unarm ing? E-MAIL: maLlpThlrdRallMag.com 3 4 A UUeeknlght Out LUEB: ujuiui.ThLrdRalLMag.com on th e Town fo r Booze and Brains SNAIL MAIL; Third Rail Magazine c/o College of Staten Island 3 g C om rade X: 2800 Victory Boulevard C o m r a d e Campus Center Room 207 The Fourth Estate Staten Island, NY 10314 8- Revolution X MAGAZINE OFFICE: Room 231 on the 2nd floor of the CSI Campus Center 41 EarthShare ► TELEPHONE: 718-982-3105 4 2 Sin Is Only FAX' Skin Deep 718-982-3104
4 4 L e tte rs IVIEIVIBER to the Editors Booze S- Brains Phony Soldiers? Nikki Saint Bautista infiltrates Mike G ualtlerlasks uuhv Rush 3 ^ 4 8 Bullpen: Third Rairs © Las Vegas Showgirls Union Hall’s Secret Science Club Llmbaugh receives tax payer monies L a? intrendv Park Slope to denigrate Iraq uuar veterans Hard bl Mogo^ Is pubfished by ifaa studanb of the Colap of Stolaa yoiL Opuiions expressed herein are those of the writers and are not necessarily shared by Third Roil Magazine staff or the ColvofSMmysiiTMiyMi«azlMlsfwiiMbribesh^ College of Staten Island of the CHy University of New York. Third Roil Mogozine is not o publication of the College of SlotM yotxl or 1hs(3yUiiw^ of Now Y«kThCslage(rfftitMiskmdi8Ri The City University of New York ore not responsible for the contents of Third Rail Magazine. i and 11 NEW S BRIEFS
CUNY Chancellor R aises SAT Ma
CUNY Chancellor M atthew Goldstein has t unilaterally raised the SAT math admission score without the consent of CUNY faculty. • ® »f © ® ® be utilized as cutoff scores, especially for t * (S>
WWW .T H I R D R A I L M A G ■ com of his more contentious moves as Ernst and YouneYoung LLP. CSI STUDENTS MAY PAY MORE
he CUNY Board of Trustees recently receiving his $10,000 raise, CSI President Tawarded huge raises that ranged from Morales announced his support for the CUNY $10,000 to $26,000 per year to top CUNY Compact, a plan that would raise tuition for officials. CSI President Tomas Morales received CSI & CUNY students on an annual basis. a $10,000 per year raise after less than two According to the C U N Y Compact, tuition months on the job. This brings his monetary could rise by as much as $160 per year, for salary up to $230,000 per year. In addition, every year one registers as a student. CSI President Morales is further compensated with a mansion in an exclusive Staten Island While the State University of New York’s neighborhood, a personal chauffeur, a car and (SUNY) funding from New York State has other amenities, bringing his total approximate increased 35 percent since 1990, CUNY’s annual compensation to above $300,000. The has actually dropped by 17 percent. That has increases were justified by the CUNY Board of left state funding-per-student at $5,846 at k Trustees as “performance based”, but Morales CUNY, down from $7,023 in 1990. SUNY’s After receiving a had only been President of CSI for a little over per-student funding has risen from $7,855 in $ 10,000 a year pay one month at the time of the increase. 1990 to $10,677 today
raise, CSI President By contrast, the real wages of CSI and Ironically, those CSI and CUNY students Tomas IVIorales quiclcly CUNY faculty and professional staff have who are receiving less support are paying far announced liis support declined 40% on average since 1971 (when more—205% more since 1991. Tuition and adjusted for inflation), and there have been student fees now represent 43.8 percent of for a CUNY plan that numerous tuition increases for students since CUNY’s revenue, up from 21.4 percent in would raise CSI tuition. the ending of Open Admissions. Shortly after 1991.
Is CUNY Goinq Green? M ayor Bloom berg’s
o claims a new website at Budaet Cuts CUNY Swww.GreenCUNY.org. Run by CUNY’s Sustainability ayorBloomberg a B average and maintain Coalition, the website promising as more and more Mhas proposed a minimum CPA of 3.0 at encourages student initiatives students are beginning to post cutting CUNY’s CUNY. The scholarship to develop sustainable practices tips. One post suggests how budget by $29.8 has helped thousands of that benefit CUNY campuses. students could transform their million. In response, students, including many So far however, the website CUNY campus cafeteria into City Councilman at CSI realize their dream seems to mostly be a public more environmentally sound Charles Barron, the of a college education. relations effort by CUNY and friendly eateries. chairman of the Committee on Ernesto Malave, CUNY’s Central to inform the public how The CUNY Sustainability Higher Education and a CUNY Vice Chancellor for Budget & “green” CUNY is becoming. Coalition’s stated mission is for alumnus stated, “This budget is Finance added that the CUNY One of the more prominent “students and affiliates from going to devastate [CUNY].” Prep and ASAP programs, both posts on the site seems to be all 23 campuses [to] organize, Barron voiced concern at the funded from the NYC poverty a link to an article in CUNY take action and share ideas to possibility of axing several key commission were not included Matters (a CUNY Central forward the endeavor.” Tbis CUNY programs, including inBloomberg’sbudgetproposal. controlled public relations latest round of CUNY PR scholarships such as the $11.2 Thankfially, Bloomberg’s newspaper) which discusses began last June when CUNY million Peter Vallone Academic budget is not expected to pass the major sustainability agreed to Mayor Bloomberg’s Scholarship Program, awarded the City Council without any projects of CUNY and faculty plan to cut college emissions to NYC high school students modifications to the CUNY research. Still, the site looks by 30 percent. who graduate HS with at least cuts.
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POLITICAL DISCOURSE
You’ve heard a num ber of tim es from Jon Soltz, co-founder ould Rush Limbaugh W make these outrageous ofVoteVets.org. Do you consider him a phony soldier? and offensive comments According to Rush Limbaugh, Jon Soltz, an Iraq war to Jon’s face? Apparently not, because Limbaugh has ignored veteran, is a phony soldier. M edia M atters, a not-for-profit, over 10,000 emailed requests from progressive research and inform ation center dedicated to individuals like retired U.S. Army four-star General Wesley Clark to comprehensively m onitoring, analyzing, and correcting invite VoteVets.org’s Jon Soltz to his conservative m isinfbrm ation in the U.S. m edia, reports that show - and repeat these same insults Rush Limbaugh said that troops who return home from to an Iraq war veteran’s face. I support Rush Limbaugh’s Iraq and criticize A m erican involvem ent in Iraq’s religious right to free speech. The problem dvil w ar are “phony soldiers.” is that his show is aired on Armed Forces Radio, which is funded by taxpayer’s dollars. This money is BELOW: Veterans of various American wars flagged by supporters protest in Times Square against the current war in Iraq this past March. not intended for radio show hosts to spout insults at our soldiers. OPPOSITE RIGHT: Iraq war veterans march in New York City last April These “phony soldiers” have simply demanding the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq. CSI student Ghanin Khalil marches second from right. exercised their right to free speech, as Rush Limbaugh does on a daily basis. Rush Limbaugh has never worn the uniform in his life, yet he’s got • k the moral standing to pass judgment on the men and women who risked their lives for this nation? Polls have shown that the majority of troops on the ground in Iraq, and those who have returned, do not a New York Times op-ed urging for a lying to him about what I said, then The Bronze Star medal for my actions back the President’s failed policy. change in course in Iraq, and suggesting strapping those lies to his belt, sending during that battle. I crossed the border Does Rush beheve then, that the it was time to figure out an exit strategy. him out via the media in a TV ad to walk into Iraq with the first wave of the 101st majority of the US Armed Forces Two of them just died. into as many people as he can walk into.” Airborne...I sustained an open head are “phony?” Does Rush believe these young troops The rest of his comments can be found at injury on the streets of Mosul after a Major Generals John Batiste and are “phony soldiers?” mediamatters. org. vehicle borne lED exploded next to the Paul Eaton left the military and Horribly enough, the insults against A writer for Daily Kos published Brian vehicle I was riding in. I have seen the have spoken out against the Bush Iraq war vets did not stop there. Rush McGough’s reply by email: “I stood in the aftermath of a real suicide bomber. I had VETERANS Administration’s failed policies. Limbaugh denounced a recent ad by sand, snow, dirt, mud and dust of both loved ones who died in the 9/11 attacks. I These are former commanders in VoteVets.org which featured Iraq war Afghanistan and Iraq. I spent over a week have friends and colleagues who returned ^ ★ f o r ★ * Iraq, and they have challenged veteran Brian McGough, calling the ad on a side of a mountain in Afghanistan from the war in body bags...How dare the Administration for its “a blatant use of a valiant combat veteran, NEW JERSEY during Operation Anaconda. I received you call someone like me a phony soldier stubborn refusal to listen to those CHAPTER 021 commanders on the ground who have sent up warning after warning. Finally, recall the members of the 82nd Airborne in Iraq who wrote
1 2 WWW. RAIL .£ and a suicide bomber? In the commercial Jack Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, the House switchboard (225-342-6945) I just taped, I told you unless you had the a retired Marine colonel, decorated and and their Senators through the Senate guts to say something to my face, stop wounded veteran of the Vietnam War switchboard (225-342-2040). Tell them telling lies about my service. Well you who served for 37 years and was awarded haven’t had the guts to say it to my face, the Bronze Star. but I am waiting and the offer is still on the table.” Rush, the shrapnel I took to my head was real. My traumatic In case you’re wondering brain injury was real. And my belief we are on the wrong about these lies that Rush course in Iraq is real. Until you have the guts to call me a refers to, after he called phony soldier to my face, stop telling lies about my service. service men and women • Former Army staff sergeant Brian McGough, who don’t support the war 31, a veteran who opposes the war In Iraq. phony soldiers he insisted he really was speaking of only “genuine phony soldiers” at the time. He Eventually, Congress passed a resolution then proceeded to expanded his roster of officially condemning the MoveOn.org “genuine phony soldiers” to include Rep. “Betray us” ad, a resolution that Rush that Rush Limbaugh should not make supported. Yet Congress continues to these comments and still have a show on MIDDLE RIGHT: Brian McGough injured during use tax dollars to fund Rush’s offensive a publicly funded station such as Armed his tour of duty in Iraq. comments about our soldiers. I urge Forces Radio. Your representatives can BELOW: Iraq veterans against the war and their everyone reading this to contact the also be contacted through their websites. families rally in Los Angeles this past January, offices of their Representative through
i iuoci ( iiKKi l ima Rush Lim baugh fo r O xyC ontin
couldn’t get through
m y day w ith ou t it!”
Being a best-selling author and a nationally syndicated radio host isn’t easy. Day after day I have to go on the air, attack short-haired feminazis, berate environmental wackos, complain that black football players get a free ride from the media, support the drug war, demonize drug addicts like the late Kurt Cobain and condemn illegal drug use. More recently I’ve had to demonize returning Iraqi war veterans who criticize President Bush’s war on the Middle East. How do I spew all this nonsense and still sleep like a baby at night? I take OxyContin, or as I like to call it, “little blues.” It numbs my hypocritical conscience, soothes my guilt and makes things the way they ought to be!
1 5 ;«#■ V O! • i ‘ Miis* m s
I ' ^ --W FACTS ABOUT THE GENOCIDE I N I R A Q THAT YOU REALLY DON'T W ANT TO READ ABOUT BUT NEED TO KNOW ■r->
N A W A
Iraqi civilian w ar casu alties:
A m erican soldiers killed p , * : . : J F T iIilliTiTT I (Source: Opinion Research Business (ORB), an ■dependent polling agency 1located in London)
fii.
. •- \ 7
E stim ated C ost of W ar S oldiers seriously injured:
m *9Ci’u-u:? 1
2 9 , 2 0 3 Sp|^~ That's 600 BILLION for those who can't count, Does not include psychological impairments m r Bush has requested an additional $200 BILLION for 2008.
I
■1 : H m *S • Iraqi unemployment rate 5fS when carfew is ndt in effect: l e It P rivate C ontractors (IV Iercenaries) in Iraq w orking for th e U .S. A rm y 2 7 % - 6 0 %
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T h ird R a il w ill b e u p d a tin g th is p a g e e v e r y is s u e u n til th is c ru e l & ille g a l w a r is o ver. IT’S TOO HARD TO CREATE LOVE POEIVIS IN THIS MODERN ERA. FOR THE CONFUSED LOVE: f “MY IS HEART IS AN IPOD THAT SHUFFLES A DIFFERENT TUNE.’ FOR THE FRUSTRATED LOVE: “MY BLOOD SPEAKS TO ME FOR YOU LIKE ALLIANCE FIGHTING IN ALTERAC VALLEY IN UUORLDOFUUARORAF I SINCE PATCH 2.3.” FOR THE UNFAITHFUL LOVE: “MY LOVE IS LIKE A I SCHOLAR LOOKING ON THE INTERNET l! FOR DIFFERENT LINKS TO CONNECT TO.” FOR THE EPIC LOVE: “MY HEART SCREAMS FOR YOU LIKETAILORMADE’S LOVE FOR NELU YORK.” FOR THE SIMPLE LOVE: “I HEARTZU4REALZ.” FOR THE PAINFUL LOVE: “MY LOVE FOR YOU BYPASSES THE PAIN i OF UNDERGOING GASTRIC BYPASS.” FOR THE EXCITED LOVE: “MY BLOOD RISES LIKE A PHALLUS UUITH VIAGRA UUHEN I GATCH A GLIMPSE OF YOU.” FOR THE TRAGIC LOVE: “YOUR INATTENTIVENESS LEAVES ME FEELING LIKE BRITNEY IN A MENTAL INSTITUTION, BARE-HEADED.” FOR THE CLASSIC LOVE: “DO YOU LOVE ME? CIRCLE ONE: YES OR NO OR MAYBE.”
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IB WWW. THIRDRAILM AG ■ C l~Ke sicies e^es bleeding bloody pearl dropietSj as each pulsating beat slowly simmers, from tbe rose dagger ^ou sboved tbrougb m^ cKest, T h e soil-ground witb newi^ plants growing, absorbs tbe blood pooling out of mij heart.
You said the moon burns lesions on ^our face, when looking into my bluish-green ecjcs. You never understood why the moon did. T hen it shattered both your arms, legs and feet, when a bud began to blossom inside, the iced, /\rctic, crystallized heart you have.
T h e stars smiled o2;leamins: o across the mid— night bl ac\c- blue sky as we walked beneath it.
/ \ blossom grew deeper inside of you. T h e d e mons within you fought against me, as you said, light ill uminates off me.
The red beady eyed demon controlled you, as the skies eyes were bleeding blood droplets, when you shoved the rose dagger through my chest, whispering tenderly | love you dear. P l a n f o r SEGREGATING A m e r i c a . A N D I T S L a s t i nrs g
N T H E 19 6 0 ESSAY, “ThE O rIG IN I OF THE W ork of A rt,” the German philosopher M artin H eidegger suggests, “w hat seems NATURAL TO US IS PROBABLY JUST SOMETHING FAMILIAR IN A LONG TRADITION THAT HAS FORGOTTEN THE UNFAMILIAR SOURCE FROM WHICH IT AROSE.”^
eidegger’s quote is an apt description concerning the residential segregation that is evident in cities across the United States.H Many view our residential housing patterns as a “natural” result of the “free market” rather than the consequence of government intervention. Yet through an historical examination it becomes evident that government, and not the so-called “free market,” was the primary impetus in constructing the post- WWII modern housing market. As a direct result
A THIRD RAIL SPECIAL REPORT B Y JEFF MCGRAHAM P O L i r i C A L
A m e r i c a n government intervention greatly exacerbated African American to writing, structured in defined procedure, and implemented segregation and created a discourse that denied its own impact by individuals only after intense training.”*^ The appraisers’ by emphasizing the “free market” as the primary causal agent. written statements were not made in objective isolation, but This process had dire social consequences for many African rather in a larger cultural paradigm or discourse that induced Americans who were socially, economically, and politically racial prejudges which influenced their decision-making. As a isolated from the rest of societ)^. result, “redlining” was implemented on a massive scale and received government sanction.^
The HOLC codified a complex number, letter, and color coded system that rated neighborhoods based on socioeconomic criteria. This criteria was then utilized in real estate appraisal decisions based on the desirability of providing loans. White, wealthy “racially” homogenous neighborhoods received the highest rating on the four scale rating system. Jewish neighborhoods, even affluent ones, were never able to receive the highest rating. Black areas were deemed undesirable and consequently were given the lowest rating. HOLC applied information from their databases and created color-coded “Residential Securit)^ Maps” which were utilized in their offices In 1933, in the throes of the Great Depression, a thousand all over the United States.^ These maps provided HOLC foreclosure procedures were initiated daily as the housing market appraisers with detailed information on where Blacks currently was collapsing.^ To help alleviate the housing crisis, the FDR resided and where they may be encroaching on white enclaves. administration created the Home Owners Loan Corporation Even a small minorit)^ of African Americans in an overwhelming (HOLC) in June of 1933. HOLC provided “long-term, self- Caucasian neighborhood would cause HOLC appraisers to amortizing mortgage[s] with uniform payments spread over the designate the area with a low rating, and thus would be an whole life of the debt.”^ This new practice was counter to the impediment to its residents securing high-quality loans.^ prevailing historical wisdom that people should completely pay off their homes soon after purchasing them. It was not until the 7\lthough the HOLC favored neighborhoods that were 1920s that even short-term five to ten year mortgages became white and wealthy, its real damage was in systematizing popular. These mortgage plans were often renewed for seven and universalizing a racist discourse in the housing market. more years, “...but if a mortgage expired at a time when money HOLC’s well-crafted racialized maps were adopted by private was tight, it might be impossible for the homeowner to secure lenders and subsequent governmental housing programs a renewal, and foreclosure would ensue.”'^ HOLC completely that heavily utilized “redlining” techniques as part of their transformed the structure of the housing market and enabled modus operandi.'*^ This is not to claim that racial and ethnic homebuyers greater security in their purchase. In an effort to discrimination did not exist in the housing market prior to assist those who had lost their homes due to foreclosures, the government intervention, but only to argue that it created a HOLC provided loans to buy back their property.^ uniformed standard supported by the most influential financial and regulatory entity in the United States at the time— the The HOLC mushroomed into an enormous bureaucratic federal government. Prior to governmental intervention, racial network of investigators, whose primary duty was to determine and ethnic discrimination in housing was propagated at the the worth and feasibility of individual homes and the overall localized level, and “anti-racial agitation was checked by the neighborhoods in which they resided. The HOLC investigator’s prevaihng spirit of public policy and no ready liaison could be appraisal techniques relied on a census style questionnaire that effected-between federal officialdom and bigotry.” “ mixed personal demographic information with data about the condition of the housing stock in a given neighborhood. This H O LC ’s racist classification techniques had its most powerful was not new in appraisal systems; the originality “...lay in the influence on a subsequent New Deal program that adopted creation of formal and uniformed system of appraisal, reduced these methods and expanded them enormously: Columbia «» * *
. •» -**
Iftj* LEVtTTOWN, NEW YORK Levittown gets its name from its builder, '* the firm of Levitt & Sons, Inc., which ^ ' built it with mostly non-union labor as a planned community between 1947 and V 1951. Levittown was the first truly mass- produced suburb and is widely regarded as the archetype for postwar suburbs throughout the USA. African Americans \ and other minorities had no chance of i getting in, because Levitt had decided J from the start to admit only whites. 4 The whites-only policy was not some /' 'f — unspoken gentlemen's agreement. It was ' . /• cast in bold capital letters in clause 25 J i / ^ of the standard lease for the first Levitt f 1 ^ ' houses, which included an option to buy. flir POLITICAL DISCOURSE
A M E R ieA N ZSjaSUJuiSMEI
historian, Kenneth T. Jackson, noted (in 1985), “no agency of the United States government has had a more pervasive and powerful impact on the American people over the past half- century than the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).”^^ The program’s genesis was inscribed in the National Housing Act of 1934. The FHA worked in conjunction with the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (GI Bill), which was initiated by the Veterans Administration (VA).^^ The FHA provided mortgages for prospective homeowners through commercial lending agencies. The lending institutions provided mortgage loans on a massive scale without the risk of losing money in the case of default, because the FHA completely insured the loans. This program created a major transformation in the housing market. Down payments for homes went from the lowest rate of 30% to only 10%, and were completely amortized with long-term lower monthly payment plans and interest rates. Tlae effect reduced foreclosures “from 250,000 non-farm units in 1932 to only 18,000 in 1951, and generated a national house-building boom that created more homeowners and new suburban developments than ever before: “between 1934 and 1969 the percentage of families living in owner-occupied dwellings increased from 44% to 63%.” Yet the FHA had an inverse effect on the development of urban inner cities, by greatly exacerbating, what in the vernacular is termed “white flight.”
The FHA favored new all-white suburban developments over older racially mixed urban housing stock, thus it became less expensive for white families to move out to the suburbs than live in urban localities. The FHA Underwriting Manual explicitly restricted real estate developers “from introducing ‘incompatible’ racial groups into white residential enclaves.”^^ The Manual emphasized racial and class homogeneity as a way concretely cemented homogenous neighborhoods across the of maintaining a stable housing market in a given venue. It country where class, race, or cultural differences were viewed further advised residents to create “covenants, which were legal as a threat to real estate value. At the same time, the policies provisions written into property deeds,” to exclude African destroyed many urban heterogeneous neighborhoods where Americans from purchasing property.’*' The FHA produced even different groups lived side by side, or at least in close proximity more elaborate maps than did the HOLC. These sophisticated to each other. From 1935 to 1952 “less than 1 percent of new maps pinpointed where blacks currently lived and predicted dwelling construction was for the nonwhite families who future movement into white areas: “In a March 1939 map of comprise[d] 10 percent of the population.”’^ In cities that were Brooklyn, for example, the presence of a single, non-white family composed of a large African American presence, the FITA often on any block was sufficient to mark that entire block black.”’^ provided no assistance. Harvard scholars, Douglas Massey and The racial separation policies promoted by the FHA were so Nancy Denton illustrate the ramifications of this policy: strict that an apartheid fence had to be constructed between a black neighborhood and a white area before mortgages would [As late as 1 9 6 6 ]... the FHA had no mortgages in either Paterson be approved in the Eight Mile road section of Detroit (made or Camden, New Jersey, both older cities where the non-Hispanic famous in the Eminem film, 8 Mile)}^ The FHA’s pohcies white population was declining during the 1950s . . . Given the LEGEMD
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LEFT: HOLC's 1936 security map of Philadelphia showing redlining of minority neighborhoods. People who lived in the red zones could not get mortgages to buy or improve their homes. The HOLC maps are part of the records of the FHLBB (RG195) at the National Archives FAR LEFT: At the same time, the FHA advertised to millions of white middle and working class importance o f the FHA in the residential housing market, such Americans to apply for mortgages, loans and blanket redlining sent strong signals to private lending institutions, other financial arrangements. which followed suit and avoided making loans within the affected areas. The lack o f loan capital flowing into minority areas made it minorities, were excluded in favor of white middle-class citizens impossible for owners to sell their homes, leading to steep declines in who received the bulk of $119 billion the FHA spent insuring property values and a pattern o f disrepair, deterioration, vacayicy, homes between 1934 to 1974. Close to 50% of suburban and abandonment.^ homes in the United States from 1950 to 1970 received federal government assistants in acquiring a good mortgage, and as a This encouraged remaining whites to vacate urban areas for direct result, by the late 1960s, the majority of white American suburbia and take their capital with them, leaving blacks with families owned their own home.^' W hat had been the exclusive little resources. In fact, by 1970 whites represented a small privilege of the wealthy, had become the norm in white minority in both Paterson and Camden. American society, due to huge government expenditures that disproportionately benefited them. In 1955, in the aftermath The people who were in the most need of assistance in securing of W W II, Columbia urban planner Charles Abrams described a long-term low interest mortgage, the poor and working-class FHA policies: POLITICAL DISCOURSE FHA adopted a racial policy that could well have been it was the government’s policies that resulted in these culled from the Nuremberg laws. From its inception conditions. Freund notes that the “consensus” belief of - FHA set itself up as the protector of the all-white housing economists is that the housing market would be neighborhood. It sent its agents into the field to keep completely unrecognizable if government intervention Negroes and other minorities from buying homes in had never taken place^^: “...the state did not merely white neighborhoods. It exerted pressure against builders revive and expand existing housing markets— or who dared to build for minorities, and against lenders awaken ‘hibernating’ capital, as many contemporaries ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM willing to lend mortgages . . . It not only insisted on liked to say— but rather was instrumental in creating Percentage o f People social and racial 'homogeneity in all o f its projects as new supply, new demand, and new wealth.”^"* One People of color and persons of low socioeconomic status are still disproportionately impacted and the price of insurance but became the vanguard of white could argue that the government invented the modern o f C olor L iving N ear are particularly concentrated in neighborhoods supremacy and racial purity— in the North as well as housing market, and in so doing, transformed the way and communities with the greatest number of the South?^ millions of Americans lived for the better, or, in the Hazardous Waste Facilities. Race continues to be case of poor blacks, for the worse. H azardous W aste Facilities an independent predictor of where hazardous Source; Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty: 1987-2007., wastes are located, and it is a stronger predictor Racial discrimination had also previously existed United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice than income, education and other socioeconomic indicators. People of color now comprise a majority in the private housing market, but it was not in neighborhoods with commercial hazardous waste an institutional, universally unified policy until facilities, and much larger (more than two-thirds) the government, through the HOLC and FHA majorities can be found in neighborhoods with programs, forced private lenders to adopt a system clustered facilities. African Americans, Hispanics/ 'i ^ o p K ' of racial segregation."’ Initially, in the early 1920s, Latinos and Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders alike are disproportionately burdened by hazardous the largest lobbying organization for real estate ) 0 % wastes in the U.S. interests, the National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB), promoted a strong anti-racist PROPAGANDIZING A agenda in housing.^*’ O f course, the membership Le g e n d GOVERNMENTAL MYTH of the NAREBA had conflicting viewpoints. For instance, in 1923 a high-ranking NAREB official Within 1 ! a. Type gfcjte cqU sT c l a ^ ; Jb. Estiaated annual family income t ^ c. Fbreifii-born _OSL 5; d. Negro Jia . A m e r i c a n (Wationality) (T*s or to) discourse surrounding the issue of housing by invoking the more muted form—well into the 1960s,”^^ and the FFIA “free market.” “continued to encourage the use of privately published ABOVE: An HOLC property assessment form requiring appraisal standards that identified racially ‘mixed’ the ethnic composition of assessed neighborhoods, including foreign born and "Negro" inhabitants. The FHA propagated a narrative based on the myth that the occupancy as an actuarial risk.”^'^ This message “free market” was the primary deciding factor in housing had such an impact that even today white right to refuse public housing funds. This exacerbated sales, home financing, and residential living patterns in the suburbanites often justify racial exclusion segregation: white middle-class communities often refiised United States. This narrative pushed forward the premise in their neighborhoods by stating the government’s funding, thus keeping their municipalities that government only slightly assisted the “free market” in that property values would decline. project free and often minority free too. As a consequence these activities. Simultaneously, the government narrative This discourse provided Caucasians of these actions, projects were usually built in poor, socially disseminated the belief that racial segregation was based on with an ontological justification for and economically isolated sections of urban America (ghettos). well-founded scientific economic principles, and not on racism segregation and an accompanying This process resulted in dichotomous images in many citizen’s per se; the market, not racist human beings determined these myth of how they succeeded in the polices. The New Dealers promoted market forces as the creative “free market” at much higher rates than minds: suburbs are safe, white havens from societal ills; while energy in the new housing market because they had to phrase minority groups. inner cities are black, dangerous places filled with “social their programs in an appealing fashion to make it politically pathologies.”^^ digestible to the “free market” proponents in Congress and private industry.^' The FHA sponsored a huge marketing campaign utilizing subsidization to radio, film, newspapers, fliers, conventions, and live speakers to local governments promote their programs cloaked in “free market” rhetoric to a for initial building costs. largely white audience. During the first week of the campaign, These large developments provided jobs for an underemployed the FHA sent close to 30,000 lending agency documents construction workforce, but as soon as the post-War recovery outlining its procedures, and spent around $200 million in its was in full swing, the USHA was badly under funded.^* first four months. Over half of the country’s daily newspapers provided sections, sometimes totaling over 30 pages, detailing Due to a Federal Court ruling in 1935 that prohibited the the “free market” housing programs the FHA offered.^^ In 1941, government from exercising eminent domain in creating an official for FHA, Abner Ferguson, spoke to black business The social and economic isolation of the projects often land for public housing, every individual community had the resulted in depressing and dangerous living conditions for its leaders and crystallized the propaganda his agency promoted In the absence of mortgages that were long-term, self-amortizing, occupants and for those residents in claiming that the FFT\ does not discriminate, but by law and with structured uniformed low interest payment plans, within the adjacent neighborhoods. cannot interfere with the “free market” in deciding what types the poor, largely black, urban residents in the United States Although these conditions were of residents are desirable.As Freund points out, “on the issues were provided public housing. Kenneth Jackson delineates the not an accident, but rather the of homeownership, neighborhood integrity, and race, federal effects of public housing: programs helped popularize the story that suburban growth cause of racist social policies, nonetheless, many in the middle- and prosperity, as well as racial segregation and poverty that The result, i f not the intent, o f the public housing programs o f class blamed the poor residents. A accompanied it, owed nothing to the state’s own efforts.”^^ the United States was to segregate the races, to concentrate the common, but completely erroneous disadvantaged in inner cities, and to reinforce the image o f belief, propagated by the federal The FHA propagandized a racist discourse that permeated suburbia as a place o f refuge from the problems o f race, crime government, was that white middle- throughout society from media representations to formal and poverty. By every measure, the Housing Act o f 1937 was an class people succeeded on their FFIA conventions to a simple conversation with a neighbor important stimulus to deconcentration?^ over a white picket fence. This created what Michel Foucault referred to as a “normalizing” discourse which promoted and The 1937 Housing Act (Wagner-SteagallAct) created the United legitimated racist attitudes; “suburban residents, realtors, and States Housing Authority (USHA), which provided funds to elected officials defended racial restrictions by pointing to the local municipalities to set up housing agencies responsible for racial compatibility guidelines from FHA appraisal manuals. the constructing, maintenance, and management of public Private sector publications continued those guidelines—if in a housing projects. The USFiA deposited long-term loans and 1 25 50 75 100 125 150 Number of Black Residents S B W W W . RAIL RAtiL' own accord without the assistance of are the norm in poor urban government, so why can’t these poor Your Door to areas, resulting in significantly residents achieve the same success? lower life chances for these Kenneth Jackson makes it clear that pupils. This had a dramatic effect the effect, if not always the intent, of FHH in stabilizing the status quo: housing policy in the United States the French sociologist Pierre greatly enhanced the opportunities for Bourdieu suggests education one group and greatly diminished the life HOMEOWNERSHIP replicates and reproduces the chances for another group: class structures. American housingpolicy was not only devoid of social objectives, but One reason most citizens do not make a connection between instead helped establish the basis for social inequities. Uncle Sam governmental policies and the array of problems that exist in was not impartial, but instead contributed to the general disbenefit the inner cities is the lack of an historical analysis. To speak o f the cities and to the general prosperity o f the suburbs}'^ of historical relationships and complexities as a cause of the social position of many poor African Americans today is Because of government policies the cities became largely black often considered taboo. The historical relationships have and poor, while the suburbs were affluent and white. As opposed been diffused, left without much of a trace. Rather, talk of to being checked and restricted by the federal government, social dysfunction is mired in patronizing discourses of self racial discrimination in housing was actually promoted by the responsibility (Bill Cosby), or the resurgence of eugenics { Jhe government. This gave racists like the Levitt brothers the ability Bell Curve). This relegates most of the responsibility to those to create enormous apartheid housing developments where no who have been the victims of historical government sanctioned African Americans resided: “In 1960 not a single one of the oppression. The same government used its power of hegemony Long Island Levittown’s 82,000 residents was black.”'^^ to propagate an ahistorical discourse of the “free market” as the primary cause of segregation in housing patterns. Yet an Segregation implemented from the federal government had a historical examination yields us knowledge of the unfamiliar wide-effect: it set a tone of racially exclusive tactics as acceptable source from which those circumstances we consider natural governmental policy that was mimicked at the local level across and familiar arose, the country. Suburbanites often utilized covenants, zoning ordinances, and FHA backed polices to • • 1. Krell, David Farrell, ed. A study of Prejudice in 22. Abrams, Op. Cit. pg. deny poor urban residents the opportunity Martin Heidegger: Basic Housing. New York: Harper 229-230. Writings From Being in Time & Brothers, 1955, pg. 151. 23. Freund. OP. Cit. pg. 18, to move into their neighborhoods, while at to The Task of Thinking. San 12. Jackson. Op, Cit. pg. 24. Ibid., pg. 20. the same time, accepting no responsibility Francisco: HarperCoilins, 203. 1993, pg, 150. 25. Ibid., pg. 18-19. for the array of problems in the inner city. 13. Ibid., pg. 203. 2. Jackson, Kenneth T. 26. Abrams. Op. Cit. pg. For example, city zoning laws were utilized Crab Grass Frontier: The 14. Ibid., pg. 204; and 154, Suburbanization of the Massey and Denton, Op. as a tactic by local governments to keep out o United States. New York: Cit, pg. 53. 27. Ibid., pg. 155. certain undesirables from living in suburban Oxford, 1985, pg. 193. 15. Freund, David M.R 28. Ibid., pg. 156. neighborhoods: “apartments, factories, and 3. Ibid., pg.196. "Marketing the Free Market: 29. Ibid., pg. 157. State Intervention and the ‘blight,’ euphemisms for blacks and people of 4. Ibid., pg. 197. Politics of Prosperity in 30. Ibid., pg. 171, lim ited means, were rigidly excluded.”"^^ This 5. Massey, Douglas S, and Metropolitan America." In 31. Freund Op. Cit. pg. o Nancy A. Denton. American The New Suburban History, 21-23. also meant that heavy industry was often Apartheid: Segregation edited by Kevin M. Kruse 32. Ibid., pg. 24. placed in urban localities, and the effect of and the Making of the and Thomas J. Sugrue, o Underclass. Cambridge: University of Chicago Press, 33. Ibid., pg. 30. these environmentally racist zoning laws can Harvard University Press, 2006. 34. Ibid., pg. 32. be seen in the high rates of asthma among u . 1993, pg. 51. 16. Jackson. Op. Cit. pg. 35. Ibid., pg. 29. inner-city children. Another consequence is 6. Jackson, Op. Cit. pg. 197. 208. 36. Ibid., pg. 31. the inequitable nature of school funding in 7. Ibid.,pg. 197, 17. Ibid., pg, 209, 37. Jackson. Op Cit. pg. 219. 8. Ibid., pg. 199. 18. Ibid the United States; the local tax base often 38. Ibid., pg. 224. 9. Ibid., pg. 201, 19. Abrams. Op, Cit. pg, 39. Ibid., pg. 227. determines the amount of funding a school 172, 10. Massey and Denton, Op. 40. Ibid., pg. 230. district receives. Thus, a system was created Cit. pg. 52. 20. Massey and Denton, Op. 41. Ibid., pg. 241. where inferior educational opportunities 11. Abrams, Charles. Cit, pg. 55. Forbidden Neighbors; 21. Jackson, Op. Cit. pg, 215. 42. Ibid., pg. 242. f ' ! , ( ti ’*** m # J l i S ^ a u s ^ f 8 S f I 1 1 ^ Hr. I lU --W^ ' Ji—MMI .Jt;. G0VI6.C0 The United Nations concluded in a study on Global Warming that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined. Senior U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization official Henning Steinfeld reported that the meat industry is “one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems.” CULTURAL DISCOURSE ♦ \ prevalence in how we approach medicine. Within this narrative, he neatly wove the results of CSHL research to the concepts and theories behind what might cause autism, schizophrenia, and cancer. He mentioned that he was not a genetic determinist and emphasized the importance of everyone keeping themselves + informed, especially when it k S S comes to their own health and how doctorswouldtreat it. He wants people , f to understand that StillmanStillman ^who is responsible f o r t h e privacy of one's the environment, ownown DN/s DNA scan results, he replied, "You are responsible." Dr. like smoking and StillmanStillman | points out that a DNA map, which can point out any asbestos, play a geneticgenetic nmarkers, like mutations, indicating what diseases the critical role, too. individual individua is susceptible to, is just as private as the results to a b lo o d te st, o r any lab test. When a member i f l r i of the Secret Dr. Stillman had canceled a trip to speak with scientific Science peers in Boston on the latest in DNA studies to enjoy • T i l l • 1 1 > 1 r ; BY NIKKI SAINT BAUTISTA Club ^ k a few glasses concocted by the Secret Science Club a s k e d % Mixologist, and instead chose to speak to a more informal audience of students, professionals, n the first Wednesday of every month, guests 1940s and '50s lab, Barbara McClintock's discovery of and drop-outs alike. It was, nonetheless,leless a together experts in O m ight g e t tu rn e d dow n a t th e d o o r u p to hatf-an- genetic transposition, and its role in the repression sophisticated audience—a comfortableifortable *'’® sciences hour before the stage opens in the underground and expression of physical characteristics in maize, \ ^ balance of non-isolating (andd rather ra th e r P®°P'® bar at the trendy Park Slope yuppie hang out. Union earned her the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine - \ sociable) intellectuals and hipsters Hall. A crowd of asymmetrical hairstyles, retro shoes, in 1983. James D. Watson won a Nobel Prize in 1962 for ^ who were not too repulsivelyjulsively “‘thout 90s styled black-framed glasses, tight pants-wearing discovering the double helix structure of DNA, and for any pretense. Past young people pour into every open space available in noting that nucleic acids carry genetic information. He guests in this free the basement, not to swing their hips or bob their heads did his w ork a t th e CSHL an d a ttra c te d The Union Hall science lectures to the latest underground music phenomenon, but to Bruce Stillman in 1979. At that time, r Secret Sciencee Club Club series hear scientists speak for two hours. . a Dr. Stillman was a post-doctorate acknowledges that being included an NYU ,# •# student from Australia looking to intelligent, imaginative,re, fun, neuroscientist The bevy assembled on February 6, 2008 to h ear further investigate his own genetic and open-minded makesi for a by the name of Bruce Stillman give a two-hour talk on the future ifa J research, originally only for a year swanky profile. Their meetingsgs bring Joseph LeDoux of molecular medicine. , o rtw o . and his band, the A m y g d a I o i d s , Bruce Stillman is the president of the Cold "However," he affably told his and some Nobel Spring H arbor Laboratory, CSHL, w hich is T." audience after finishing his third Prize winners, such as Dr. Harold dedicated to molecular biology research Double (Make that a triple!) Helix,'1 met Bruce Stillm an Varmus and Eric Kandel. and scientific outreach dedicated to an American and stayed for the next 29 speaks in fro n t of educate the community and collaborate years." a packed audience The club's MySpace page insists, with scientists around the world at Union Hall. "Just bring your own smart self." about DNA. The lab is known for its - # Dr. Stillman veryclearly navigated his listeners groundbreaking research in cancer^ through the history of genetics beginning plant-genetics, neurobiology, and ** ^ with Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin, bioinformatics, and has engaged ^ - * to unraveling the code written in the 6 with 85 Nobel Laureates over ^ 0 . feet of coiled DNA, and en d in g w ith th e the course of a century. In the / future of genetics and its increasing ■■ /., / / : f / . l i r r n i lir e . C '" ^ > U r e s o i i i e . ^ I ..;i. ^ l l i j l l l l t cii lllciy^ciZ1110*S0r|j01l{jLil6@ yillcll *00111 3 B www.THlRD RAILMAG .com w««''Pi«iPPPi^™ jn^fn#numu.« ...... OK. So maybe w e lied when w e said we can guarantee youMI get laid by joining T h ird Rail. But while we can't guarantee you that, we CAN guarantee that you'll have lots of fun yvriting, photographing, designing, poeticizing (that's our nfiade up word for creating poetry), investigating, debating, drawing and, oh yeah—criticizing the CSI Administration (they don't get enough of that). And if you're really lucky, maybe you w on't just write about the news—you'll be the news! So join Third Raitl O u r meetings are in the Campus Center (1C) during Club Hours; To find out when our next meeting Is visit our website at www.ThirdRailM ag.com, or give us a call at 718-982-3105. And who knows, you Just might get laid. C O M R A D E 1 C THE FOURTH ESTATE & THE V O t U T t O N I n France, before the Revolution of other word for it but disgusting. 1789, there was the Ancien Regime Just open up your daily newspaper, and a n d th e Etats Generaux, translated as take a look at how many advertisements th e 'Estates General, which was a legisla there are in it. Just page after page after tive body of the different classes (called page of advertisements with stories bur TIME estates) of the French people. Jeffrey ied between them, just thrown and for Archer, in his book The Forth Estate d e gotten among the many ads, newspapers scribes the Ancien Regime and quotes are more about advertisements than the Edmund Burke as saying, “In May 1789, news. Look at your local news provider, Louis XVI summoned to Versailles a full whether it is NYl, CNN, NBC, ABC, meeting of the ‘Estate General. The First CBS, MSNBC or even God forbid FOX Estate consisted of three hundred Clergy. News. Look at all the ads, and if there is The Second Estate, three hundred nobles. a negative story about one of these adver The Third Estate, six hundred common tisers it’s just about a guarantee the story ers. Some years later, after the French won’t run. It should be a bit disturbing Revolution, Edmund Burke, looking to us all that a news organization would up at the Press Gallery of the House of put its profits ahead of its solemn duty to Commons said, ‘Yonder sits the Fourth inform the public. Estate, and they are more im portant than There used to be a thing called jour them all.’” nalistic integrity. It has become obvious Even Napoleon once said, “.. .seven an to me after watching the nightly news, gry newspapers are more dangerous than a these twenty-four hour news channels thousand legions.” The Press wields power and reading what passes for newspapers like no other, it shapes the way we think, in this day and age, that it is dead. D ur and what we learn and how we view the ing the height of the Cold War, there was world and ourselves. Yet their power a respected journalist named Edward R. goes unchecked; the capitalist system has Murrow who during the London Blitz of turned them into propaganda machines. 1940 reported live as the bombs did fall. The biggest and best-known example is But after W orld War II, during the 1950s FOX News and anything owed by News at the height of the Cold War paranoia Corporation, the company that is owned and the burden of McCarthyism, it was and operated by industrialist Rupert M ur only he that stood up to Senator Joseph doch. News Corp. owns so many compa M cCarthy while all others bent, before nies and subsidiaries that it is disgusting: him in fear about a list of Communists four publishing companies, over one hun that didn’t exist. But Edward R. M urrow dred fifty newspapers worldwide, thirty- stood up to this bullying. Now all of the five magazines, at least four radio or m u old guard is gone and has been replaced sic studios and so many television stations TOP: Edward R. Murrow over the last twenty years. on the cover of TIME magazine both regular, cable or satellite. There is no There are others of integrity, great men BELOW: White House Correspondent Helen Thomas of journalism such as Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather. Wal various crimes that have been committed? If so, why aren’t those ter Cronkite became instrumental in the end of the Vietnam voices louder? W hat happened to this being a “Nation of the War. Forty years ago this past January marked forty years since People, By the People and For the People”? Today, we are a na the Tet Offensive in which North Vietnamese Army units and tion of the special interests, by the few, for the privileged. Why rebel Viet Cong guerrillas launched attacks all over South Viet have we allowed this? This is the state of America today be nam, including the seizure of the American Embassy in Saigon cause we have allowed the few and the privileged, those with old (modern day Ho Chi Min City). The Tet Offensive was a fail money to run everything. As seen above, if a company wants a ure in that it only succeeded in taking the old Imperial City story buried and forgotten, it is easily accomplished. Added to of Hue. But after the fighting, Cronkite, the head anchor of the fact that for all intents and purposes, journalistic integrity CBS Nightly News, announced that he believed that the war is dead, the nightly news does not feature journalists— they fea in Vietnam could not be won. As President Lyndon Johnson ture anchor men and women who care about being on TV and would say, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost America.” And never reporting the slop that they say is news. in the last twenty years could I recall any news anchors with Wliat passes for news on TV is not. Instead, they push fear the dignity, and most importantly, and paranoia onto the people. the integrit)^ of a Dan Rather or a They tell you what household Walter Cronkite. These were men item might kill you, more at 11; cut from the same cloth and it is they glorify murders and oth a travesty that there are no longer CP* ers of that ilk; its celebrit)^ gos any men like them. Channel sip and noise; noise, its all just But for as much praise as I give white noise. Domestic news is Dan Rather, he is but a man and has downplayed and major coverage his flaws. After September 1 1th, he iD IM O CRA CY n p r of overseas happenings is almost was asked why people around the I non-existent. Americans go about world hated America. He replied their lives barely aware of actions the he “didn’t know” but later he taken by other countries around revealed to the BBC that he had the world. In a way, Americans lied so that people would not ques are blissfully ignorant of the rest tion his patriotism. I would hope of the world, but the actions of that this is something that Edward 2 4 September 11, 2001 should have R. Murrow would not have done. □ □ a NEWS shown us that the old adage, Murrow would have told the truth “what you don’t know can’t hurt and stood up for what he believed. you” is wrong and that what you But we must forgive Dan Rather‘s don’t know can get you killed. ® C B S failings, for the world is a very dif EVENING It may seem that all is doom ferent place today than from that PBS n e w s and gloom, but there is a shred of the 1950s. IMBC of hope out there. NPR, PBS and Some may wonder why I have the British BBC all provide actual not mentioned any women, and balanced news reports of home the truth is that there was one THE WALL STREET JOURNAL and abroad, sans the fake filler woman who I believed was equal to them all— Barbara Walters. they put in your nightly news. But the sad thing is NPR and But I feel sadness and regret for her now, to have fallen as far as PBS (which are publicly funded) keep having their budgets cut she has, to have gone from one of the most respected people in by Congress because Republicans don’t want an educated public. journalism to a host of The View on daytime television. There Hence, why the travesty that is No Child Left Behind got passed. is one more prominent female journalist with integrit)^. Helen But that is a subject for another edition of Comrade X (that’s if Thomas, a White House correspondent, has been shaking Presi the fascists don’t spirit me away in the middle of the night). dents in their boots for the past several decades. There is also now with the dawning of the internet (which is ★ ★ ★ ★ probably the second or third greatest invention man has ever Nowadays, one must ask the question: Has any journalist come up with, after the wheel) which has revolutionized global stood up to the Bush Administration? Has anyone demanded communication. The internet allows anyone, anywhere on the that those in the Administration be brought to justice for the face of this here planet Earth access to any t}^pe of information ^.THIRDRAILMAG.com 3 9 q O M R A D E ^ that twenty years ago was almost impos sible to do. And this is relevant because in the last couple of years, news websites and “blogs” (I hate that word, and pod cast, I just hate them, there have to be better words for it!) have increased in popularity allowing people to have more independent news sources. The downside to this is the questionability and accuracy of the news source (which in mainstream news is bad enough). However, it is a step in the right direction, which hopefully will spread to the mainstream media. For if the last eight years is any indication, the mainstream corporate media have failed us utterly in allowing our once great na tion to degrade into what it is today. ★ ★ ★ ★ How can we have accurate news? Well the first thing to do would be to provide public funding to all newspapers and TV news; that way they wouldn’t have to wor ry about offending an advertiser that was that over the last ten years the Right has must open our eyes to the lies that are committing crimes and denying workers controlled this country. So if something floated before us everyday. Barbara Bush their rights and poisoning their custom offended them on PBS or NPR, they used to tell school children to read a ers. We need to liberate the media from would simply cut their budget. So we book everyday; what we should be tell corporate ties so that they can freely re must ask ourselves where is a good place ing children and ourselves is to question port on the issues without financial con to get news? what we read. For then, and only then, sequences. Or short of that, the Ameri Well, an even better choice of news once the eyes of the people are opened, can public should demand more funding than PBS or NPR would be the Pacifica change will follow. for PBS and NPR and should watch and News Network, whose most famous show So what about the Fourth Estate and listen to the great programs on them; is Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman the Revolution? From this inaugural edi maybe, just maybe, the American public as its host. I highly recommend listening tion of Comrade X, we can come to the at large will learn something— something and watching this broadcast, available on conclusion that the Revolution will not that too many people in this nation have CUNY TV, Free Speech TV, Link TV, be televised, and that the mainstream a vested interest in stopping. and at www.democracynow.org. De corporate media will be counter, if not But I must admit, that PBS and NPR mocracy Now! has amazing news coverage completely anti-revolutionary. So we have their downsides. It has been shown and manages to cut through all of the cannot rely on them when the revo by various think-tanks that PBS and Right’s agitprop in order to tell the peo lutionary times come. But afterwards, NPR have far more guests on their re ple the Truth! The unenviable Truth, not when We The People are victorious they spective shows from the political Right “versions” of the truth or the downright will have to answer for the crimes they than the political Left. It has fiirther been lies that are sold to us day in and day out have helped commit and have covered shown that PBS and NPR have far more in our colorless lives, which the market up so that ONE percent of the popula radical right-wingers on their respec has created and transformed us all into tion of this country can have 40 percent tive shows than radical left-wingers (see mindless zombies. Democracy Now! gives of the wealth! As for N PR and PBS, let www.fair.org). So maybe it is wrong to us the dirty hard Truth that makes you us hope that this November that a liberal say that they are completely fair and bal open your eyes and look around and re will enter the White House and remove anced, but they are more so than regular alize how much is wrong with the world the Sword of Damocles, that is the fear mainstream corporate news, which is at and why no one in power tries to change of budget cuts from above their head, least a start. We must also ask ourselves it. If I may quote Edmund Burke one and allow them to bring the Truth to the why these publicly fiinded programs are more time, “Evil prevails when good people as well. shifting to the Right? Well, the reason is men do nothing.” And that is why we L’internationale sera le genre humain! '* 4 Who am I? • No...wait nigga...who the hell are you? • Yes, I am gay, and I ki»w the Bible say it's a sin • But again, who the hell are you? • Who are you to throw down those stones at my pretty feet? • Who gave you the right to iaiel me something that I am not. • Who the hell are you to aim for my jugular with the ragged rusty sharp end of you cutlass of harsl^r^tg^nd^derogatry words? ••• Faggot, sissy-boy, maricon, batti-rider, anitiman...the list goes on and on. But who the hell are you to give me suci as I how, I only got two motha-fuckin parents, and to further benefit from them, they gave me my name in which none of those thi /•II ^My name is Sheldon JaVaughn Bourne, and I answer to NO other name. • Furthermore, I don't answer to no one oi fe. • Y'ali d ^ ^ a ra and outline my destiny. • Y'all haven't walked a quart of a mile in my size 10 and a half's. ••• You know what I fii eneveb li^aboiiit^^osgj^i^itygriv^th cross reference the Bible, they can never tell me the exact scripture where it says fo r^ ^ ^ d fo i^ ^ K s^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ing so, I make sure that the same God that you use to crucify me walks by my side. ••• Se •STt iHffilSTknow l^^rouVMlly don't. • Y'all run around here no better than me casting, and throwing stones. down'airal^ging for earthly treasure. • Why? • Shit...the answer's^retty simple. • I don't need alVthat. • I got IS, a id ' sSShrougnjn^ton^^SiHipw many of y'all prosecutors ' "’V \ ^ '' I and persecutors can sayi^at.«Y'all so busy persecuting people's » u lj thatmos 't^’^ thie light till it'i^on^ of you are even to ashamed to shine it; yet, yQ||^RR^i;st one to quote scripture, or at least yoir op viefslonrot it:^» I aitfHWashilil|^ ^ ^ h o I am. I used to be, but £ ■ .S K K m - A ' J l ' i not anymore.»Whv should me? It's a sin. ^ ' ll^ ^ ^ n sin , and none of us are M ^ _ perfect |W6rry about ' you «^i^ff|^T2 *^^tiS»'cloe^'t Hi in you • 1 -1 -1 S ht between my Jesus, my God, and mer**« So again...Who^. !?^No...who the hell ai )U w uSt a n iqm asshole with an opinion. % • The^ame opinion you use t lakeyoursell I am talking about Mr " ^ you.gJustice, love, and LOU w in'^afti n.fetter off than you, and jpotenl? lent a mnipresent@v@ inBividiiBBin, wants, needs and i'tc < i1 oj|ss me off.^l've had en^igH^oeol pen scars. • Wit id dis1 ^ y^ all at onc«H^|gvj^go and thiiil ntinue tojearn I’ allt f J O / . J ne^ing I though^ ll nd "^(jP ' If #• ’SSiHtTilirSoul are iivE^t and last forever^*»BmSheldoi WWW. R A IL "*rv- ' . i&k. __ ___ Societies forceful yet impaired ideology of trying to shape taken rather than just giving the truth of opportunity. Once one with the molding of race is the avalanching effect of again it is the spellbound mind that still must regain full awakening the implantation of one’s dormant belief of consciousness and inhale reality. The effort put into schools inequality. The belief that one must undermine another having diversity has led to the racism of non-minorities. because of race or in a workplace choose another because the Qualifications no longer are important, yet the color of one’s DEAR THIRD RAIL, irresponsibility and ignorance, and is law says so; not because of credentials but because of color, skin is. We often wonder as people of color in dire need of rehabilitation. History proves how injustice still remains. The challenge that should WTiy can’t everyone be color blind and think of people why we are so victimized in today’s has unquestionably repeated itself just be brought to one’s attention is: who is being discriminated as human beings measuring one’s ability on intellect and society. W hy children in lower income with opposite ends of the spectrum. against? Society has glued the black race on a throne of experience rather than the insignificance of color. African housing are “ghetto” and already labeled Ownership of the external has stormed greatness, and given schools the ingredient of diversity. Americans might as well put the chains back on because this failures. We blame the “white” society into a conflict between mind and body. prey. Affirmative Action has boldly lessened the workload for is what we are doing figuratively. The captivity of the mind and everyone else; however never do The detainment of African Americans T h ‘blacks’ and carried it over to the ‘white’ population. Now will never allow the body to reach its full capacity. we stop and see who is really to blame. during the eighteenth century has psychological defect of where’s the public rioting and marching? Thank you for your time in advance. It is us. The black race that wallows unequivocally formed an acceptable being brainwashed into believing that Nowhere, because of this worldly insane asylum that has in pity—the confined mentality of insanity given the title—racism, in an individual of African American bred a community of charity rather than allowing equality Sincerely this free world. The catastrophic time which this race so proudly stands descent is a target for “white society” to be achieved. Citizens sit on giving back what was once Grace M cM illan period of slavery has caused a crusade upon. The wall of discrimination has has hypnotized people of color into of ignorance often referred to as racial radiated waves of unconscious blame believing it to be true. Many people discrimination. The illusion of color on others rather than individuals today are entrapped in the mindset JEFFMcGRAHAM, has branded tags of societal grief upon facing reality. The that slavery has hexed NON-FICTION EDITOR RESPONDS individuals; especially in the African chains and whips upon the minds of American race. The physical constraint that scarred the African Americans. Sociologist Stephanie Coontz in her excellent book, The eighteenth century has unequivocally formed an acceptable of slavery led to a semi-permanent black race in the TTbi h i FoMa] r d Ara or Rth« CcAigt a of St»n i isiwd l The mishap of African Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia insanity given the title - racism, in which this race so emotional state of blindness. The eighteenth century American families Trap (Basic Books, 1992), elucidates how political proudly stands upon.” McMillan also refers to those who everlasting battle of obtaining freedom has relived its birth unknowingly hindering mythology is created by an author who is ideologically believe racism is real as being “brainwashed,” One of for those once captured has become in through a present their children because charged: “The Little House on the Prairie book series based McMillan’s most audacious and stupefying claims is that vain. The Emancipation Proclamation day mentality. of something that on the memoirs of Laura Ingalls Wilder, were extensively real discrimination is being perpetrated against whites due has unquestionably backfired and The incorruptible happened centuries ago revised by her daughter as an ideological attack on to affirmative action programs and this has resulted in a caged the once desire of freedom in chains that once is undeniably forming government programs.” Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter racist backlash: “the effort put into schools having diversity a lethal hindrance. The excised out of her mother’s manuscripts any mention of has led to the racism of non-minorities. Qualifications no imbalance of trying to governmental assistance and thus proliferated a myth that longer are important, yet the color of ones (sic) skin is.” modify this world into a her ancestors were “rigged individualists” who thrived Admitting that racism does exist, no matter the supposed vicinity in which the past in isolation from the aid of government. This myth was cause, is in complete contradistinction to what McMillan is a fog memory into a achieved by reducing complex social and historical realities claimed as being a chimera based on mental illness in the place of modernity and into simplistic narratives of self-reliance. first part of her letter. technological advances Grace McMillan employs a similar reductionistic Contradictions aside, McMillan exhibits either purposely will never be in royal pursuit line of reasoning in her letter blaming African or genuinely a profound ignorance of the racist structures of due to the grudges of society. Americans for their plight as a people. American society. Perhaps she should have read W hat K ind The greatest fault of one is to McMillan utilizes a familiar tactic of those o f Card is Race? by Tim Wise and A Long History of Racial proudly wear the badge of who are ideologically bent on ignoring the Preferences—fo r Whites by Larry Adelman (both published ignorance and continuously pervasiveness of racism: she ignores historical in Third Rail, Volume 2007, Issue 9) in a more careful and walk with the staff of and contemporized racist structures by attentive fashion to gain some understanding of the racist accusation rather than run reducing racism to the institution of slavery, society she resides in (she should also read my article on post with armor of accountability. and thus proposes that racism is a mental war governmental housing discrimination in th is issue). The seemingly inescapable illness that blacks need to get over: “The In response to McMillan, I will list some basic facts views of mankind stands detainment of African Americans during the (although, one could list evidence of post-slavery racism that as a narcotic in the form of the eighteen hundreds into the mental had the binding power of limiting media, radio, etc suffocating handicap of victimization today. This movement of the wrist, hand and feet and luring the dependents The opinions expressed in responses by Third Rail members are plague of ignorance has manifested are no longer adhesive to the body, of society—children and solely representing their own opinions and do not necessarily itself into the minds of most African yet remains unbreakable on the mind, teenagers into their world represent the opinions of Third Rail Magazine or its staff. Americans, causing a generation of inflicting the heritable trait of being of perception and illusion. I ^ 5 LETTERS SNA/L MAIL: ON THE WEB: T h ird Rail Magazine O rop O ff www.ThirdRailMag.com c/o College of Staten Island In P erson: would fill volumes of tomes): firstly, from Jim Room 231 in the Campus Crow and lynching to sentencing discrepancies E-MAIL: Center or in our mailbox for identical crimes (i.e. crack cocaine versus [email protected] located in Room lC-207 powdered cocaine and the death penalty) to (Student Government Office) racial profiling to child poverty, racism is a key factor in American society. Secondarily, it is a well- 1 • th documented fact that formal affirmative action programs century have aided white women more than any other demographic phenomenon, but of group. Of course, wealthy well-connected white men course, slavery did not officially (i.e. President Bush) have benefited more than any other end until 1865. A nd as historian Eric segment of the population from the extensive preference Foner has demonstrated, the de facto conditions of slavery programs practiced at elite universities. Thirdly, as Jonathan were present long after this period. Kozol has exhaustively documented in his books, schools Finally, McMillan’s account, like much of the idiocy in the United States are highly segregated based on racial that is considered political discourse in our society, rests demographics. In most places in the United States, school upon reductionistic formalizations that allow the most funding is based on the housing tax structure. In other words, ignorant among us to engage in a debate that should require wealthy districts receive far more funding per pupil than do its participants to at least have a rudimentary knowledge of poorer districts. Due to the isolation of many poor African black history. One cannot imagine individuals engaging American communities, as opposed to many poor whites in a debate about physics, astronomy, or English literature who often reside in small towns and attend economically without having done some preparatory work. But with heterogeneous schools, a black child has a much greater racism— the most uninformed, “proudly wear the badge chance of receiving an inferior education in our society. of ignorance and continuously walk with the staff of Fourthly, McMillan consistently asserts that slavery was an accusation rather than run with armor of accountability”. CSI PARKING VIOLENCE COVER-UP? without a fight and I know that your magazine has the the fire I need. I must use discretion because a lawsuit is pending. Please help me to raise awareness....they pretend this isn’t an issue. [Students name withheld by request] CSI Student RE: CRITICAL M ASS DEAR THIRD RAIL, Bikes! I was so happy when, last year as I was wandering around, CSI campus looking DEAR THIRD RAIL, for a friend of mine who was I really enjoy reading your material and I thought of a student at the time, I came writing to you due to an issue that I think the campus across your magazine. It makes is hiding. I was assaulted on campus over parking me rest a little easier at night to and received stitches. CSI has so many disputes over know that there are other socially parking every day and something must be done. They and politically conscious Staten Islanders around. provide, I mean, charge us for parking passes and do not provide enough parking spaces. I have a black Solidarity! eye and stitches over a spot for class. I won’t go down Joe Pilofogranh SUBM IT, or DIE. G et Published in Third R ail M agazine! 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