Cover Story
For 25 years, the BSM has played an intricate role in the
lives of students, faculty and staff at the University As the
student-led organization moves into its 26th year, former
presidents say it must not forget its beginnings.
Time for BCC Debate
to End
You knew it seemed a little loo good to be true — a free-standing
Black CulUiral Center, that is.
Here I was. little Ms. naive (well, maybe not quite), thinking that
once the Board of Trustees voted for a free-standing BCC, the
toughest fight would be over.
But now, thanks lo former BOT member John Pope who placed an
ad in the Chapel Hill Herald News opposing a BCC, and to the person
who wasted their money on those airplanes during the Homecoming
game, the fight for a free-standing Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural
Center seems far from over. Students now have to engage themselves
in a war against propaganda and ignorance.
But that's all right, because Black students at the Universtity of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill know what they want and why they
want it.
As for the opponents of a free-standing BCC, it’s time for some
new arguments. For three years, advocates of a center have heard
everything from a BCC would be separatist and racist to. it shouldn’t
be built on public land or with public funds (the latest scoiario). Well,
I’m tired of these same old trite argument Aren’t you? In case BCC
opponents haven’t realized it yel, their arguments don’t wash.
First of all. Black students and BCC suRX)rters alike are not asking
for a BCC. The last time I checked, we had one. If memory serves me
correctly, the sign hanging on the glass-enclosed former snack bar in
the Student Union does read, "Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural
Center Office.”
Secondly, the racist and separatist argument is weak. Things are
what you make them. If whites or any opponent of a BCC stay out of
the centcr becausc of thier feelings on the matter, and decline to attend
programs or take a class in the facility, then of course it will be
separatist But just remember it is you. not blacks, who is making the
facility separatist and it is you, not Blacks, who is practicing racism.
Third, all I have to ask is, don’t Blacks pay taxes, too?
For too long B lacks have only been taught the basics. There is more
to the Black experience in America than slavery, the underground
railroad, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. While
it’s great and nccessary to know about these things and people, it is
also necessary for Blacks to learn about the other “greats” who often
go unmentioned or unnoticed because teachers are either too lazy ot
don’t care enough to seek out the information.
A free-standing Black Cultural Center here at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill will not create some great revoluuonary
movement or solve society’s woes. But, it will be a step in the right
direction, especially for a University that was built by Black folks.
Furthermore, if the fight, and the fight alone, for such a center
brought together groups who may not have otherwise worked together
(you know who you are) then imagine what the centcr itself wouW do?
So to the John Popes of the wwld who have nothing else better to
do than lobby against a free-standing Black Cultural Centcr and the
rest of you far-right liberals who want everything to be rosy and
peachy, I advise you lo find yourselves a new argument. Because if I
didn’t know any belter I would say that it was change, and the
eradication of racial and ethnic ignorance, that you were scared of,
rather than the promotion of racism and separatism. And guess what?
I don’t know any beuer. Peace!
Inside Black Ink
Monday, November 1, 1993
Black Women United Hardy takes the crovm
makes its return to making her ® fifth black
campus affir a two year queen row
For those
who d^ubt
“where §ie Ink
Brown Skin Development
Philantkropist oJBce
gives il!% to the makes plans for
coi|imjinity BCC fund raising
South Africa
project aims to
educate
No she didn^t Freshmen
oh yes Ibnya B^lre:
Crew did! Columnist Jarvis
Harris fc
Handguns
are
us
or are
Letters lb the
Editor
Sports
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abolit tie
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For the Record
looks atfhe latest from
Tony Tcfii Tbn^, KRS-
ONjandtoNS
- ' Editor: Jacqueline Charles , , ;
. Associate Editors Lee Richardson ' =
STAFF: Joyce dark, Tonya Crew» Cynthia R. Greenlee, Scott J^so'rt, Jarvis
Harris, Toj Olraolodun, Jenica McRae, Albert Monroe, Renlta Miioifonl Eric
Polhill, TJ. Stand!