2—THE VOICE, March 4,1982
Editorials
Prospective candidates for SGA are dropping their names around
campus in preparation for the March elections. Looking back to the
“promises, promises” of last year, one can only wonder if FSU will
ever get an SGA team that is really on the ball.
A good example of the slip-shod, ill-prepared operation of the
present SGA can be seen in the observance of Black History Month.
Events and guest speakers on the campus were hastily planned and
poorly publicized. Students either did not get the word or got it so
late that they were in many cases unable to attend these functions.
Certain SGA spokesmen have blamed the Administration for
planning things and failing to give proper notification. This excuse
is just that—an excuse. One of SGA’s primary functions is to act as
liason between the Administration and the student body. Why
didn’t they get the word to the students? Of course that would be
hard to do when they (SGA) are guilty of the same thing.
Poor attendance at campus events is bad enough. Compounding
this with a failure to even inform students is a strike against the
SGA. This situation has caused the student body to be perceived
negatively in the community.
While the SGA president and his assistants have been running
around accusing the senate of being uncooperative, the Ad
ministration of being uncaring, and the students of being apathetic,
perhaps they should remember that it is their job to alleviate at least
some of these problems.
If SGA officials would put half the effort into over-the-summer
planning as they do in spring campaigning, they could probably
function a lot better. There is no reason why Homecoming shows,
Martin Luther King’s birthday observation, and Black History
Month activities cannot be at least tentatively planned during
spring, summer, and very early fall as the cases may require.
In March, as the old SGA finishes its same old march down the
same old path of previous SGAs, perhaps those coming into office
will decide to pave the way to successful student administration.
WILLIE
SPEAKS
Out Of Sight-Out Of Mind
By Willie Smith
It seems to be common nature for,
man to fight to protect those things
that he feels are most precious to him.
Whether they are tangible or intangible
items, when a man feels that something
he cherishes is about to be taken away,'
he will in most instances retaliate to
protect it. But so many times that old
saying, “out of sight-out of mind”
seems to take effect. This happens to
many different people in many dif
ferent instances. We even see evidence
of it here at Fayetteville State Unvier-
sity. There seems to be a very non
chalant approach to problems that face
us now and could ultimately take away
some of the things that we cherish
dearly. We may not recognize it, but
many of the things that we concern
ourselves with seem to say that we
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Voice No Exception
Some people think that half a loaf is
better than none. Well, the people who
have to provide the other half in ad
dition to their whole loaf would
disagree. The Voice is staffed by a few
who keep producing only half.
Voice staff meetings are attended
from fair to well. But assignments are
often passed in late, incomplete and
untyped. All members know that there
is only one paid (work-study) person,
yet they seem to feel that “someone”
will get all of the information squared
away, typed and laid out by deadline.
The mention of lay-out opens up a
From The Grassroots
whole new can of worms. Members
seem to be unwilHng to learn the
process of laying out the newspaper.
They also seem to be unwilling to
forego any weekend plans for this on-
ce-a-month stage of producing a paper.
Again, “someone” will get it done.
Hardly an issue of this paper is
published without some mention of
student apathy. The Voice suffers from
this malady as much as any
organization on campus. The
STUDENT newspaper has been and
still is looking for a few GOOD studen
ts who are interested in producing a
quality newspaper each month.
Capital Punishment:
Legal Lynching
By Manning Marable
really don’t care a great deal, or we
really don’t realize what could happen.
One very obvious incident was the
one concerning writing letters to
congressmen and senators with respect
to the budget cuts as proposed by the
Reagan administration. There were
those of us who were under the
misconception that, “it won’t hurt me,
I’m a senior,” or “I pay my way
through school any way.” What
about those who are less fortunate than
you. It is easy to see that on this cam
pus these people represent the majority
of the population and whatever hurts
the majority will surely affect the rest.
The point that we seem to be missing
is in the fact that it doesn’t have to hurt
you now in order to hurt you. And in
many cases, the delayed affect could
cause the hurt to be more severe when
it actually does materialize. This is not
the only case. There have been other
times when we have needed to push for
one thing and we found ourselves
pushing for something else. And in
some of these cases that something else
was something that we actually could
have done without anyway.
It would seem apparent that we need
to really evaluate the various issues
before we take action on them. It is
also time that we gain a sense of
responsibility for those who are to
follow us and those who are less for
tunate than that select few of us. Think
of where we might be if someone
before us had not felt a sense of
responsibility for our generation.
One of the South’s oldest and most
popular methods for dealing with the
“Negro Problem: was lynching. Over
3,500 black men and women were
hung, burned at the stake, and sexually
mutilated between 1882 and 1927.
With the Great Depression, however,
the racist brutalities largely left the
streets and cotton plantations, moving
into the very heart of America’s penal
system. Capital punishment, in actual
practice, became the central and
decisive means to threaten black people
“legally.”
The racial bias within the statistics
on capitd punishment speaks for itself.
Although blacks comprised about nine
percent of the U.S. population in the
1930s, almost 50 percent of all
prisoners who were executed during the
decade were Afro-Americans. 97.1
percent of all whites executed had been
convicted for murder. Only 10 white
men were executed for rape during the
entire ten year period. 115 black men
were sentenced to die for rape in the
1930s, 14.1 percent of all blacks
executed. After 1940, the number of
blacks convicted and eventually killed
for capital crimes increased significan
tly relative to whites. Between 1940 and
1959 the percentage of blacks executed
for rape compared to the total number
of blacks killed steadily climbed,
reaching nearly one fourth of the total.
About 90 percent of all Americans
executed for rape between 1930 and
1959 were black, and all but two of the
sentences occurred in the South.
Georgia, one of the leading lynching
states, has also executed the highest
number of prisioners since 1930, 366
persons. The most important statistic
to consider may be this: no white has
ever been executed for the rape of a
black in American history.
Advocates of capital punishment
found themselves on the defensive in
the 1960s. Research revealed that bet
ween 1928 and 1949, the average
homicide rates in states that allowed
the death penalty were 200 to 300 per
cent higher than in states that had no
capital punishment. Homicide rates in
the early 1960s, when executions
averaged 24 each year, were only 70
percent of the 1930s rate, when
executions averaged 150 per year.
Some states that switched to the death
penalty actually experienced increases
in their homicide rates. Confronted
with mounting evidence that the death
penalty was inherently racist and an
ineffective deterrent against crime,
white social scientists, police ad
ministrations and politicians launched
an ideological “counteroffensive.”
The nation’s leading crime stopper,
F.B.I. director J. Edgar Hoover, spoke
out repeatedly in favor of capital
punishment. University of Chicago
economist Isaac Ehrlich published a
widely praised study which claimed
that “every execution deterred ap
proximately eight murders. Politicians
in both the Democratic and Republican
parties informed a budget conscious
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