The essence of freedom is understanding
Black Student Movement Official Newspaper
The University of North Carolina at Chaoei Hill
Stewart*s death not
seen as a racial issue
by Joy Ilioinpson
Managing Editor
The recent murder of graduate
student Sharon Stewart is one of
several recent brutal murders in
Chapel Hill that is causing students
much concern about the safety of
Chapel Hill.
One cannot ignore the feet that
in the cases involving last spring’s
stabbing death of sophomore
Freshteh Golko and this fell’s stabb
ing death of Stewart the assailants
were both Black.
Less than ten Blacks were among
the almost 300 students who attended
Stewart’s memorial service, held on
Sept. 4 in Memorial Hall.
What does this mean?
Are Black students on campus
simply apathetic, or is there a deeper,
psychological reason for so few
Blacks attending the service?
Some students who attended the
service indicated that some Black
students feel guilty that the youth
convicted of the Stewart stabbing was
Black.
“I think Blacks are saddened to
see a member of their own race come
to the spotlight for doing something
wrong, evil, bad,” Tim Cobb, presi
dent of the Resident Hall Association,
said.
“But that is no different from a
white person feeling the same way
w^en they see a member of the human
race doing something wrong, evil,
bad,” Cobb said.
Cobb, who attended the
memorial service, said he thinks the
Stewart murder is generally seen as a
tragedy. If it was 1968, people would
have turned this tragedy into a racial
issue, he said.
But the potential to make this in
cident a racial issue today is there,
Cobb said.
‘1 hope that the press does not
blow this (tragedy) into that type of a
situation where they’re trying to make
it into a racial issue when it is not,”
Cobb said.
Cobb said he didn’t think white
students see the Stewart incident as a
Black/white issue. Several white
students interviewed after the
memorial service agreed.
“I never really considered race
(as an issue) at all,” Err .Iy Tobias, a
junior journalism major from
Oberlin, Ohio, said. “All it did forme
was increase my awareness of me as a
woman, and that it could have been
me. ”
Wendy Moore, a second year
speech and pathology student from
Rock Hill, S.C., was a therapy
classmate of Stewart’s. Moore said
she too did not feel any hostility
toward Blacks as a result of the inci
dent.
“I’ve been more concerned
about safety,”Moore said. She added
that she has not felt safe since the in
cident.
“I don’t have a parking permit,”
Moore said. “I depend on someone
else to take me home.”
Craig Hyatt, a junior American
Studies major from Oberlin, Ohio,
said he knew the area Stewart was
from. He said he hoped people did
not generalize that all Black people
were violent.
Hyatt said he felt that would
represent a “hateful attitude” among
whites and he hoped that would not
occur.
“I think it is a matter of respon
sibility not to generalize (the situa
tion),” Hyatt said.
The reason why Stewart’s murder
was such a shock to many people was
that “Chapel Hill fosters such a sense
of trust and openess,” Hyatt said. The
murder is also difficult to accept,
because Chapel Hill has very high
ideal about education and is an in
telligent community, he added.
Hyatt said he hadn’t heard any
white students express any hostile
sentiments toward Blacks because of
this incident, but he had heard some
Black students say that they felt
whites would be more hostile to
Blacks.
photo by Ralph Ward
Resist or Submit?
What should Women Do?
by Bonni e Foust
Staff Writer
When the man pointed the knife at
the back of Sharon Lynn Stewart late
on the night of August 34, 1985, she
had 20 to 30 seconds to decide how to
react. She chose to be passive, to sub
mit. And she died.
The same man allegedly tried to
kidnap end kill Terry Giles at a
supermarket parking lot in Fayet
teville, N.C. a month earlier. Giles
fought with her attacker. She was
stabbed a few times. But she lived.
Did Stewart, a graduate student a
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, make a mistake? Could she have
saved her own life by resisting her at
tacker as Giles did? The experts over
whelming answer yes.
“Statistics across the country show
that 80 percent of all women who resist
attack avoid rape,” said SGT. Ned
Comar of the University Police. “I
definitely think Sharon Stewart would
have been better off to resist.”
“I won’t get into some of the character
problems Stewart might have had, but
I think she was a little too cool and
planned to strategically get away
later,” COMAR SAID.
While Comar does not mean to
criticize Stewart, he said one of
methods she could have used to hold
off her attacker would have been to
scream. Screaming and running are
the best defenses a woman has in an at
tack, said law enforcement officials
and sociologists.
In extensive interviews with 94
women who had been attacked,
sociologists Pauline B. Bart, visiting
Number of Black RAs Continues to Increase
by Nancy Ibrrington
Staff Writer
The number of Black resident
assistants at UNC-CH has more than
tripled over the past four years, ac
cording to Allan Calarco, associate
director of University Housing.
Four years ago there were fewer
than 10 black students on staff as RAs.
This year. Black students com
prise 17 percent of the 185 RAs on
campus. While there are 17 Black
RAs in the four South Campus dorms,
there are only 11 Black RAs in the 20
North campus dorms, according to
statistics from the Department of
University Housing.
Although there is an increase in
the number of Black RAs, Calarco
said that there is a need for more
minority role models on north cam
pus. Agreeing with Calarco is Ken
neth Smigh, a junior comparative
literature/pre law major from
Charlotte, who has been an RA for
almost 2 years on north campus.
‘There is a serious lack of Black role
models on north campus. Most of
what white students know about
Blacks is from rumors or what they
see on television,” Smith said.
It takes a “special person” to be
an RA and role model, according to
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