Muhammad Ali
Sharing his beliefs
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The Marrying Kind
study shows mamed couples
better off than single peers
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‘l\/lemoirs of a Geisha’
Why it caused a controversy
pages
The News Argus
www.thenewsargus.com
Christmas list
exposed; what
they want and
where to get it
By Lori Lawson
ARGUS REPORTER
With Christmas only days away,
everyone is thinking about choosing that
perfect gift. A random survey of WSSU
students found that many echo the same
Top 5 items on their wish list. Here are
those Top 5 items and suggestions on
where to find them. Happy Holidays!
5. Bath\Body Products
Victoria's Secret is the place to go this
Christmas: It sells skincare products and
fragrances for botli sexes, as well as holi
day gift sets.
4. CD's, Video Games and DVD's
Everyone loves the gifts that keep on
giving: CDs, Video Games and DVDs.
Best Buy has the widest selection of
music, movies and more. And, Best Buy
promises to match all prices.
3. Electronics
'Fhis year's most wanted electronics
include: iPOD Nano, Motorola RAZR v3,
X Box 360 and digital cameras. The most
competitive prices on these products are
at Wal-Mart and Circuit City.
2. Clothing and Shoes
From the cutest stilettos to the flyest
footwork, all college students want to
upgrade their wardrobes this Christmas.
This year the ladies are asking for cow
boy boots, blazers and handbags, and the
guys want faux-fur trimmed coats, shoes
and a new fitted hat. Of course, you can
find all of these things at a variety of
stores at Hanes Mall. However, if you
don't want to hurt your wallet, head for
TJ Maxx in Sherwood Manor Shopping
Center on Robinhood Road, Ross Dress
For Less on Hanes Mall Boulevard or
Marshall's on Silas Creek Parkway to
find all tlie name brand styles at a rea
sonable price.
1. Cash Money and Gift Cards
Money, Money, Money! Who doesn't
want cash. At least 75% of all students
who were randomly surveyed said they
wanted either money or gift cards as
their No. 1 Christmas wish-list item.
Suffice to say, cash and gift cards let you
pick and choose exactly what you want.
Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy and Foot
Action are the stores with the most
sought after gift cards.
December graduation
ceremony will be held
at UVM Coliseum
By Lisa R. Boone
ARGUS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
.The fifth WSSU December grad
uation ceremony, Dec. 16 at 4 p.m.,
will be the first held in the
Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial
Coliseum.
Each year the number of
students participating in fall grad
uation ceremonies has increased.
In 2004, a boost
in the number of students
graduating in the fall led universi
ty officials to schedule
the ceremony at St. Peter's World
Outreach Center, a local church
that seats 3,000 people, instead of
the Kenneth R. Williams
Auditorium that holds approxi
mately 1,800 people. This year, the
increase led to graduation exercis
es being scheduled at the LJVM
Coliseum.
Winston-Salem State University’s Student Newspaper December-January, 2005
Along with season change comes
opportunity to change your look
By Lori Lawson
ARGUS REPORTER
The leaves have changed from
green to bright oranges, yellows
and reds, and it's getting cold
outside — all signs that the sea
son is changing, and it's time for
a wardrobe change.
Fashion today is not as much
about trends as it is about per
sonal style. Step into the season
with a mix and match look that
works for you. Here are just a
few items that can take your fall
wardrobe from boring to blazing:
A Great Necklace: Plain outfits
are just that, plain. However, a
striking or attention-grabbing
necklace can supply that focus
point. Try a chunky, long neck
lace in earth
tones such
as amber,
dark green,
and brown.
You can also
try one of
the season's
newest
looks: a vari
ety of lay
ered lengths.
Photo by Razaria Best
A good necklace
adds flair to outfit.
A Significant Belt: Every lady
can stand to have an everyday
black or brown leather belt in the
back of her closet, for moments
when fashion isn't that big of a
deal. But when you want to spice
up an outfit, try a belt with sig
nificance. Here is what's hot
now; big leather belts, metallic
belts and chain-link belts.
Round/Pointed-Toe
Alternatives: Pointed-toe heeled
pumps have been in style for sea
sons; but
now flats
and round-
toe shoes are
back in style,
■ and they
look hotter
than ever.
Throwing in
a pair of
fashionable,
round or
A Fitted Blazer; Blazers can
work miracles for a woman's
wardrobes.
This season
jackets are
easy to
wear, figure-
conscious
and stylish
—all at the
same time.
Adding a
Photo by Razaria Best
Flats offer style
and comfort.
Photo by Garrett Garms
Coats and scarfs
can be fashionable.
pointed-toe flats to a simple out
fit automatically makes you look
trendy and stylish.
blazer can
top off any
outfit, from
jeans and a
basic tee to a blouse and dress
trousers. Fitted blazers ups your
style significantly. Adding a
beautiful scarf keeps you stylish
and warm.
In a city split and sinking before Storm, racial issues boi!
By Lee Hancock
KRT WIRE SERVICE
NEW ORLEANS
The tensions of race have always defined the
best and worst of this city, from its rich cuisine
and bon-temps culture to its entrenched pover
ty, epidemic violence and economic decline.
With the city beginning its fourth month of
struggle after Hurricane Katrina, many resi
dents say their future hinges on bridging race
and class divisions that many say had gotten
deeper, uglier and angrier in the months
before the storm.
"We're very fractured, and we have been for
a long time, throughout our history," said
Lawrence Powell, a professor of Southern his
tory at Tulane University.
"The dty prior to Katrina in terms of race,
class and poverty was a manmade disaster. It's
one of the poorest big cities in the country,"
said Powell, who is white. "The economic
foundations were rotting away. The main
growth industry was tourism, but that's a
Third World wage structure. And the school
system was in the toilet."
The racial divide affects almost every rebuild
ing question: which neighborhoods will be
rebuilt and when; how public housing will be
reconstnrted; how to protect the city from
future disasters; and who will call the shots —
the white-dominated business community,
black politicians or outsiders.
Mayor Ray Nagin has said that the city's pop
ulation — 451,000 and 68 percent black before
the storm — hovers around 100,000 and could
initially stabilize at half its pre-storm size. The
second-term black mayor, a former business
executive, acknowledges that many of the
returnees are white. But he also has frequently
stressed that he and other leaders don't want
their city to end up a pale shadow of its former
self.
Even so, he has been questioned closely about
his close ties to white business elites, some of
whom have openly stated their desire to
remake the city's demographics and politics.
Other leaders in New Orleans, both black and
white, say the city's storied funk, eccentricities
and charm were being overwhelmed by eco
nomic and social decay even before the storm,
so it can't afford to return to the way that it
was.
Before Katrina slammed ashore on Aug. 29,
the New Orleans economy was so heavily
staked on jobs in hotels, restaurants, bars and
other purveyors to visitors that some dubbed it
a tourism ghetto.
And many black leaders faulted the white-
dominated business community. While political
leadership shifted from white to black in the
1970s, economic power remained largely in
white hands.
New Orleans' poverty rate was almost twice
the national rate, with more than a third of
Photo by Courtesy of KRT Wire Service
A memorial to those who died from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana
was erected in the 9th ward.
blacks and half of all black children in poverty.
The income disparity between the haves and
havt'-nots was among the widest of any
American city.
The city's schools, largely abandoned by the
black middle class for private schools after a
white exodus in tlie 1970s, were widely con
demned as the nation's worst and most corrupt.
Students had to bring their own toilet paper to
school, and textbooks were in such short supply
the children couldn't take them home.
Michael Cowan, a white Loyola University
psycliologLst who chairs the city's human rela
tions commission and director of Loyola's
Lindy Boggs National Center for Community
Literacy, said school board meetings had
become so polarized that anyone, particularly
whites, who tried to offer opposing views was
heckled and accused of racism. Other whites
said they had similar experiences.
It was largely poor and working-class blacks
who were left struggling to escape when
Katrina hit and flood waters swallowed 80 per
cent of the city. The city's historic districts —
built on high ground near the Mississippi River
— were relatively unscathed.
Some newer white areas were swamped, but
the floodwaters ravaged almost all of the city's
predominantly black neighborhoods.
Among the hardest hit were the working-
class Lower Ninth Ward, a filled-in swampy
area settled after World War II, and a newer
area known as New Orleans East, home to
black middle-class families.
As panic over unrest and looting spread,
police in the predominantly white suburb of
Gretna turned away evacuees at gunpoint as
they tried to cross the Mississippi River Bridge
linking New Orleans with Jefferson Parish.
Driving through many parts of predominant
ly black neighborhoods, choked with debris, is
still difficult, while the city's French Quarter,
Central Business District and the predominant
ly white Garden District and Magazine Street
corridors are well-lighted and bustling with
out-of-town contractors.
"What hurts me, on that side of the Industrial
Canal, there are all those lights all the way on,"
said Anthony Jackson, a black resident of New
Orleans East who returned from Texas recently
to salvage what he could from his family's
homes and try to find work. "On this side, it's
pitch black. A lot of petiple feel mistreated."
There are other, more sinister conspiracy theo
ries. Many black residents believe that the Ninth
Ward and other black neighborhoods were
deliberately flooded in order to save the tourist
areas and white business district. In Katrina's
aftermath, rumors circulated that the area would
be bulldozed and returned to swampland or
handed to rich, white developers.
'Too many things jusi seem to be too coinci
dental," said Mack Sian, who lost his home in
New Orleans East and recently oi^anized a
1,500 member group of mostly black evacuees
temporarily living in Baton Rouge.
At a recent dinner with a fnend in temporary
exile in Baton Rouge and another living aboard
one of two cruise ships along the New Orleans
riverfront housing displaced residents, Dena
Hurst, a 32-year-old electrical engineer, dismiss
es the conspiracy talk. But she chuckled over
what has become a standard crack in the black
community since the storm.
'There's a joke about the cruise ships," said
Hurst, who works for a software company and
lost her home in Gentilly. "People say you don't
want to get on one because you're going to
wake up rocking one morning, thinking you're
still tied up at the dock, and you're going to
look outside to see you're out at sea, halfway
back to Africa."