PAGE 4 — THE DECREE — NOVEMBER 3,1995
OFFICIAL STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF
NORTH CAROUNA WESLEYAN COLLEGE
Editor-In-Chief — Kimberly Curseen
Copy Editor — Kevin Corbett
Advertising Manager — John Morgan
Staff— Greg Purcell, Jessica Brown, Tequda Moor«,
Alan Felton, Jessica Cohoon, Charlotte Pettitt
Advisor — Chris LaLonde
The Decree te located in the Hardees Butldlni;, North Carolina
Wesleyan Colle|;e, 3400 Wesleyan Blvd., Rocky Mount, NC 27801.
Weekfy staff meetings are held Wednesday at 4:30 pjm. in the Decree
'ioif!^e|i||||®||*|p||i||||i||^
Ke-publlcafion of any matter herein without the express consent of
the Editorial Board is strictly forbidden. The Decree is composed and
printed by the Spring Hope Enterprise. Opinions published do not
necessarily reflect those of North Carolina Wesleyan College.
Start standing up
for what is right
Students of North Carolina
Wesleyan College, do you
know how to choose your
fights? Do you recognize the
difference between right and
wrong? Do you know how to
begin change as our parents
did so long ago? Or is it that
you wear the label Generation
X proudly like a patriotic flag.
Are you so desensitized that
social abuses of this world are
no more than a passing thought
between sitcoms on TV?
Students, you must realize
that we are going to be in a
few years society’s leaders tak
ing over for our aging parents,
and caring for the next gen
eration. We have to decide
now what we are going to
teach the new generation about
us, themselves, and the state
of the world. That generation
will look to us to see what is
tolerable and right. They will
take our stereotypes as fact,
and our social conditions as
reality and a model of how
things should be.
You must learn when to
stand up for a cause. You have
to leam how not to be compla
cent and so easily pacified by
6(SSk'^
Twei
Holiday serves good purpose
empty rhetoric of those who
do not have your best interests
at heart. Do not follow the cur
rent leaders so blindly and
without question, overlooking
their glaring faults and mis
takes. Do not dismiss their
wrongs trying so desperately
to protect the person that they
should be because you cannot
accept what they really are.
It is painful to turn a critical
eye on someone or something
that you might believe in or an
issue that is too “hard” to
tackle. That is a task that will
make you tired and you will
become disillusioned. But that
is okay because in order to
truly live and change illusions
must be cast away. See things
for how they really are and
not how you need them to be.
Care, Wesleyan. Have pride
in who you are so that you do
not accept wrong wrapped in
the cushion of so-called igno
rance. Leam to stand and be
strong because our parent’s
fight is far from over and it is
our inheritance.
The sitcom is at a commer
cial break and what will you
do?
Life scarier than Halloween
By DR. STEVE FEREBEE
On my way to and from cam
pus I pass a yard which the fam
ily has prepared for the long holi
day season. Rows of cut-out
ghosts and goblins stand just in
front of pilgrims and turkeys who
welcome Santa and elves. The
yard laughs with giddy American
commercialism as well as crafty
American ingenuity. This family
can rest until the Easter bunny
hops.
I used to hope that as I aged
what seems so unfathomable to
the young would later become lu
cid. Well, forget it. Life seems
more muddled than ever. Hallow
een, for instance, has become ei
ther a Satanist cult recruitment
tool or an opportunity to bum
down the city.
I remember a Halloween when
I was about 10. I can’t see the
costume I wore, but I can still
feel the heat generated by the stiff
cardboard mask and shiny poly
ester body suit. For one reason
and another I couldn’t go trick-
or-treating, and the lady next door
tried to console me by bringing
Dr. Steve
over some homemade popcorn
bails.
I was outraged. I was devas
tated. All my friends were out
there streaking from house to
house, vision impaired by the
machine-cut eye holes, hoarding
all the candy in the world.
“Man-oh-man,” I thought
(that’s how we expressed outrage
before four-ietter-word popular
ity). “When i’m grown. I’ll never
miss a Halloween again.”
Later when I was an under
graduate at the University of
Florida, we partied at a midnight
Halloween ball. We had to work
diligently to look spooky or hi
larious when most of us looked
that way every day. We haunted
used clothing stores and bribed
art students to construct mammoth
appendages.
Finally, made-up and lurking
behind elaborate masks, we cel
ebrated that part of adults which
remains connected to childhood,
to silliness, to the desire to lose
the self for a while and greet the
world anew.
I thought I would always have
kids good naturedly asking me
“Trick or Treat?” Instead, last
year, a few teenagers dressed in
black roamed the windy dark
streets throwing trash in my yard.
Many people on my street
close up and darken their houses;
they don’t welcome a night of
intrusion. They don’t set up loud
speakers with ghosts screaming
and chains rattling as did one lady
near my house when I was a kid.
Fewer stiff masks and shiny cos-
tumcs show up.
And who can blame them? The
make believe bleeds into the real.
Innocent lips part for razor blades
in the apples and poison in the
candy. Real bad people (legally),
hide real guns in their costumes.
We don’t know our neighbors and
they don’t make popcorn balls
anymore.
And let’s admit it, if ever our
(Continued on Page 5)
Yearbook photograph offends many on campus
Dear Editor:
I thought that society got the
hint when actor/comedienne Ted
Danson appeared at Whoopie
Goldberg’s roast in blackface last
year that some people do not find
guises such as that very amusing.
Especially when many guests in
attendance walked out.
Evidently, my assumption was
in error in lieu of what 1 saw in
this year’s Dissenter on page 26.
The caption read, “Ghosts and
Goblins Invade NCWC.” There,
pictured in black and white, is a
student with his face painted
black, wearing a bandanna on his
head, an apron around his waist,
and holding a bottle of Aunt
Jemima syrup.
Letters to
the Editor
I am offended by this picture
and appalled that it was allowed
to be published in our yearbook.
My dismay lies in the fact that 1
consider campus publications
such as The Dissenter and The
Degree my community persona,
providing students with memo
ries of their Wesleyan years and
campus news.
This picture is not something I
want to remember about N.C.
Wesleyan College. It is insuitipg
and IS a prime example of what
the all dry, white humor. The
nu.nul.icturers have modemized
Aui'.. Jemima on the pancake box,
thervfore. why not modernize
so‘. v’s ignorance towards ra-
cla' i ;ferentiation.
i; ■' is not entirely a racial is-
^^i:uinued on Page 5)