page!
Friday
February 5, 1982
Dear Mr, Reagan
Dear Mr. Reagan,
I saw your State of the Union address and I was very impressed with
your delivery. You handled that speech as if you had never left Hollywood. It
was a terrific performance!
I was, however, a little disturbed and dissappointed with the content
of your speech. You failed to explain several key issues.
First, you mentioned that in December inflation dropped from over 12
percent to 5.2 percent. That’s very commendable, but you failed to mention
that unemployment is at its lowest level in seven years.
Second, you mentioned that you were going to cut taxes in order to
stimulate the economy, but you didn’t say whose taxes they were. Are you still
planning to pad the pockets of the super rich or have you found it in your heart
to give a pittance to the middle class, the people who actually support the
country.
Third, I heard you say that we ought to reform many social programs
that have gotten out of hand so t)iat only the “truly needy” will be able to
benefit from them. Would be too much to ask for a definition of “truly needy”
and the criteria for determining the amount of aid they will receive. This is a
minor point, I know, but you’d be surprised how much interest there is in it
among those whose checks will not be coming next month.
Fourth, your idea of returing the power of the Deparment of
Education over to local state governments sounds good, but is it a real smart
idea to give total power over education to states that have still not complied
with the 1954 Supreme Court order to desegregate their schools?
Fifth, you said • you were cutting billions of dollars from social
programs to help balance the budget by 1984. You also said you were adding
billions of dollars to the defense budget in order to protect America. If you cut
money from one budget but add it from another, how much money are you
saving?
I hope you don’t mind my criticism of your performance as president.
Actually, I think it’s the the best role you’ve played in years. Thank you for
finding time out of your busy vacation schedule to address the nation. We need
all the help we can get.
Sincerely,
Winfred B. Cross
President
Ronald Reagan fan Club
i -t
Honor the strong men
99
One thing they cannot prohibit—
The strong men . . . coming on
The strong men gittin’ stronger.
Strong men ....
Stronger....
—^Sterling Brown
Ithnfas Sdio - Afz
2'V f I
February will be recognized as Black History Month. ^
There will be countless ceremonies honoring famous black people and
their accomplishments.
There will be a lot of unity displayed during this month, but why can’t
we be unified all 12 months of the year?
History shows us that the first black people arrived at Jamestown, Va.,
in 1619, but history books do not reveal the truth behind this arrival of
indentured servants as they were called, because in early America the only
history that was recorded was thaf of white settlers, not that of the early blacks
who were brought here against their own will.
Without the Fredrick Douglases, Harriet Tubmans, George Washington
Carvers, Carter Woodsons, Marcus Garveys, Malcom Xs, Martin Luther Kings
and Jesse Jacksons, we—as black people—may not have had this month to
commemorate the accomplishments of all black men and. women.
But, if we can have a Black History Month, why not have a day set aside
as a national holiday commemorating the lives of the Kings, Douglases,
Carvers, and others?
Lincoln has his day; Columbus has his day; Washington has his day; and
with recent hoopla over Franklin Roosevelt’s birthday, he may soon have a
national holiday on his birthday.
Get together; write your congressman, write state and national officials,
write black leaders like Jesse Jackson to let them know you support a national
holiday commemorating black heroes.
Ask yourselves this question: Why does white America have 11 months
to honor its accomplishments and heroes while black America has only one
month, the shortest month of the year, to celebrate black history?
Calvin Lee Williams
Letters to the Editor
Reader complains: blacks are too passive
To the editor:
In the days of slavery, blacks had no alternative but to be passive. They had to sit back and wait for the chance to
jump out and grab freedom.
Today, middle class blacks have to stop sitting back and being passive. It’s time we see the reality of this Reaganomic
society. Now is the time for blacks to find out who the Jesse Helmses and the John Easts are.
Schefting Gears
If they made Reagan administration toys
Ronnie’s Cube
Social
«—t-
Programs
xr
Money’
for
Social
^Programs
Object:
Fit cube into hple^^
The David Stockman
Wooden Puppet
during
an
interview
with
Atlantic
Monthly
after
explaining
his
reaffirmed
faith
in
Reaganomics
I
The Defense
Spending Doll
Watch it grow
before your very eyes!
The James Watt
Environmental’Destructo Kit
dehydrated oil spill
(Gulf of Mexico size)
Just add water!
hand grenades
strip mining license (for quick changes)
The ‘Let’s Play Poverty’ Kit
ZX
5 lbs. surplus cheese 20-year-o1d surplus crackers
liquid vegetables
old china discarded by Nancy
a few token licorice jelly beans
Dr. Tom Scheft is an Echo adviser and columnist. He is still waiting for his invitation to the White House.
Editor-in-chief
Winfred B. Cross
Associate Editor
Calvin L . Williams
Sports Editor
Winston Majette
Features Editor
Edwin Horsley
Wire Editor
Letisa Yates
‘Ifie Campus %cfio
Entertainment Editor
Lawanda Hudgins
Advertising Manager
Paul L. Anderson
Chief Photographer
Roy Harris '
Business Manager
Kenneth Mclver
Chief Typist
Terry Palmer
Office Manager
Phyllis George
Circulation Manager
Shelly Jackson
Staff Artists
Timothy Gaddy
Anthony Gaddy
, Pandora Frazier
Debby Drew
Kermit Baily
' Victor Hunter
Advisers
Tom Evans
Tom Scheft
A.M. Secrest
As black students, we must learn not only to compete on the black level but
also on the white level of society. We must learn about politics, economics,
science and computers. We must reach out, grab and take advantage of educa
tion even beyond the college level.
Students who haven’t realized that we are living in a real world, please wake
up before it is too late. If Martin Luther King, Jr. could return today to see what
he died for in 1968, he would probably die of a heart attack within two minutes.
We take life too easy. We are still running around with our minds hung up on
“It’s all right.’’ Well, it’s not all right to know that blacks are steadily and quick
ly returning to those undesirable times of the 1960s. We are so busy being passive
to everything that we are Regressing 10 at times the speed blacks 20 years were
progressing.
y Now we must change the passiveness of our characters. We must take life
seriously. Most of us have failed to realize that we are still fighting the same
racism and the same racist organizations that our forefathers fought. We still
have the same problems that blacks had twenty, thirty and even forty years ago.
These problems will remain and they shall get even more harsh if we blacks con
tinue to be passive.
We have to uphold this university and preserve the black institutions which
help us and the black community.
It’s time we stop sitting back on our heek and butts waiting for the govern
ment to give something to us on a silver platter. The government isn’t giving
anything anymore—it’s taking.
We may not be living in slavery, but believe me, we are not far from it. Once
the white man had the chains of slavery around the black man’s ankles to trip
him up whenever he tried to make a step forward. But today the white man’s got
ten much more intelligent, or blacks have gotten a lot more dumb. Now the white
man has put the chains of slavery around our neck in the form of a neck-tie, so
whenever we passively sit back we hang ourselves.
It’s time we stop competing with blacks; it’s time for us to begin to learn to
compete with the white man. Brotherhood is not an all black or white issue.
See LETTERS, page 3
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