Jan. 23, 2002
Opinions
Page 3
LETTERS
Response to article about discrimination
To the .editor:
I, along with many black stu
dents on this campus, was very of
fended by the editorial “Silence
may be golden, but it should never
be black or white.” The author of
the editorial completely neglected
to take in consideration everyone’s
perspective, and cranked out an ut
terly one-sided account. The author
took two examples and completely
stereotyped the entire black race, or
should I say “species,” by the way
he refers to us as a completely dif
ferent entity.
To begin with, let me cite two
non-fictional examples of my own.
First, a black friend of mine over
hears a roommate and a group of
white friends discussing how all
black people have attitude prob
lems. Then there’s the time when I
am sitting in my room, minding my
own business, and I hear a group of
white people discussing the “N”
word out loud and quite insensi
tively right in the next room. Al
though these situations both in
volved white people, I am not go
ing to stereotype the entire race or
preach about how white people
need to learn to keep their racist
comments to themselves, because
not ALL white people feel the same
way as the people in my examples.
I only wish the author of last week’s
article would use the same reason
ing.
I would like the author to put
himself in the shoes of a black per
son. Sure, the days of slavery and
the Civil Rights movement are over
and gone, but racism still exists, and
whoever says it doesn’t is living in
a fantasy world. In my day-to-day
activities, being the only black per
son in my dorm building or maybe
one of three blacks in a classroom,
I am never sure who is looking at
me as “the black boy” or as just
another human being, and my
aforementioned experiences
(among others) give me reason to
wonder. For that reason, I can un
derstand why some other black
people may feel extra-sensitive
about race issues.
Furthermore, those blacks who
are extra-sensitive about race do not
account for every black person in
this country, or the world. So next
time, I advise the author to take that
into consideration, and instead of
pointing the finger at one race, re
alize that the responsibility of “al
leviating the racial divisions” is not
only on black people, but everyone
on this Earth.
-Darrius Covington,
Freshman
Greenpeace organization has major impact
To the editor;
Do you care that logging has
destroyed 80 percent of the world’s
forests? Logging not only affects
the world’s forests, it also affects
the inhabitants, which survive
there. We have become concerned
with this environmental problem
as well as many others that are af
fecting the world we live in today.
The Greenpeace organization
has been actively, addressing en
vironmental problems for 30 years
on a global scale.
Greenpeace takes a direct, non
violent approach to increasing
public awareness on key environ
mental issues. Though nonviolent
actions seem ineffective, they re
ally have made impacts around the
world.
For example, the organization
originated with a small group of
activists sailing into a nuclear test
ing zone to stop the testing.
Now, 30 years later, this orga
nization has grown to have offices
in 39 countries.
Foresting and nuclear disarma
ment are only two of the many is
sues that Greenpeace is concen
trated with. The others include glo
bal warming, genetic engineering,
oceans, and toxic wastes.
Although this is a wide focus
range, Greenpeace has made a sig
nificant impact within each and ev
eryone of these areas. Some of their
major achievements include pro
tecting Antarctica from exploita
tion, making an end to nuclear test
ing, and eliminating most of the
dumping of nuclear wastes at sea.
Greenpeace began with many
positive objectives, and remains to
concentrate on most of these. How
ever, there are some concerns with
how they run their organization.
Some aspects of the Greenpeace
organization have turned to making
a profit, unlike when it first began.
We believe that Greenpeace has a
very good idea for how to control
the many environmental problems,
and that they have worked very hard
to become what they are today.
However, they need to look back
on their mission and remember why
they began. There mission is: “To
protect and save the global environ
mental “commons”; long ensure
there is a world our children can live
in with risks from polluted water,
air, land and food.”
To gain further infonnation on
the organization or want to see how
you can become apart of
Greenpeace and make a difference
environmentally, visit their Web site
at www.greenpeaceusa.org/.
- Michelle Williams,
Monique Simpson and
Erika Cook
Freshmen
Write to
The Pendulum
Letters are welcomed from all
readers. They must include
name, title or class and phone
number. Maximum length is 300
words. All letters are subject to
editing and will not be returned.
No anonymous submissions
will be printed.
E-mail: pendulum@elon.edu
Mail: 7012 Campus Box
Thumbs up
OR
Thumbs down?
Elon received a downfall of snow,
delaying the start of winter term.
Walter Cronkite is slated to
speak on campus Spring 2003.
As a result of the snow, Elon held
classes on Saturday, Jan 5.
Hollywood^s preoccupation on
itself as visable at the Golden
Globes.
Thank you to the professors who
realize sitting a classroom for three
hours is a long time and opt to give
a 10-minute break.
When professors give students
breaks, they can*t afford to lose
the class time, so 10 minutes are
added on the length of the class.
The driveways were removed at
University houses, which are used
for faculty and staff offices. This
seems like a bad idea when
parking at Elon is limited.
Have any Thumbs VplThumhs down ideas? Send your su}igestions
to pendulum@elon.edu.