The costs of vandalism
DICK DYER
guest writer
Much has been reported about increased
vandalism on campus. What has not been a
part of such reports is the costs of such dam
age. What is destroyed must be replaced
with newer, or better, or stronger. The staff
people involved in the repairs are salaried
employees. The person who looks at the part
numbers and gets on the phone to order a
replacement is salaried. Those who sweep
up the glass or pick up the trash are salaried
employees. The person who replaces the
light is salaried. Some examples:
1. This semester, lights and fixtures in
Bryan Hall have been destroyed (often the
day after they are replaced). The cost to date
is nearly $2000.00
2. The two large planters that sat at the
beginning of the Duke/Arch dale garden area
were driven over and destroyed. The mate-
Spinning the dreidel
LAUREN GILL
staff writer
It is Passover, and I'm not a real Jew. I'm
one of those mixed-up-in-the-middle-kind
of-in-between Jews, one who doesn't know
her Hebrew and only dreams about Nazis.
I've always had an escape from being a Jew.
When the boys in eighth grade became
skinheads and I didn't understand what I
should be proud of, I turned to my Chris
tian alibi-my dad.
I write this essay as a Jew. Adrienne Rich,
explaining her struggle with being a half-
Jew in her essay "Split at the Root," says,
"And sometimes I feel inadequate to make
any statement as a Jew; I feel the history of
denial within me like an injury, a scar...My
ignorance can be dangerous to me and to
others." I look at Adrienne Rich's struggle
and see my own struggle in which I am con
stantly trying to figure out where I fit as a
Jew in a "split root" family. If I side with
my father's family, attend church, go the
Christian way, I disappoint my mother's
family. Adrienne Rich continues to say, "I
would have liked, in this essay, to bring to
gether the meanings of anti-Semitism and
racism as I have experienced them and as I
believe they intersect in the world beyond
my life. But I'm not able to do this yet."
The fact that Adrienne Rich can state this
after having written an essay on her experi
ences "in the world beyond" her life, says
that she is ready to do this, can do this, has
done it.
I read "Night" by Elie Wiesel in Bth grade
for an English assignment. Throughout the
year I had the same dream on and off. In the
dream, it's cold and I'm a Jew. I'm in Ger
many. The year is 1945. The Americans
haven't come yet. I'm with some boy.
Though his face changes with each
reoccurence of the dream, he is still there.
April 5, 1996
rials cost nearly $400.00
3. Recently, newly raked and seeded
grass was rutted and turned to mud by some
one driving recklessly across the grass and
through the campus.
4. During Serendipity someone vandal
ized two Maintenance golf carts and the wire
fence surrounding that complex. One of the
carts was totaled. Estimated cost of all re
pair and replacement in this incident SIBOO
to S2OOO.
5. In recent weeks vending machines in
the Apartments, English, and the Founders
Gameroom have been kicked in and items
taken from them. The vending machine
company has absorbed the cost thus far but
may pull the machines if this continues.
Each student at Guilford College pays for
that damage. As the college has decided not
to raise tuition and as funds are tight, mon
ies spent on replacing lights in Bryan Hall
are not spent on other goods or programs.
He is never a Jew. I dream that once I get
warm a Nazi walks by, above me, beside
me, near me. I'm in a hole in the ground
wrapped in a blanket next to this boy's body.
I watch as three men circle around, hold the
muzzle up to his face, laugh, and shoot. The
boy dies. I'm not afraid of this dream. In
stead of producing terror it acts as an in
sight, a dream turned into a lullaby, my way
of gradually seeing something I wasn't
ready to see all at once. I fell asleep to it.
I forgot about Elie Wiesel until the 9th
grade when I went to a meeting in remem
Being a Jew
evokes thousands
of years of exile,
punishment, en
slavement, and
discrimination.
brance of the Holocaust. Sonia Weitz was
there, and the dreams came back. Her story,
her mother, her father, her family made them
come back. Sonia was a survivor, 100%
Jewish. She was there, she saw, she suffered.
Her nightmares are real. I remember how
black her hair was, how small her body, so
small I thought she would break. I always
thought a survivor had to be physically
strong too. As she talked, I put her into the
pictures on the screen, a frightened little girl,
confused, scared, alone. Ever since that
meeting, when I see those pictures, I want
forum
Choices have to be made. Whether to main
tain lights in Bryan Hall is a choice. There
fore something else "that can wait" often
does. Only when a student realizes that he/
she bears a portion of the cost will the be
havior be reported or confronted. That many
of the lights in Bryan were destroyed on
several occasions without anyone "seeing
anything" is unlikely.
But the cost is deeper. What does it feel
like to work very hard on a paper only to
have the work destroyed by a computer vi
rus? What must it feel like to replace a de
stroyed light for the third time or reseed an
area that you worked with the day before?
With each act of vandalism something else
does not get bought or done.
And the person returns to the Mainte
nance Department, puts away the tools for
the fourth time and says: "These students
sure are destructive!" And with that state
ment each student pays a bit in the horrific
inclusiveness of the anger and frustration.
to cry like a Jew. Is it natural for a half Jew
to cry at someone else's Holocaust?
In the 9th grade I wasjn't ready to answer
that question. For the next few years I at
tended Holocaust meetings and listened to
speakers. Those speakers kept sparking the
same question in me.
"Is it natural for ahalf-Jew to cry at some
one else's Holocaust?" Yet it remained an
unresolved issue until this year with my first
chance to attend a lecture by Elie Wiesel, in
which he spoke about exile from home. He
said, "Whoever claimed that to be Jewish
was easy?" He went on to say that the "Jew
ish soul is determined to remain Jewish "
Being a Jew is something that always stays
with a Jew. Being a Jew evokes thousands
of years of exile, punishment, enslavement,
and discrimination. But Elie wanted us to
understand the other side of being Jewish.
He wanted us to see that life is exile, begin
ning with exile from the womb, and follow
ing one to one's last home, the grave. Elie
said that as we "move through life, we take
our home with us." We take our exiles, our
punishments, our discrimination, our fam
ily. Home is a safe place; family is safe
people.
Though it didn't happen overnight, Elie
Wiesel helped me see what being Jewish
means. It doesn't mean surviving a Holo
caust. For every Jew it means something
different. For me it means my mother, her
mother, dinner at Aunt Nancy's, Chanukah,
a few songs, a few prayers, and being proud
to say, "I'm a Jew."
I connect with my Jewishness through
the Holocaust, through my dreams, through
my family, through myself. I don't feel
guilty anymore. This is not "someone else's
Holocaust." The pictures, the people, are all
there to help remember, to teach, to prevent.
One is supposed to feel. I am supposed to
feel.
Shalom.
The Guilfordian
Politics of
Affirmative
Action
ADAM LUCAS
editorials editor
Sometimes, you have to wonder who
decides what is a "liberal viewpoint" and
what is a "stupid conservative idea."
No issue illustrates that point more viv
idly than affirmative action, which was re
cently brought to the forefront of public
debate by the Hopwood decision in the Fifth
Circuit.
Hopwood was the leader of a group of
four University of Texas at Austin students
who brought a lawsuit against the univer
sity on the grounds that they were denied
admission to the law school because prefer
ence was given to minorities in admissions.
The Fifth Circuit decreed that race could
no longer be used as a factor in admissions
to any public institution of higher learning,
so shocking IJT that they were forced to
suspend their admissions process for one
week.
The most surprising element of this situ
ation came from the school president, Rob
ert Berdahl. In response to the decision,
Berdahl opined that the courts ruling meant
"the virtual resegregation of higher educa
tion."
Surely he didn't mean that. Because if
he did, 1 would take that to mean that he
doesn't think minorities are intelligent
enough to gain entrance to college on their
own merits.
As a proud liberal, he can't believe that,
can he? I mean, here I sit, a silly old conser
vative, and even I don't believe that.
I tend to believe that, given a level play
ing field, minorities will fare very well for
themselves. That's why there's no need for
affirmative action.
As a nation, America prides itself on
equality, and that is a principle that affirma
tive action does not permit. Yes, some mi
norities were terribly discriminated against
in the past. However, does that make it right
to discriminate against a different group to
day?
If it was wrong then, it's wrong now, and
that's why affirmative action needs to end.
Some people are treating the Hopwood
case as if it is a revolutionary idea that col
lege admissions should be based on merit.
"What, you mean I shouldn't get in just
because of the school's need to fill a quota?
What ever should I do?"
Well, go somewhere because that's where
you want to go, or because that's the kind
of school that meets your academic needs.
Call me a stodgy old conservative (and I
know you will), but I believe that minori
ties are perfectly capable of succeeding
without any government or college giving
them something to lean on. I believe in equal
opportunity for everyone.
It's just too bad some of our so-called
liberal friends have forgotten some of the
ideals America was founded on.
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