LETTERS: More important than blame

To the Editor: The event was scheduled to be both a social event for Greek and non-Greek students and an event to boost enthusiasm for the Greek Week Carnival held on campus last Saturday for inner-city children. The event was cancelled last Wednesday because of concerns raised by administrators. It really does not matter who receives the blame for the miscommunication that caused the cancellation. What matters is that yesterday I met with administrators from the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs, the Penn Police, the Vice Provost for University Life and the Office of the President, along with the InterFraternity Council. We talked about how the Panhellenic Council Greek Week Committee could have addressed the administration's concerns in such a way that would have allowed the party to occur. I left the meeting with the hope that a similar event to the cancelled Greek Mixer will happen next year during Greek Week. In the long run, it does not matter who is burdened with the blame for causing the cancellation of the event. What matters most is that yesterday students sat down with administrators and discussed ways of making the event happen in the future. Janelle Brodsky Panhellenic Council President College and Engineering '99 Reminders of racism To the Editor: I am not going to rant and rave over Stephanie Cooperman's failed attempt to relate to the black experience in her column "Linguistic relics of subjugation" (9/30/98). However, I sure as hell am going to express my fear and outrage over the double standards and childish attitudes expressed toward racism in this column. A child believes that if he puts his hands over his eyes, everything around him disappears and that he is invisible to the rest of the world. Cooperman seems to believe the same about racism; if we delete its modes of expression, or cover it up, it will no longer exist. Cooperman also seems to believe that because she makes racial slurs without the intent of committing hate crimes against her friends, her belittling names are socially acceptable. Even more disappointing than her attitudes is that Cooperman is not the only person guilty of these juvenile perspectives. I wouldn't be so enraged if Cooperman was the only white person I knew who calls their black friends by derogatory names. But she is only one of many. I don't know any blacks who've been verbally abused by an extrovert racist, i.e., a Ku Klux Klan member or a God-fearing evangelist, but I know many who have been called such terms as "nigger," "blackie," "darkie," "boy," "slave" and "colored" by their white friends in jest. What whites don't understand is that it hurts to be called such derogatory names; it boldly marks the difference between you and them as negative. And the racial superiority that, though unmentioned, you both know they have is brought into the discussion. Because the confrontation isn't volatile, it's difficult to tell whether or not the racial slurs are made in earnest. We, as a society, are only taught how to recognize social/extrovert racism. Both black and white people know that hate-based propaganda, vandalism and abuse are wrong. Because the hatred is obvious, most anyone can see it should be destroyed. There are numerous forms, however, of more common but less recognized racism that, in a lump sum, are known as covert racism: the under cover, not socially accepted manifestations of the afore mentioned. Covert racism is more dangerous than extrovert racism because there's no way to directly attack it. When a white person calls his black friend "blackie," he is unfairly exploiting his friend's emotions on a racial level, and that is racism. But because it's an obscure form of racism, the injured party has little identifiable grounds for complaint. To whine and call "racism" would only be further alienating. The easiest thing to do is try and laugh it off and, if you can, stick a racial slur against whites into the retort. Which seems to be how Cooperman and her friends began calling each other derogatory names. If her black friends were certain that her slurs for them were terms of endearment, they wouldn't wonder if she ever thinks of them as niggers. And if Cooperman really was only expressing camaraderie, she wouldn't need to stress to her readers that "the word nigger has never been part of [her] vocabulary." Cooperman is so focused on that word nigger, that one tiny spec in the amassment of racism, that she misses the big picture. So long as whites see and take the opportunity to berate blacks or other minorities, with or without hateful intent, racism will exist. Our culture needs words like "nigger" as a constant reminder that racism is an ever present force in our lives. The expulsion of this word, and other hate words, from our language is not the cure to, but an augmentation of, covert racism. The only way to end racism is to confront its source head on. Nikki Lyons College '02 Addressing smoking To the Editor: Less than a month remains before people across the country observe the Great American Smokeout. I am writing to invite students to take part in planning a campus-based strategy to educate students about the health risks of smoking, and to support smokers who wish to quit. The last 10 years have seen a dramatic rise in teen smoking rates, and a corresponding rise in smoking on U.S. college campuses. Many teens begin as "social smokers," never intending to become nicotine-dependent, only to discover that quitting is not so easy once they've hit their early 20s. The clinical staff at Student Health Service is genuinely disturbed about the levels of student smoking they have observed. As one of the Health Service's prevention educators, I want to explore ways that Penn students can influence their peers and hopefully cut the campus smoking rate. This is a complex problem with no single, easy solution, but the Great American Smokeout in November offers us a chance to begin our work. If you are a student who cares about this issue, please contact the Office of Health Education (573-3525 or she@pobox.upenn.edu) and get involved in planning for the Smokeout. Or visit us at 3609 Locust Walk, third floor. Kurt Conklin Office of Health Education