i r Mftligan Maitlj
Seventy-seven years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan
under authority of Board/in Control of Student Publications
NEAL BRUSS
Free the pigs:
The sty's the
limit
nard St., Ann Arbor, Mich.
News Phone: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily exp ress the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
SDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1968
NIGHT'EDITOR: RON LANDSMAN
Welfare decision:
Commentary on protest
THE AGREEMENT reached Monday
night between the welfare mothers,
the county board of supervisdrs and the
social services board, does not constitute
a victory for anyone. It is simply a com-
-ment'ary on the effectiveness of protest.
The entire issue of '"need"-that the
mothers needed clothes for their children
to attend school-was never substantiated
except by verbal testimony and was ob-
liviated Wednesday for a new issue-
police brutality.
It was .only the stupidity of the sher-
iff's department which eventually led to
the power behind the welfare mothers.
Daily Managing Editor Steve Wildstrom
was arrested without cause, and the power
behind the protests of this and subse-
quent police brutality was the determin-
ing factor in the welfare dispute.
THEISSUE of welfare is not an impor-
tant one in itself. Welfare is an an-
achronistic concept. To support welfare
is to support the institution that is basic-
ally opposed to the concept of self-de-
termination.
This is not to say the mothers shouldn't
have received what they got-or perhaps
even more. The Aid to Dependent Chil-
dren system, which is supposedly deter-
mined by professional sociologists, cer-
tainly should be updated if, in fact, chil-
dren won't go to school unless it is. And
all needs-across the board-when they
are sufficiently proved, should be-accele-
rated across the board. Perhaps this
means an "upgrading" as well as "up-
dating" of the ADC system.'
But the needs were never really proved.
The mothers presented the county with
a list of "basic minimum needs" for sev-
eral age groups of children. The social
services board-the only available offi-.
cial bureau truly able to evaluate thatf
need-never said the mothers' conten-
tions were correct or incorrect. Alfred E.
Brose, director, and his three phlegmatic
commissioners totally neglected their
prime responsibility during the negotia-
tioni: to determine precisely what need
existe$. If this wasn't impossible, at least
their prdfessional opinions should have
been demanded.,
IMMEDIACY of the situation made
an excursion by the negotiating par-
ties into the Ann Arbor ghetto impracti-
cal. But certainly someone, 'from the Uni-
versity or' the city, was qualified to offer
a concurring or dissenting opinion of the
mothers' claim.
It was difficult, without this second
opinion, for any supervisor or mediator
to feel Mrs. Shirley Haywood and her
group were purporting a truth. They
claimed 137 children were almost stark
naked, and yet they sat before the county
board in decent clothes, cradling well-
groomed children and certainly appear-
ing far from starvation.
It was then even more difficult for
those present M4onday to make a judg-
ment on the validity of the claim. No
professional social worker or sociologist
dissented, true, but neither did any con-
cur with the mothers. In their traditional
style, liberal county supervisors do some-
times champion the meek, but there was
no evidence of meekness throughout the
week, other 'than that presented verbally
by the mothers. And the degree and ex-
tent of poverty they claimed simply did
not conform with what the average sup-
ervisor would consider possible in Ann
Arbor.
THE POVERTY situation they purport
may exist. Ignorance of the repugnant
is one of the present inadequacies of
democracy. Appearances may be deceiv-
ing, but when all that is presented are
appearances, a judgment counter to them
is difficult to ascertain as feasible on its
own merits.
And thus, the judgment ultimately
granted the welfare mothers was not as-
certained by reason. The solution was
ascertained with the mitigation of fear-
fear from protest.
As county supervisor Hillery Goddard
so adequately conceded that night, "I
guess the time's come when you com-
promise, because the other guy's got the
upper hand. They've got it, we don't."
Goddard was naive. If the power of
protest did determine the ultimate deci-
sion, it is fittingly ironic that the county
board sat in a position of relative omni-
potence Monday night. They had been so
frightened by the events of the past sev-
eral days, they failed to scrutinize their
own position.
THE DEMONSTRATIONS had waned,
the students were becoming uncom-
fortably aware of the incongruity be-
tween protest against police brutality and
protest against welfare.
Neither the students nor the mothers
could afford more arrests or demonstra-
tions.
No one could have been more incorrect
than county chairman Robert Harrison
as he told the supervisors before their
final vote, "You can vote as you like,
gentlmen, but let me warn you of the
repercussions if we don't accept this."
Evep though. the protest was waning,
it had been constructed to maintain an
appearance-at least to the county board
-of being all powerful.
AND THE TIME did come, Mr. Goddard,
when the power of the people ruled.
Most of the time, only the representatives
of the people rule. But Monday night,
democracy reigned for the people, by the
people.
The mothers and students should not
so much now celebrate or claim a victory
in the issue, but rather in their effective-
ness. They aren't allowed to vote-the
students are too "immajure" and the
blacks are too black. But the events this
week show there are other means of being
heard and of determining the factors
that govern our lives.
True democratic power appeared Mon-
day night, even though slightly. The sub-
stance' of the protest which proceeded
Monday night was a spontaneous moral
committment by many individuals.
This is grass roots democratic power in
action; and we should. now focus our
attention on the use of such democratic
power to the avails of democracy.
-JIM HECK
YOU REMEMBER how the witch Circe by her magic
changed the comrades of brave Ulysses into pigs:
"She gave them all comfortable seats, and made
them a posset, cheese and meal and pale honey mixt
with Pramnelan wine; but she put dangerous drugs in the
mess, to make them wholly forget their native land.
When they had swallowed it, she gave them a tap of her
wand at once and herded them into pens; for now they
had pigs' heads and grunts and bristles, pigs all over ex-
cept that their minds were the same as before."
Most persons. in America - nearly all whites and
some blacks - are pigs, much like Ulysses' companions.
That is to say they have been so radically transfigured
they can only act like pigs although inside their minds
they may remember what it would be to be human. The
memory of humanity is stronger in some .than in others,
but nonetheless, all are enchanted.
ALL ARE PIGS. The difference between most Ameri-
cans and the police, who are now commonly c a l1e d
"pigs," is no more than a difference of behavior. It is
not a. difference of species. The police pigs are put in
situations in which they are constantly called upon to
think and act like pigs, to affirm the piggishness of the
larger society. So the Police Pigs must root and wallow
and attack the young, while the other American pigs
grunt quietly in protest and try to pretend they are zo
less than their memory of humanity.
But all are pigs, and the obvious banality of the
police is only a constant assertion of our conymon char-
acter. The police, as social scientist Lee Rainwater puts
it, are our "dirty workers." They keep the oppressed in
line so that the fruits of exploitation may be taken from
them. The police put their tusks to the oppressed - in
the ghetto and in Vietnam - but only in the name of the
'larger community. Teachers and social workers who keep
the oppressed placated and powerless are also dirty
workers. Their obviously piggish behavior allows other
American pigs"the luxury of a suburban sty where mem-
ories of humanity may not be interrupted by the cries
of the oppressed,
SO LET US be very certain that if any of us more
sophisticated pigs were put in a police academy, given the
gun and a can of Mace, and set to do the great American
dirty work, we'd quickly forget those memories of hu-
manity and root and snort as wildly as the greatest Pig.
For Circe is an American system which makes us all
pigs. And to be a man transfigured into a pig is to be
oppressed, just like our victims. No wonder the distinction
between the pig and his victim becomes confused, no
wonder the student is a nigger, like the housewife and
the businessman. It may, in fact, be better to be an op-
pressed human exploited by pigs than to be a pig. Or
perhaps there is little difference.
The Circe spell will be broken when American so-
ciety becomes non-racist, non-imperialist, non-material-
ist and imbued by a positive culture which, emerging
from the present pigsty is unimaginable. We are all so
much the pig that we can only identify the piggishness
we hope to shake off; because we are pigs it is difficult
to determine what would be for us a positive program.
IT IS CLEAR however that the program of the New
Man must make it impossible for people to declare in-
ferior, as we have for so long, peoples like the Vietna-
mese and the Afro-Americans. We have declared such
peoples sub-human for the purposes of brutalizing and
exploiting them. The most human in us says that all
persons are entitled to the dignity of persons. To get
around this, we have declared some- pesons are non-
persons, that they can be made slaves and peons and
treated with guns and whips. And as we set'about to
make victims sub-human in our minds, we become sub-
human ourselves. Pigs. And the dirty workers.took care
of business so that many of us did not have to recognize
all this.
The generation of young pigs has been concerned
with liberating the victims of the dirty worker pigs. But
it is clear that it cannot liberate the victims until it lib-
erates itself. This means confronting full force our own
piggishness, which liberal/radicals have been so reluc-
tant to do.
LIBERAL/RADICAL PIGS, whose memories of hu-
manity are the strongest of all pigs, have a history of
working for victims rather than for themselves.
As long as blacks allowed it, the civil rights worker
acted in the ghetto, on behalf of the black victim. They
marched at the front of the freedom march while blacks
marched in the back and faced police brutality. The civil
rights worker forcedr blacks to accept their skills and
their values. And made it impossible for the victim to act
for himself.
Eventually blacks recognized the piggishness in the
civil rights worker and drove them squealing from the
black community. When they awoke, dazed, in the white
community, the civil rights worker became apologists for
Black Power. Their hearts - and perhaps their humanity
-remained in the black ghetto. They spouted black
power ideology and pretended to do black power work.
Some, for example, referred to themselves as "Black
Masks."
All this was despite frequent declarations f r o m
Stokely Carmichael and many other black men that the
business of the expelled whites was to liberate the white
community from its pig honkeyness.
EVENTUALLY some whites began to explore the
white community. But they were often overwhelmed with
what they found, perhaps what they expected all along.
The new white organizer found trustless, competetive
and frightened "individuals" with no sense of humanity
and no identification witlh a community. Ile found that
whites defined themselves in terms of their salaries and
possessions, that they could feel no bonds with anyone,
except, in some cases, their immediate families.
The white organizer had known something very dif-
ferent in the black community. He had found that even
the most politically estranged blacks, like Stokely Car-
michael and Roy Wilkins, called each other "brother"
and knew exactly what that meant. He found that black
liberation workers felt "together" with black bourgeoisie,
welfare mothers, and all the peoples of the Third World.
And when the white organizer worked in the black com-
munity, he flourished in that "togetherness" and exper-
ienced himself as human.
FOR WHEN A MURDERER kills a white leader, the
"individuals" of the white community retreated back into
feelings of "personal loss" and into talk of "deranged in-
dividuals." But when a black is killed, an entire commun-
ity takes the loss as that of theircommunity. As NAACP
leader Albert Wheeler observed in the Martin Luther
King memorial services in Hill Auditorium: whites felt
grief; blacks felt anger.
So, despite the agonies, white organizers with any
memory of humanity at all must work to end the Circe
spell on their comrades. When the white community can
feel anger rather than "personal loss," perhaps it will be
loss the community of pigs it is now.
As Hermes told brave Ulysses, who only barely es-
caped transfiguration,
"Whither away again, you poor fellow, alone on the
hills, in a country you do not know? Your companions
are shut up younder in Circe's. like so many pigs, cosy
in their pigsties. Are you going to set them free?'
SO FREE THE PIGS. All the pigs. Until the pigs are
freed, a band of whites who march to liberate a group of
victims like the welfare mothers are only practicing self-
deception. Fdr the dirty workers victimize the welfare
mothers on behalf of the marchers and their community.
Sure, the white solvers of the black problem may
make some short term gains. But short-term gains are a
large part of the spell of appeasement which keeps white
liberal-radicals in their own particular sty.
'And sure, the-marchers can take orders from the
welfare mothers. It is another path for the marchers into
the togetherness of the black movement. And the op-
pressed black women probably can't see the pig identified
in the students who want to help them. They only see the
pig in the dirty workers who act in the student's name.
Lastly, sure the marchers can be attacked by police.
There's nothing in the character of a pig which prohibits
pigs from fighting among themselves.
THE POLITICS of pig liberation will require whites
to be very uncompromising in denying the seductions of
the American system and its seducers. The white libe-
rators will have to learn to stop being bought off with
comforts and ad hoc solutions and to realize that educa-
tions and jobs which do not directly work toward the
emancipation of pigs only tightens the spell.
Whites will also have to recognize, with a minimum
of self-flagellation, who in America is a pig.
"Ah, Circe," said Ulysses, "how could you bid me be
gentle to you when you have turned my companions into
pigs in this house? And now that you have me here, with
decietfulness in your heart you bid me to go to your bed
in your chamber, that when I am stript you may unman
me and make me a weakling.
"Ah Circe! What man with any decent feeling could
have the heart to taste food and drink, until he should
see his friends; free and standing before his eyes. If you
really mean this invitation to eat and drink, set them
free, that I may see my friends before my eyes."
The martyr:
Out of date?11
By DAVID DUBOFF
"MARTYR: ONE WHO SACRIFICES his life, station,
etc., for the sake of principle" (Websters New Col-
legiate Dictionary, 2nd ed.).
In this age where God is more dead than, he ever
was, where the educated youth, frustrated by the stg-
nation of a social order that feeds on human misery,
are either "dropping out" Or retreating to a philosophy
of political pragmatism, it is hardly surprising that the
word "martyr" has become synonymous with "fool."
'"What do you want to do, make a martyr of your-
self?" people would say as I grappled with the decision
of sitting-in for the second~ time. As though that ended
the discussion. "Morality has no place in politics."
AND YET, our generation, too, has its martyrs men
public and private who have been killed defending their
principles. How is it thatawee are able to idealize these
"heroic figures" while condemning those we know in-
finitely better who put themselves in positions where
they may receive a few days or a few years in jail?
We have become so imbedded in the atomic age's
race to learn a skill and get out into the world value
system that we have forgotten what a real principle is.
A principled person is one who lives what he believes-
or so our school books tell us. And if e is to live it,
he must be prepared to die for it.
Few men really intend to die for what they believe.
And yet, Malc6lm X talked of a plot to assissinate him,
and Martin Luther King, speaking the night before he
died, had a premonition of danger. These men were
charismatic figures, larger than life, and somehow, we
are able to salve our consciences by remembering that
they gave their lives to make this a better world.
4
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Letters to the Editor
The bail fund: A lo gical explanation
Excedrin headache No. 68
THE RECENTLY-APPOINTED Advisory
Committee on Recreation, Intramurals
and Club Sports, which met for the first
time last Friday night, has inherited a
long-standing headache.
The committee, set up to directly in-
fluence Athletic Director Don Canham,
must address non-varsity athletic prob-
lems which date bac: to the playing days
of Bump Elliott.
Last intramural facility added was the
Margaret Bell Pool in 1953. Since then
the enrollment of the University has
doubled, putting increased pressure on
existing facilities. The introduction of
club sports like rugby, lacrosse, and soc-
cer have hardly buffered the migraint.
THE SHORTAGE of playing space , re-
mains the most critical short-range
issue. Because of a series of circum-
stances neither Fuller Field (on North
scheduling is crippled. Fuller, predicted
to solve ,the o'verall shortage, is still lit-
tered with stones.
This limits the hoped-for expansion of,
intramural teams. And the rugby :club,
which has a home game scheduled for
Saturday, has no home field (regulation-
size).
Recognizing the immediacy of the prob-
lem, the committee's list of priorities in-
cludes additional space for outdoor fields.
THE AMBITIONS of the committee,
though strictly limited to short-term
proposals, are credible and laudable.
Eventually it must square off with the
fundamental issue of.updating student
sport facilities congruent with student
needs.
But the committee's paramount road-
block, in both short-term and long-term
..... - ew - wncrUn+U Ti, rnf- e . Pa.-
To the Editor:
WE ARE WRITING this letter
with the hope that it will in
some way clarify the misunder-
standings and mitigate the re-
sentment that seems to have arisen,
in some quarters in regards to
SGC's recent -establishment of a
$1,500 bail fund.
Bail money is held by the Court
in the name of the person or or-
ganization that posts the bond
and is returned once the individ-
ual has come to trial. It is in no
way a payment of fine money,
court costs, or payment of legal
fees. It is a loan to a particular
individual to enable him to await
trial in his normal surroundings
instead of a jail cell.
This University has had a bail
fund under Mr. Gainsley's office
for several years. The amount of
that bail fund was $200. The Stu-
dent Relations Committee of
SACVA had a study of that bail
fund conducted because it was
concerned whether or not this
fund was sufficient. Last week it
was demonstrated that it was
totally inadequate.
An amount of $200 is insuf-
ficient for ,the normal needs of
the student body even in times
much calmerthan last weeks mass
arrests. In light of this need, SGC
contributed the first $1,500 ;to the
bail fund. This amount was not
merely for the situation of last
Th -wc .l ", .- wi,,o h t . fn th
than the relatively rareproblem
of mass arrests resulting from
demonstrations.
THE CRITICISM has been,
'made that establishing a bail fund
is inconsistent with the proper
role of SGC. to this we would
reply that the major portion of
Council's budget has long been
spent on services such as the Stu-
dent Housing-Association. Student
Consumer's Union, Legal Aid,
voter registration, and other sim-
ilar projects which attempt to
provide needed service for stu-
dents in their lives- outside 'he
classroom.
When students need an at-
torney's advice in relation to their
landlord, their insurance company,
or other similar problem, SGC
has provided lawyers on a low cost
time sharing basis. Council has
worked to provide service in ob-
taining a fair shake for students
in housing, prices, laundry facili-
ties, registering in Ann Arbor, etc.
because the need has existed and
we could provide help.
So when it beca'me obvious I hat
a need, both immediate and long
term,existed for bail so that stu-
dent would not have their lives.
both academic and non-academic,
interrupted any longer than nec-
essary while'awaiting trial, it was
entirely consistent, in fact logical,
that SGC continue its moves for-
ward to serve the student com-
munity.
We hope that personal beliefs,
both pro and con, about last
week events will not prejudice the
consideration of SGC's attempts
to provide adequate bail funds to
any student who needs it.
-Robert Neff, Exec. V.P./SGC
-E. O. Knowless, '70, SGC
Sept. 10
SUPPOSEDLY, EACH OF THESE so-called martyrs
was killed by a "crackpot," a sick man with a sick mind
who placed value on human life. Those who sit-in to
protest the corruption and degradation of the welfare
system, those who go to jail every week for refusing
induction, face a much worse enemy. They face an over-
powering legal system that is every bit as corrupt, every
bit as dehumanizing as the "crackpot" who made a hero
out of RFK.
People say, "You made your point when you got ar-
rested. Why make things worse for yourself? After all,
your fight isn't with the courts." Hogwash. The judicial
system and law enforcement officials are integrally re-
lated in a political power system used to stifle dissent
and "keep dissidents in their place." Sheriff Harvey is
able to throw a scare into demonstrators only because
he has a system of legal sanctions to back him up.
Thousands of our friends escape to Canada because they
don't want to have to face five years in prison. We may
not have the "right" under the system to break the law,
but we have the duty, as human beings, to show that we
will not allow the laws to be used to intimidate us.
NO ONE MAKES A MARTYR out of himself. One
does what he feels he has to do, and it is the people in
power who decide how to respond to him.
We should not allow ourselves to be voluntarily stif-
led by the very middle-class value system that we say
we are trying to oppose.)If 30 days in jail will make it
impossible to stay in school this semester, we have the
resources to go to school next semester. We should not
be so self-righteous as to assume that if we were put out
of circulation for 30 days the entire student movement
would collapse.
What is more important is that we continue to exist
as human beings rather than as slaves to our dehuman-
ized value system. There are two types of prisons, ones of
steel bars, the other of fear and conciliation. A man can
live in the first type of prison - perhaps not a full life,
but nonetheless a meaningful one. The second is ulti-
mately self-defeating, not only in personal terms but in
'0
Alternatives to protests
To the Editor:
THE STUDENT demonstrations
in Ann Arbor really made me
laugh. Here were college kids who
were contributing the least to the
cause of ADC screaming the loud-
est. I wonder how many of them
have contributed to the cause as
much as I and my fellow members
of the working force have; my
last paycheck of $224 was cut to
$160 take home after taxes.
needs. A group might take a bath,
dress neatly and perhaps even cut
their hair, and canvas the com-
munity for clean used clothing,
new clothing, or monetary con-
tributions. (A dollar contributed
by each student would,net a good
beginning). Sub committees might
volunteer their time to stay i with
children so that mothers could
get out to shop; others might
volunteer their economic knowl-
nr .r fi :hn wth -h , 1 ar c
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