t D aly
Seventy-Sixth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BYS TUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
Black Power:
The Angry Reappraisal
:.
tere Opinions Are Free,
Truth Will Prevail 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBoR, MICH.
NEws PHONE: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the inidividual opinions of staff writers
or the editors.'This must be noted in alt reprints.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 1966
NIGHT EDITOR: SHIRLEY ROSICK
The Sounds of Summer:
Ann Arbor Is Dead
ANN ARBOR is dead, in the summer at
any rate. The Great Trimester Plan is
crumbling before our very eyes. It is not,
regardless of defensive cries from the
administrators, like the Fall or Winter
semester. Just take a look around you-
the decay is obvious;
There are actually vacant seats to be
found in the UGLI. Even the basement
provides a quiet atmosphere for those of
you who intend to use it. Gone are the
days when one rushed to the library doors
at 7:45 a.m. to reserve a seat. One no
longer has to place his books on that rare,
empty desk to preserve it for his use in
the future.
THE NUMBER of thieves who were fond
of concealing reserved books in their
pockets, purses, or whatever, are rapidly
disappearing. Pangs of conscience? Not
on your life. Reserved books are simply
there for the asking. In the past, the six
books reserved for a lectured body of 500
were simply not enough; but the lecture
halls are fairly empty now, six are
enough.
You can find a parking space. You can
also drive a car, even if you haven't
reached the golden age of 21.
Merchants of Liquor are forgetting to
ask for ID.
You can find a seat on the Diag but
there's no one to look at; even the squir-
rels have gone home for the summer.
Rallies on the Diag have disappeared
and have been replaced by puppet shows;
but even then the vociferous crowd of
three is not particularly exciting.
THE BIGGEST campus event of the
summer has been the burning of the
West Physics Building, putting UAC's
Summer Weekend to shame for the
crowds it collected. The crowds, however,
were forced out of the library and sur-
rounding classrooms in order to provide
mass interest. (The officials, however, in-
sist that the Exodus was for the students
safety; our photographers know better.)
UAC hunted for people to serve at the
Hatcher Tea. They even came to The
Daily.
Cinema Guild only presents films on
Friday and Saturday night and they lost
Bogy on an airplane.
You can get tickets for any event, if
you can find the event.
The lions beside the front door of thej
museum have been roaring for months.
You don't have to spend two days in
health service in order to see one of the
doctors.
"'THE SOUNDS OF Silence" are around
us everywhere; what has happened
to the student of yesteryear?
He has been replaced by the senior
who never made it to graduation; the
boundless participants of the wondrous
system of Ihcompletes and last but not
least, the oriented freshman with his own
little bluebook, the 'M' manual contain-
ing useless tidbits of information which
he will never use when school actually
begins.
-PAT O'DONOHUE,
Beautification
Program
APROPOS OF the removal from the Diag
by Plant Department workers of a
sign a spokesman for that office found
politically objectionable, it was suggested,
that the Plant Department might want to
undertake the following projects in
aesthetics.
-Remove the Economics Building; re-
placing it with a Center for the Study of
Political Aesthetics;
--Offer a course in the "Aesthetics of
the Michigan Flowering Shurb";
-Write a book entitled "The War in
Vietnam and Homeowners Guide to
Scientific Gardening",
-Replace Burton Tower with a large
concrete slab to be used as a memorial
commemorating the first Plant Depart-
ment worker to consume 473.5 gallons of
coffee during one working day.
-CHARLOTTE A. WOLTER
Co-Editor
WHITNEY M. YOUNG, Jr., exe-
utive director of the National
Urban League, a civil rights or-
ganization, has denounced the
current controversy over the term
"black power" because, he believes,
it has diverted attention from the
more pressing issues at hand in
the Negro's struggle for equality.
Young said the league "has care-
fully refrained from becoming in-
volved in the fruitless dispute
over the value of a slogan which
has not even yet been clearly de-
fined by its originators.
"Rather, we will continue to
devote ourselves to bettering the
position of the Negro in the na-
tion."
YOUNG'S ORGANIZATION has
often been criticized by groups
like the Student Non-Violent Co-
ordinating Committee (SNCC),
which first supported black power.
because it is not "militant." Never-
chosen to support the possibility
theless, Young has obviously
that the slogan, black power, may
have some meaning for the whole
Negro movement if, indeed, as he
suggests, it is given the chance
to define itself completely and to
show exactly what it means in
action.
The controversy over the term
itself, and the organization from
which it apparently came, SNCC,
has up to this point only deterred
any real application of the philos-
ophy of black power.
One of the first consequences to
those organizations who have ex-
pressed approval of the term or
the whole philosophy of black
power, has been the loss of valu-
able monetary support from white
liberals in the North. A recent
article in the St. Louis Post-
Dispatch pointed out that many
northern whites who had pre-
viously contributed heavily to
SNCP and CORE were withdraw-
ing their support.
Paradoxically, many of those
who withdrew were Jewish busi-
nessmen and executives, alarmed
by reports of anti-Semetic re-
marks by SNCC leaders. Yet these
are people who not so long ago
fought their own battle against
discrimination.
MORE IMPORTANT than the
loss of financial support, though,
is the disapproval of the term ex-
pressed by many congressmen and
members of the judicial structure
of the government. In the legal
battles of the past few years, the
unquestioned support of these
liberal elements in Congress and
on the Supreme Court was even
more important, to the legitimacy
of the movement, than the mone-
tary support.
Thus, without the financial sup-
port to contribute to the many
services provided by civil rights
organizations, and without the
political support of the govern-
ment, there is little hope that
black power, whatever it means
at this time, can ever be applied
in a legitimate way to this social
movement.
But another consequence, with-
in the movement as a whole, may
be the most damaging.
IT IS OBVIOUS that approval
or disapproval of the term has
seriously split the various organi-
zations of the civil rights move-
ment. SNCC and CORE, in re-
sponse to the noses-up attitude of
organizations like NAACP, have
further radicalized their inter-
pretations of the term in an ef-
fort to strengthen the force of
their argument for its adoption.
NAACP and related liberal groups,
consequently, have become more
sententious in their disdain for
any connection with the slogan or
its implications.
While the civil rights movement
is divided in this manner, there is
little possibility that the construc-
tive work of eradicating the social
maladys that are the by-products
of discrimination.
In essense, the dispute over
black power is more of a delaying
action by those groups who either
do not wish to come to terms with
the realities of political power
that must enter into any social
movement's work in a power con-
scious world,- or do not wish to
come to terms with the radical
implications of black power.
BLACK POWER, and few deny
ttis, does have racial implications.
It implies that the Negro, in ad-
dition to working to obtain rights
equal to those of the white nlmn,
must work toward a consciousness
of his uniquesness, of the fact
The Associates
by carney and woter
that he is different, as far as his
current position in American so-
ciety is concerned. It also means
that he must be prepared to work
alone, to associate only with other
Negroes in his struggle to obtain
equal rights.
It doesNnot necessarily mean
that the Negro, once he has ob-
tained status, and uniqueness,
equal to that of the white, will
remain separate from the white
society of this country. Black
power, can be, and probably will
be a tool used to gain equal status.
But this whole issue, the use of
black power, the present real dif-
ference of the Negro society from
the white society in this country,
the possibilities of separation- or
eventual joining of Negro and
white society, will never be dealt
with if the current controversy.
. ONE CAN GIVE credit to Sto-
kely Carmichael for his courage
in bringing up an explosive issue
like black power at a time when
the civil rights movement was con-
vulsed by an argument over which
new tactics it could employ-"old"
tactics like the sit-in or the picket
ostensibly having been exhausted.
More important than the tacti-
cal dispute, was the question of
what areas of social breakdown
or deficiency in the Negro com-
munity should and could be at-
tacked by civil rights organiza-
tions. Again, indecision and half-
hearted efforts were rampant
among the civil rights organiza-
tions with the general impression
being one of a slowdown in activ-
ity.
Therefore, considered in this
perspective, the use of the term
black power, in fact, the proud,
taunting manner in which it was
used by Carmichael and others in
SNCC and CORE, was. a stroke
of political genius. It may have
been distasteful to the white com-
munity, to the moderate Negro or-
ganizations, to Congress, the
courts and the like, but it did
raise the civil rights movement
out of a lethargy that was only
artificially broken by events like
the Meredith march.
HOWEVER, as has been pointed
out before, the danger now is that
the dust devil, of black power will
merely wreck havoc upon the or-
ganizational "brotherhood" of the
Negro movement rather than stir
it to the painful reappraisal and
redirection that it presently needs.
Stokely Carmichael has shown
that he is a more than effective
gadfly. He shocked, repulsed, and
deeply troubled the leaders of the
more Establishment-oriented civil,
rights organizations. He has tried
to establish contact with the po-
tentially powerful, but hitherto
shunned Negro organizations like
the Black Muslims, which could in
themselves be a powerful tool in
the fight for civil rights, if only
for purposes of frightening the
white population to real action.
Carmichael has also shown that
he could just possibly, make a sub-
stantialdcontribution to the whole
civil rights movement's attempt at
redirection through his call for a
conference of all civil rights lead-
ers to discuss black power and
the other issues now confronting
them.
IF HE IS as successfuljin getting
several hundred angry people to
sit down and talk to one another
about black power and pressing
social issues as he was in orginally
making them angry, then the civil
rights movement may be well on
the road to accomplishing its orig-
inal goal: the true equality of the
Negro in America.
'what Do You Think This Ise Some Kind Of
Great Society Or Something?"
V
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The Pern icous Disease of Nationalism
How To Argue, Fruitlessly,
With a Conservative
IT IS NOT SURPRISING to find that
the hue and cry over Viet Nam has pro-
duced disagreements about what consti-
tutes an authority on Southeast Asia, U.S.
policy, military strategy, and various
other related subjects.
Sometimes it appears that no one real-
ly knows .anything. Each shade of opin-
ion is based on a different set of "facts"
-as impossible to prove as they are to
disprove.
IT IS A FAVORITE tactic of those who
defend U.S. policy to counter a state-
ment with "Who says so? How do you
know? Have you been there?" in an ef-
fort to discredit the remarks of a dis-
senter.
This is usually an effective technique
for changing the subject, burying the real
issues when the discussion becomes em-
barrassing. All of a sudden, instead of
discussing the war, you find yourselves
arguing about who is or is not qualified to
make judgments.
In particular, supporters of the war
seem to feel that being an authority on
Southeast Asia is not a valid qualifica-
tion. They say that professors don't real-
ly understand present-day forces and
pressures, that books can't give a true
picture (although I have yet to hear any
mention the title of a book a professor
might have read, and tell why and how it
was wrong).
A DISCUSSION of this sort took place
on the Diag yesterday, during the
Voice-sponsored Viet Nam protest.
A dissenter commented that the situa-
tion in Viet Nam is not the same as the
situation during the Korean War. A man
in the crowd retorted, "How do you know?
That's just your opinion. Were you there?"
The speaker answered that he had read
a discussion of the situation by someone
who was there.
The supporter of the war retorted, "Yes,
but what school did he go to? Where did
he get his PhD?"
IT SEEMS THAT, no matter how many
statements are made concerning the
mistakes the United States is making in
Viet Nam, defenders of U.S. policy will
not admit that the men who make these
statements are qualified.
If professors, who have studied human
behavior and institutions all their lives,
are unqualified because they don't have
PhD's, who is left?
It is a grave mistake to shrug of f the
observations and analysis of these experts.
Even if we don't agree with everything
they say, we must respect their qualifica-
tions, their superior training and exper-
ience.
IF WE REFUSE to listen to the state-
ments of all those who are not com-
mitted to U.S. policy (as Secretary Mc-
Namara certainly is), we will never be
able to make any sense out of a policy
that, at present, seems to many of us to
be nonsense.
-CAROLE KAPLAN
Thoughtful
Foreign Policy
LINCOLN GEORGE, assistant secretary
of state for Inter-American Affairs,
has assaulted the academic crackdowns
of the Argentinian military, largely in an
effort to defend himself against charges
of having favored them.
"I do not believe that the regime in
Argentina was justified in 'cracking
down' as it did in the universities. We
have indicated our dismay and concern at
this action, .. ." he said.
That's, + hrmia fil
By DAVID KNOKE
THE WORLD HAS suffered from
a pernicious disease for almost
a millenium. Claiming the lives
and energies of billions of peoples,
th disease has defied eradiction
by closkina its dangers in the
guise of virtue. The name of this
disease is nationalism.
The growth of the nation-state
paralleled the decreasing self-
sufficiency of small human so-
cieties. As neolithic nomad fami-
lies banded into tribal units tilling
the soil, then formed regional
conglomeration of city-and-coun-
try, the concept of cultural boun-
daries and territorial superiority
became fixed in men's minds. Be-
yond the city walls or guarded
frontiers, "they" were always the
"barbarians."
THE PROCESS of empire seems
to have been reversed, not just
in size but in kind, during the
feudal period in Europe. The lord-
villain relationship, although
created under deprived economic
circumstances, was essentially a
business transaction: tithes ex-
changed for police protection.
The petty feudal wars that
plagued the era carried no over-
tones of national, racial or class
hatred; the conquest and absorp-
tion of principalities was more
the personal aggrandizement of
the lord's house than the colonial
acquisition of a victorious coun-
try. The Church did assume a
nebulous role as an infra-nation,
but even at the time she could
command the crusading power of
princesagainst the infidels,sthe
foundations of the modern state
were being formed.
From the crude beginnings of
the English Plantagenets, the
French Bourbons and Cardinal
Richelieu, the Germanic Hohen-
stauffen and Spanish Castellians
came the lasting divisions of
peoples which criss-cross modern
Europe. While regional differences
-language and dialect, custom,
tradition and folklore-indicate
that the Silesian peasant has little
cultural affinity with the Breton
fisherman, -neither does he with
the Ruhr miner, although they
are both "Germans" belonging to
the same nation.
THE CONCEPT of the nation-
state is a highly artificial one, an
anachronism, a temporary stage
in the development of human so-
cial organizations which has solid-
ified as though it were the ulti-
mate form of organization. The
family unit-the multi-generation
family-is a universal social struc-
ture permitting the maximum de-
velopment of the individual. The
self-sufficient community of fam-
ilies within the regional cultural
heritage is the optimal organiza-
tion for economic and cultural
autonomy.
But the nation-state seals off
its boundaries artificially, setting
its "self-interest" above that of its
rival nations and forcing economic
patterns into a "political econ-
omy." The social intercourse of
neighboring geographic communi-
ties is vastly hampered by the in-
visible lines drawn in the maps
of men's minds.
THE EXTREME CASE of the
artificial geo-political division can
be seen in the difficulties of for-
mer colonial states struggling to
assume Western-stylenationhood.
The "nationalism" of the so-called
third-world is a frenetic one.
Leaders, unskilled in the size and
complexity of the task, hope to
amalgamate their populaces by
raising a spectre of the Outsider.
The Outsider is a scapegoat upon
which to heap the blame for na-
tional frustrations. It acts as a
presumed threat to the new na-
tion, mobilizing the populace in'
a united front.
In some newly freed nations,
the boundaries were drawn by
British colonists and the new
government models itself after the
Europeans. The ages-old antagon-
isms of the Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa
tribes, however, are threatening
to break Nigeria into petty fac-
tions fighting for domination of
the other two.
IN INDIA, the disparity of lan-
guages, religions, and ways of life
present enormous stumbling blocks
to any organization beyond loose
confederation. The desire of Ne-
hru to catalyze the process of
nation-building through indus-
trialization has indeed hurt the
country, with its neglect of agri-
culture and indelicacy in trying
to create a common language.
In China's forging of national
pride, the use of the Outsider as a
galvanzing force is evident. The
doctorine of Maoism, currently
reaching to fever pitch and to
absurd claims of omniscience, is
communistic only incidental to its
nationalistic character.
Maoism aims at stripping away
the accumulated centuries of
Chinese culture and reorienting
institutions like community, school
and family to' one purpose: exul-
tation of the state welfare above
individual fulfillment. The Com-
munist Party to this end has en-
forced international isolation and
created the double-monster of
U.S.-USSR encirclement in an at-
tempt to draw tighter the bonds
of paranoic nationalism.
NATIONALISM is perpetuated
by the process whereby "educa-
tion" becomes indoctrination in
the superior virtues of one's own
nation. The indoctrination need
not be so blatent as the Nazi ver-
sion of Herrenvolk to be effective.
The history textbooks of every
nation subjectify confrontations of
their nation with others to cast
themselves in the role of right-
eousness.
The pernicious doctrine of na-
tionalism, perpetuated in every
nation, shows its worst aspects in
international interaction. Patriotic
self-interest compels nations to
compete unreasonably more often
than to cooperate rationally.
Human social development has
calcifiedrover an 800-year period
into a rigid structure in' which
every square mile of earth has
been carved into nation-states and
spheres of influence. Thq nation-
unit of organization has brought
a measure of material well-being
to the inhabitants of some nations,
but deprived many of the bene-
fits of shared knowledge, resources
and techniques by restraint of in-
teraction.
NATIONAL PRIDE, erupting in-
to antagonisms and wars, now
endangers every nation on the
planet. The time is at hand when
more fervent nationalism has out-
lived its usefulness; new ways
must be sought by which the
family of man may live more con-
structively.
'4
'.j ,NATIaroN~L uI
(
....
REVIEW:
'Lady L' Is Colorful,
Glorious Cinema
I
By ANDREW LUGG
PETER USTINOV is a past-
master of quiet wordy humour.
His film, "Lady L," showing this
week at the State Theatre is no
exception. Besides directing "Lady
L," Ustinov wrote the screenplay,
an adaption of Romain Gary's
novel, which I have not read, and
acts a bit part. He shows vir-
tuosity in each of these roles.
Whatever the quality of Gary's
novel, it provides just the vehicle
that Ustinov requires to show off
his unique and askew glance at
decrepit aristocracy, princes, dukes
and high living; to mimic the
English, the French, the Italian
and to introduce an anarchist-
pianist, Krajewski, from, we are
told, Poland. In reality" we know
he is a citizen of Concordia.
LADY LENDALE (Sophia Lo-
ren) is now eighty years old. She
appears cantankerous and crotch-
etv. but for all of that still Sophia
earlier recollections Sophia Loren
is cast as being French but the
overriding impression we have is
still of a beautifully charming
Italian woman, still Sophia Loren,
but who cares?
HOWEVER we do care about
Paul Newman. He is Armard the
lover and then husband of house,
and is quite out of touch with
the part he is playing-that of a
Corsican anarchist. Newman at-
tempts to portray a dashing 'and
wild young political rebel, hand-
some and romantic. He manages
his performance well in the be-
ginning but when he needs tem-
per it with "unrequited love" he
reverts to the sullen Luster.
That Louise is in love with him
despite his wildness is suprising
since he has no style at all. Mis-
cast or just bad acting-take your
choice
David Niven. on the other hand.
I
A M WV 'TL4VWIr