martin porter tony schwartz design editor: rolfe tessen sundcay magozine contributing editors: laura berman howie brick chris parks Number 22 Page Three FEAT April 14, 1974 TURES Stuck in a non-era: We're flaun ting worrying By CHRIS PARKS HIS IS NOT just the end of another school year. On campus, and in the nation at large, it is the end of an era. A catchy, convenient thought. Sadly, how- ever, it isn't true. At times in the activist sixties it may have been, and even in the first years of the seventies, when the 're- turn to normalcy' began. But what's happening now feels like neither the beginning nor the end of an era. It's more like an endless morass of non-era, with nothing tangibly different in sight. It is the, eve of graduation for many of us, and never, as a group, have we felt so divided and lost. The committed are splin- tered among a multitude of separate and often warring factions. And the uncommit- ted, or no longer committed - most of us it seems - simply endure. When we first came here four years ago, there was a feeling that, as young people and students, we shared a common set of beliefs and goals. We were consciously un- conscious of our differences. In a mold of naive- egalitarianism, which held that dif- ferences between people shouldn't exist, we ignored them, or papered them over, and - when necessary - we suppressed them. The movement was broad, encom- passing everyone with basically humanis- tic values, and it was aimed at The War. THE WAR, of course, was the issue, the number one evil and source of all other evils: Our common ideology was based upon opposing it and everything and everyone associated with it. (Our politics were based, nearly in their entirety, upon things we were against; but because these things were evil, we were, of course, a positive force). Our struggle was with Them. Them who had all the power, controlled the military, the government, industry, commerce, the media and the University. We struggled be- o u r o about ifferences, the future suspect many of us who voted for HRP feel no closer to the party's leaders than to the people on the impeachment or tuition hike cornmittees." cause we knew we were right, and would soon have The People on our side. Nat- urally we believed right would out, but in any event, the struggle would be decisive. No one really knows when it ended. Some of us still can't believe it has. Rather it ran its collective course, and now its many disparate elements have simply set- tled into other things. In any case, people who come to campus today looking for the student movement will find, instead, a hundred separate and isolated little movements bobbing aimless- ly about. We have gone from suppressing our dif- ferences to proudly flaunting them. We, who believed we had the world in com- mon, are now convinced we have nothing in common. We hide behind tags, peering out suspiciously at each other. BACK THEN, it was enough if you were under thirty, wore blue jeans and op- posed the war. Now we have to know if you're male or female, blackorwhite, gay or straight, liberal, radical, socialist, communist, anarchist, Maoist, Trotskyite, sparticist, or labor committee. Or maybe you're into one of a hundred gurus, medi- tation groupsor other odd mystic orders. And if you're into one, it's a sure bet you're not into the other; and that those who are probably aren't talking to you this month. And then, of course, there's the rest of us. We don't belong to anything, except of course, our cliques. We think of ourselves as liberal, but we aren't committed'to anything. We like to consider ourselves liberated, but changing values and sex roles confuse and threaten us, and often we find ourselves falling back on the old ones. But, most of all, we worry. We worry about our sexual attractiveness, our social lives, our relationshins. More than before, we worry about our classes, grades, getting into grad school or getting a job (like a famous "Graduate" of a few years back, we're "worried about our future"). We worry, and so we spend our' week- ends at the Del-Rio, Flood's and the Pretzel Bell and we drink too much. The result is that this year has been a time of leaders without followers; move- men;s which didn't move anyone. In the fall, some of us believed that tui- tion hikes-a solid, "bread and butter" is- sue-might rouse us into some sort of ac- tion at least vaguely reminiscent of our ear- ly days here. The Regents-the campus' highly myster- ious absentee board of directors-have no qualms about violating the sabbath of our summer vacation. In August, while we were off in Europe (the Great Escape), or interning in Washington, or back home working the swing shift in the local fac- tory, they decided to make being a stu- dent 24 per cent more expensive. The cavalier, unwarranted nature of the 1970 1 974 action was qoickly evident and, in the tra- ditional welcoming speech to the fresh- men, Lee Gill, our black, stylish and dy- namic student body president, called on us to defy. the Regents and refuse to pay. The administration held its breath .. . But they shouldn't have bothered. Follow- ing the late sixties pattern, the campus' leaders - mostly self-appointed - formed themselves into a steering committee and proclaimed a Mass Meeting. Some 100 of the masses - mostly friends of the lead- ers --- showed up and wrote a List of De- mands. Students who thought they were striking to get their tuition lowered were in for a surprise. The next morning, in leaflets and in news stories, they learned they were doing it for Third World self- determination and for the struggle of the working class. WITHIN A few weeks, most of us had joined the sullen lines in front of the cashier's window and paid up. Equally under-whelming was the im- peachment issue - another "natural". Most everybody around here voted for McGovern and a nearly equal number have long despised the Nixon who barricaded his White House with busses and watched foot- ball during demonstrations, and who has less local credibility than Clifford Irving. So, of course, there had to be a commit- tee, which naturally, called a rally, at which we learned we were demanding an end to racism, sexism and imperialism as well as the president. And gradually people lost interest. It wasn't that we didn't support most of these things, especially impeachment. It just seems like most of us have lost faith in our ability to do anything about them. We (Continued on Page 6) 4 Liberals and militants on the question of race-mixing By CHERYL PILATE GARISH LIGHTS pulsate to the rhythm of an off-beat drummer, smoke billows out from the tables scattered around the dance floor and black dudes sporting super- fly hats and slick platform shoes stare bold- ly at the women walking past. Setting down his beer and crushing his cigarette, a sinewy black male moves over to the table next to him and offers a drink to the blonde woman sitting in the corner. On the other side of the room, a black man wearing a green silk shirt and match- ing alligator belt and shoes is dancing with a woman whose halter top reveals a bare, white midriff. One of the more popular pick-up joints in town, The Scene, is known as a place where people both of the opposite sex--and the opposite race can meet. Although interracial dating is gaining in- creased acceptance, especially in liberal college towns, it is also meeting with in- creased resistance from a core of militant blacks. In 1971, a Harris poll commissioned by Life magazine found general acceptance of both black/white dating and intermarrige. Although some concern was expressed about the possible success of such relationships, 66 per cent of the poll's respondents felt that societal acceptance of intermarriage was only a generation away. THESE FINDS were in contrast to a national poll conducted in 1965 in which nearly half of the participants favored mak- ing interracial marriage a crime., The Bureau of the Census lists 51,00 known interracial marriages with a one-to- one ratio between black man/white woman c o u p 1 e s and white man/black woman couples. However, in the past few years, an in- eragin rnumber f h1arks hae risen un white utopian dreams - we are still im- mersed in struggle against them," she asserts in bitterness. Her turban-swathed head cocked to one side, she lashes out at racism in sharp articulate tones. "YOU PROBABLY don't understand how racist it is for a white woman to be- come involved with a black man. As it is, there aren't enough black men for black women anyway-most of them are either in jail, fighting overseas or just plain blown away by drugs-the few that are left have white women grabbing at them." Although at one time romantically in- volved with a white man, Jean is now a black activist who believes that "discipline and self-control" are essential to prohibit- ing intermarriage. "Too often black men are the dupes. They are caught by aggressive white wo- men who have been led to believe they can have anything they want," she declares. "That's why so often you'll see a white woman on the arm of the black man that has the Afro and wears the dashiki. It makes my blood boil to watch blacks go sucking up to people who have thrown shit at them for hundreds of years." Plucking some imaginary lint off her knit top, she is silent for a moment as her mood softens. A grin spreads over her face. "I could imagine nothing so dull as a world all one color," she says. "I hope it never happens." THERE ARE many others who feel that intermarriage is the only solution to the problems of segregation and hatred. Bill, a 26-year-old black author who was jailed during the 1967 Detroit race riots for allegedly inciting violence, bitterly de- nounces those whom he considers to be racist. At the same time, however, he is Ii inO' with a white wnman and sees no rea- A SOLUTION OR A PROBLEM? that this attraction exists, Bill is glib as he explains: "At one time, there was as much pres- tige attached to having a white girlfriend as to owning a Cadillac. In an all-black com- munity, having a white girlfriend made you different, worth something -it made our middle-class dreams more tangible." Bill denies, however, that status-seeking attitudes play any role in his relationship with white women. "We're all human be- ings-you hit it off with somebody because you've got it for each other," he says. "Color has nothing to do with it." "Besides," he reflects with a sardonic grin, "what about all the wild-beast sexual mythologies that used to be applied to the black man? I know of some white women who are psychologically addicted to screw- ing with black flesh." Although Bill doubts he will every marry, he strongly endorses the concept of inter- marriage and believes that the children from such a marriage would not neces- sarily suffer from an identity crisis. "As far as the kids are concerned, there don't have to be any special problems-unless you try and live middle-class," he says. Lighting up a BelAir, he mulls over what has been termed "reverse racism." "SOME BLACK WOMEN have gotten down on me because I get it together with white women. I try to explain to them that color isn't important - but they just don't dig honkies," he says. Last year, a group of local blacks banded together and formed a group called BOM (Blacks Opposed to Miscegenation) to com- bat intermarriage. The group no longer exists because, in the words of one spokes- person, "fighting intermarriage is no longer a top priority. We must direct more of our energies towards combatting racism." An all-inclusive definition of racism is nearly impossible to formulate since the label 'racist' has been pinned on every- one from the anti-bussing segregationists to those who seek to destroy purity and intermarry. There are also people who are seemingly unaware of racism in any of its forms. Carol, a white bank accountant and Uni- versity drop-out, who looks like a model from Seventeen magazine, lives on the out- skirts of the city, with her black boy- friend in apparent oblivion of interracial tensions. Although she acknowledges that Ann Ar- bor is a unique place where mixed couples' are more readily accepted, Carol has no qualms regarding her eventual marriage to Rob - regardless of where they live. "We've both talked about getting married and our color difference doesn't seem to present much of a problem." Carol, who comes from a conservative white middle-class family, says her par- long brown hair, she confides, "Although I wasn't attracted to Rob because of his color - it's sort of a fun fantasy trip to have sex with a black man." "But," she adds, just being black has nothing to do with my sexual or emotional attachment to him. Our only motivation However, there are many people who believe that not even the forces of love can justify intermarriage. Greg, a black activist and long-time University employe, believes that "black people who are into blackness will never intermarry." "If a black person has pride in himself - he does not look to another race and feel inferior or the need to mate with them," he claims. Greg doesn't quite fit the media-inspir- ed image of a black militant. He is quietly dressed and small in stature, with a. few gray hairs scattered throughout his short, kinky Afro. CHARGING THAT the "mixing of the races has always been determined by white folks," he lashes out at a society which has forced many blacks to "identify with the whites who have oppressed them and cut their balls off." Greg is usually opposed to intermarriage but does not condemn those who choose to intermarry. However, he believes that any black with a white mate could never be accepted as a militant leader. "People would be suspicious of him," he says. When a black spouts radical rhetoric, yet has a white woman on his arm - it is like admitting that he believes in white superiority." Soft-spoken and amiable, Greg believes that "someday all people may be able to accept each other" but doesn't think "the An..ZI .. m ir- - rnm .ixrha n-nnl -n .. ...: «:: : .