Page 4-Thuriday, September 15, 1977--The Michigan Daily Life o a lety left out in the cold By JULIE ROVNER In 20 years, when we think back over our time spent at this dignified institu- tion of higher learning, there will cer- tainly be at least one thing that will still produce an involuntary wince of anger or frustration. For a large number, that will be CRISP. For others, it will be the memory of standing in seemingly end- less lines for everything from football tickets to a hamburger at McDonalds. For me, that thing will be the desks in Angell Hall. Not all the desks,, to be sure. Only the ones with the three-inch-wide slivers of wood on the far right side that are meant for people to take notes on. YOU SEE, I am left-handed, and for me, trying to use one of those desks is like a bad joke. Unfunny. So I end up with my spiral notebook (also not de- signed for left-handers) perched on my knee. Needless to say, the resulting product would flunk me out of penman- ship 101. I have even spent many an all- nighter just before finals trying valiant- ly to figure out not what the notes mean, but just what they say. I wouldn't be so emotional if all of the offensive desks were built circa 1900, as many of them were. Last Friday, how- ever, when I walked into my first class of the term, the first thing I saw, to my dismay, was a whole room full of bright new orange versions of the discrimina- tory objects. My heart bleeds for the left-handers of the class of '99, who will most likely be using these same orange symbols of the hardship of living in a right.handed world. One out of every ten people in this country is left-handed, making us one of the largest minorities. And yet we are still oppressed. When was the last time you heard about an affirmative action program aimed at recruiting left- handed people? MANY OF THE Daily activities that all you right-handers take for granted are nearly impossible for us. Fountain pens are a total loss because, since the hand follows the pen instead of leading it, everything turns into one big smear. In junior high school,, I used to walk around with a green hand. Knitting and crocheting instructions are always key- ed to right-handed people. Guitars are strung for right-handers. (I had already been playing for two years when, I figured out how easy it would be to re- string it, but that would have necessita- ted a complete re-training, so I decided not to bother). Wine bottles become a trauma to open because corkscrews are grooved for you-know-who. Scissors present the same problem. And then there are those desks. These problems, though, aren't that difficult to overcome. A few of the many ingenious left-handers figure out how to do these things and proceed to write books for the rest of us to follow. Our major problem is the attitude that the rest of the world holds of us. I AM SICK AND TIRED of being viewed as a genetic freak. To this day, whenever my right-handed father sees me writing something, he shakes his head in awe and says, "Look, she's doing that left-handed." It ceased to be funny about fifteen years ago. When I looked up 'left-handed' in the thesaurus, I got "clumsy, careless, gauche; see awkward." And everyone knows that a left-handed complement is not the highest form of praise. How these myths about left-handed people (Please, not leftys or south- paws) got started is of little importance today. What is important, though, is that we start getting treated like the in- telligent, upstanding citizens that we are. Ben Franklin, Harry Truman, Michaelangelo, and Charlie Chaplin were all left handed. So start giving us the respect we deserve. And remem- ber, Richard Nixon was a righty in more ways than one. 3' WE CAN'T USE You, -iONES!!,. $~UT HAS NoTN CG TO WI T YouL I MNC DLFT 1AMtIt! - " rmmuummw m Uom fr- -/ 1',11 * 1 s Kft, ';r c~be 3Et~igan Ettaug Militant blacks turn to, religious leaders Eighty.Eight Years of Editorial Freedom °w, bts 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Vol LXXXVIII, No. 7 News Phone: 764-0552 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Students deserve an equal shot at good football tickets i I By ASKIA MUHAMMAD "God of our weary years, God of our silent tears . . ." implored National Urban League Executive Director Vernon Jordan as he opened the organization's recent annual con- ference here, quoting famed black hymn wri- ter and poet James Weldon Johnson. In Chicago recently, Atlanta Mayor May- nard Jackson told guests at the 10th annual Men's Day of the Cosmopolitan Community Church that the removal of religion from poli- tics contributed to the election of what he call- ed a "sho-nuff crook" like former President Richard Nixon. T HEUNIVERSITY Athletic Depart- ment's allotment policy for student football tickets is grossly unfair to the student body. This year, more students than ever will be forced to view the games from the outer limits of the end zone, while alumni and friends of ad- ministrators will be sitting in the choice seats between the goal lines. At present, the student section starts at the fifty-yard line on the western side of the stadium and stretches around the northern end zone over to the visiting side of the field. This means that stu- dents are allocated one one-fourth of the between goal line seats. While it is cer- tainly true that alumni deserve a chance to get good seats too, they shouldn't get three-fourths of the prime seats. A more equitable system would be to reserve all the seats between the goal lines on the western side of the field for students, and save those choice seats on the east- ern side of the field for alumni. This sys- tem is used successfully by many schools nationwide, and there is no rea- son it can't be used here. The Athletic Department's position is that upperclassmen will get good seats, while the rest of the students can wait their turn. But with the decision to allow graduate students who are in their 5th (or higher) year at the University senior priority, even some seniors are getting bad seats. The last senior group got goal line tickets this year. BUT WHY SHOULD it be the stu- dents who always get the short end of the ticket? The same system is used and guests should be given whatt dents don't use. It is too late to do anything students being stuck in the cor the endzone this year. But we ho next year when Mr. Canham is b in his profits and is viewing ti completely pre-season sell Michigan history, he will gi students a few more of the better EDITORIAL STAFF ANN MARIE LIPINSKI Editors-in-Chief KEN PARSIGIAN......................Editor JEFFREY P. SELBST..,... ...... ............ JAY LEVIN............................... Mana GEORGE LOBSENZ ...................Maas MIKE NORTON..............................Mana MARGARET YAO..............................Mana STU McCONNELL............................Man SUSAN ADES g ELAINE FLETCHE Magazine Editors Weawther Forecasters MARK ANDREWS and MIKE GILFORD STAFF WRITERS: Gwen Barr, Susan Barry, Brian Michael Beckman, Philip Bokovoy, Linda Brenner: ruthers, Ken.Chotiner, Eileen Daley, Ron DeKett,I David Goodman, Marnie Heyn, Robb Helmes, Mic Lani Jordan, Janet Klein, Gregg Kruppa, Steve Dobilas Matunonis, Stu McConnell, Tom Meyer, J Patti Montemurri, Tom O'Connell, Jon Pansius,F Stephen Pickover, Kim Potter, Martha Retallick, burg, Bob Rosenbaum, DennisSabo, Annmare Se beth Slowik, Tom Stevens, Jim Stimpson, Mike Tay Toole, Mark Wagner, Sue Warner, Shelley Wolson,I Laurie Young and Barb Zahs. SPORTS STAFF KATHY HENNEGHAN....................S TOM CAMERON .................... Executive S SCOTT LEWIS............ .......Managing S DON MacLACHLAN.................. Associate S Contributing Editors JOHN NIEMEYER and ENID GOLDMAN~ NIGHT EDITORS: Ernie Dunbar, Henry Engelhard dock, Bob Miller, Patrick Rode, Cub Schwartz. ASST. NIGHT EDITORS: Jeff Frank, CindyGale Hal pin, Brian Martin, Brian Miller, Dave Renba Shiman and Jamie Turner PHOTOGRAPHY STAFF the stu- AND THOUGH, as Jordan observed, neith- about er he nor Jackson have "preaching licenses," ners of the influence of religion in the day-to-day af- pe that fairs of black leaders in America has in- basking creased dramatically. he firstGone, almost entirely, from the civil rights het ist front today are the voices of Stokely Car- )ut in michael, H. Rap Brown, Angela Davis, Huey ve the Newton, Elijah Muhammad, Eldridge Cleav- r seats. er, Amiri Baraka, Ron Karenga and Harry Edwards. Their opposition to almost every- thing tolerated by white America in the late 1960s - including the mainstream of the civil rights movement - fueled concern about the, direction of black America, all the way from the Nixon White House to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. JIM TOBIN Today, however, with blacks gaining public rial Director office across the country, and with a .Arts Editor burgeoning black middle class, blacks now agaging Editor Eio gng Edto haves a vested interest in the once-odious aging Editor Establishment - even if they don't find it aging Editor entirely to their liking. aging Editor R THE STRIDENTLY militant black separatist or revolutionary leadership of the late sixties has been replaced with a striving, iBlanchard, achievement oriented kind of militant lead- rs, Lori Car. Lisa Fisher, ership that is completely at home in America chael Jones, and that seems quite comfortable with the enny Miller, concept of being - and remaining - Ameri- Karen Paul, can. Keith Rich. Probably the most popular of all black pub- :hiavi, Eliza- ylor, Pauline lic figures - next to Muhammad Ali, whose Mike Yellin, own popularity is due in part to his devotion to Muslim causes - is the Rev. Andrew Young, America's ambassador to the U.N., who preaches policy rather than practices dip- ports Editor lomacyin the traditional "old-boy-club" Sports Editor style. ports Editor And of the nine or so black leaders outside of government or corporate business who t, Rick Mad- command public attention today, at least six tziolis, Mike are now involved in some sort of religious arger, Errol proselytizing, or have strong religious back- grounds and credentials. The current theme dominating most of the rhetoric on the na- Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. And, since 1975, he has expanded his philosophical base into the "do-it-yourself" domain left vacant when Elijah Muhammad died of heart failure. The "PUSH for Excellence" program Jack- son has emphasized for the last year to high school blacks across the nation and his suc- cessful efforts among progressive, youth-ori- ented black ministers in large cities give him probably as much influence as any black spokesman on the national scene - though it remains unorganized and diffuse. THE CONSERVATIVE, self-help tone of his current message has also earned him fa- vorable editorials and considerable news coverage in many of the nation's largest and most prestigious daily newspapers. His de- tractors even claim that his only currency is his ability to get headline space in news- papers and air time on the six o'clock news. Close on the heels of the Rev. Jackson - and considerably ahead when it comes to having a faithful "registered" following - is Wallace Muhammad, the Chief Exam (minister) of the World Community of Islam in the West (WCIW), also known as the Black Muslims. Muhammad moved quickly after the death of his father, and upon his own succession to leadership of the then Nation of Islam, to eliminate racial restrictions on membership in the formerly all-black group, and to em- phasize traditional Koranic, Islamic teach- ings as the basis of his movement. AND THOUGH there have been many de- fectors - disgruntled over the much more moderate political philosophy and the seem- ingly unsuccessful economic policies of the new leader - he has attracted many follow- ers and held the allegiance of most of the old who relish his much more intellectually pa- latable brand of Islam. Muhammad views himself as the "revivor of the faith," and he has openly discredited his father's claim to have been the "Messen- ger." The younger Muhammad intends to rekin- dle emphasis on Godliness, true religion and morality, first in' the Muslim world, but al- most simultaneously in the Christian and Jewish communities in this country and else- where. The truly religious community, he says, is really one and the same community, regardless of faith or belief. One of the most popular politico-civil rights figures to emerge out of the government mili- eu and back into the "struggle" (the reverse process that many now-important govern- ment and corporate officials followed to get from the National Association for the Advan- cement of Colored People, which he has head- ed since succeeding Roy Wilkins August 1. Hooks also possesses an apparently genuine sensitivity to the problems and conditions that produce hard-line rhetoric among mili- tant black youth. Publicly he is careful to em- phasize either areas of agreement in principle with, or carefully guarded criticism of, figures seen as radical, such as Ugandan President-for-life Idi Amin. One of the most overlooked leaders on the civil rights scene is the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. "Daddy King," as he is called, has all but eclipsed his neighbor-minister and leader of the struggling remnants of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy. ANOTHER RELIGIOUS leader who has parlayed his own commitment to the move- ment into a considerable amount of political and corporate influence is the Rev. Leon Sullivan, an eloquent proponent of the "green power" philosophy. Sullivan, who serves on the boards of directors of several powerful corporations including General Motors, works quietly in comparison to the Jacksons and the Youngs from the Philadelphia head- quarters of his Opportunities Industrializa- tion Centers (OIC). OIC programs, with the substantial help of federal funds, have been established in doz- ens of cities. And OIC rivals the more pres- tigious and media-conscious Urban League with tens of millions it, like the League, spee- ds on job training and inner-city manufac turing and manpower development. The only major black figure with a natioI base who is not a religious leader or go* ernment official is Vernon Jordan, possibly the most important leader on the civil rights scene at the moment. AS A RESULT of his Atlanta "roots," Jor- dan remains a close advisor to President Car- ter, despite their heated public dialogue during the Urban League conference. He also has the closest black, connections with tle corporate community. Meanwhile, black movement figures of tfle militant period of the late 1960s repair their own broken-down machines in antibipation of the next surge of militancy among the nation's blacks, a militancy signalled by the growing polarization evinced by the recent sharp Carter-Jordan exchange. Angela Davis is still making frequent ap pearances on the lecture circuit. Huey New- ton has returned to the U.S. to resume leader: ship of the Black Panther Party:And Stokety Carmichael darts in and out of the countr from his home in Guinea, West Africa, f4i