OPINION
Page 4 Thursday, April 18, 1985 The Michigan Daily
&Iw I 1t d'ta " 4lati
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Integration means social interaction
First in
a series of three
Vol. XCV; No. 158
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
Mystery unlocked
T'S NO longer a mystery. Those
thousands of little stickers posted on
ready-tellers, doors and desks all over
campus stating "The green bike is not
locked" have assumed a delightful
significance. And it's just as simple as
it seems: The green bike is not locked.
Thanks to a coalition of students
calling themselves the Green Bike
Project, 16 bicycles impounded by Ann
Arbor police and left unclaimed by
their owners have been released for
public use. That means anyone can
ride one of the designated drab-green
bikes, any time, free of charge.
Monday's rally in the Diag officially
delivered the green bikes to the people
of Ann Arbor. Following a ceremony
to "exorcise" the bikes of their private
capital value and convert them to
public property, the newly liberated
vehicles were randomly distributed to
members of the crowd for temporary
use.
Each bike is outfitted with a tag of-
fering "suggested guidelines" for use
and a map detailing green bike riding
parameters. It is requested that a
green bike not be ridden or left too far
Aff of central campus. Mechanical
problems have been anticipated; a
local address is provided for drop-off
repair service. Users are reminded to
be safety conscious. But above all,
green bike riders are asked, begged
and cajoled not to lock a green bike.
If this inspired scheme is to function
optimally, practices such as locking or
''permanently adopting' green bikes
must be avoided. The idea is to hop on,
cruise to class, or wherever you're
headed, and leave the bike for the next
person who strolls by and wants a ride.
Don't repaint a green bike purple, or
let the air out of the tires or stuff one in
your parents station wagon when you
leave for the summer.
Green bikes could become as Ann
Arbor-unique, wonderfully enigmatic
as summer days at the Art Fair,
Sahkey Jake and Drake's. The idea
might seem silly, hopelessly idealistic,
even illfated. Indeed, Green Bike
theology echoes a sort of Ken-
nedyesque hope: a vision of what
could be.
The green bikes are an experiment
in alternative transportation and in-
dividual honor. Cooperation is the key.
Let's make it work.
By Robert D. Honigman
Most "non-inheritors" (six Anglo-
Saxon and three non-Anglo-Saxon frater-
nity men who came to Stanford from non-
college families) had other burdens as well
(as low income and poor academic
preparation). One was that they were in-
volved in a dramatic separation process
from their own families. The closer they
moved in their social activities toward an
acceptance of upper-middle-class subur-
ban values and patterns, and toward
professional life, the further they
removed themselves from the values and
way of life of their former friends and
family. It was no longer possible
psychologically for them to return to the
ways of their parents, but they had not yet
grasped the nuances and subtleties of up-
per-middle-class social life. As a result
they were often depressed.
- Marjorie M. Lozoff, No Time For Youth, 1968.
s .
Leaving behind a community where one
belongs and joining a new one is a difficult
process for anyone, as the above quotation
shows, and it's even more stressful if there is
no new commmunity to replace the one left
behind. Any student, black or white, can find
himself or herself lost in the university. With
a renewed committment by the University to
increase black enrollment, many black
students from non-university families and all-
black communities will probably need special
support beyond financial and academic to
bring their retention rates close to those of
white students from similar backgrounds
because they will be joining a white upper-
middle class society in one of its most com-
petitive rites of passage.
But University officials are mistaken in
believing that bringing the black drop-out
rate down to the level of the white drop-out
rate (25 percent of white undergraduates fail
to graduate) is successful integration. In-
tegration is more than the mechanical mixing
that occurs when people sit together in a
classroom or share a dormitory. Integration
is a new supportive relationship between
people that replaces or supplements older or
earlier relationships. It's the opposite of
alienation. For that reason, bringing people
together in a social vacuum where old ties
Honi-gman is an attorney in Sterling
Heights.
and dissolved and weakened, but no new ones
develoop is in the broadest sense, not
education.
For the 25 percent who drop out and
probably for another 25 percent who are kept
in school by career and family pressures,
there is a failure to integrate. Even for those
who are happy in the University there may be
something missing if they are happy only
because they are associating only with people
who are like themselves. The problem of in-
tegration is really the problem of everyone in
the University because it's the problem of
establishing new human relationships.
Unfortunately, the University tends to treat
all of its problems as separate entities. There
is a black recruitment and retention problem,
a suicide problem, and alcoholism problem,
a rape problem, a code of behavior problem
etc., but the University never sees itself as the
problem. Yet all of the above problems are
related to an absence or lack of human interac-
tion in the university. Even if no blacks came
to this campus, there would still remain an in-
tegration problem. And the sad thing is that it
would go unrecognized.
If a white student goes through the Univer-
sity without ever cherishing someone as a
friend who has a different religion, a different
sex, a different race, or a different national
origin, then he or she is very likely to leave
the University with all of his or her prejudices
and fears intact. Education doesn't liberate
us from fear and prejudice. The German
people were among the most educated in
Europe at the turn of the century, and the
Japanese were the best educated people in the
Far East before World War II, yet they
showed the least understanding of people who
were different from them. Book education
doesn't reduce intolerance. Prejudice is
something we have to learn to overcome
through experience and sharing, and
authoritarian institutions are notoriously
poor in fostering those qualities.
Intolerance and the hatred and mistrust it
engenders is not a function of race, only of
weak points in a society where love is absent
and the possibility of love is frustrated. White
communities, such as Northern Ireland or
Lebanon, and many Latin American coun-
tries, have suffered disintegration, the split-
ting up of a population into antagonistic and
warring sub-groups based on differences such
as religion or politics - because the state
alone is not sufficient to hold society together.
A society that fractures along cracks in its
social fabric is not a society at all; just a
collection of individuals held together by
greed and fear - andsunfortunately, that
seems to be where our society is headed. In
this, they are aided and abetted by univer-
sities that reinforce isolation and the
clustering of people into special interest
groups.
The University has a special responsibility
for integrating all of its students into socially
mature members of society because students
will be the leaders of tomorrow. If tomorrow's
society is led by narrow ambitious people, in-
dividuals unable to understand or share with 0
anyone different from them - we may have
the highest standard of living in the world, but
we will surely have the lowest quality of life.
Moreover, tomorrow's generation will hold
weapons of immense destructive power in
their hands. They will have the capacity to
destroy humanity, but will they find the ways
to save it?
I deeply believe the failure of the modern
university to integrate students into mature
caring people is not for lack of good will on the
part of university officials or trustees, but
rather is the fault of its corporate system of
governance. A corporate form of governance
is equipped to measure only the tangible
products of a university. How does our depar-
tment stand in national rankings? How many
publications does Professor So-and-so have?
How much federal research money can we
get? The intangible products of a university,
the friendships that cut across department
lines, the leisure moments when people laugh
and share good times, the bull-session - all
the lines of communication that knit diverse
people into a single community - are
missing in the university because they are
things that can't be measured.
Blacks should be welcomed in the univer-
sity. But we shouldn't kid ourselves that
they'll find an integrated community here.
We can't learn about others by studying them
from the outside. Nor does the mechanical
mixing of people together in impersonal lec-
ture halls and classrooms fill the need. We
become Chinese, not by the shape of our eyes
or color of our skin - but by the way we think
and see. And we become something we're not
- black or white, Jewish, or Catholic,
Protestant or Moslem - only if we find our-
selves loving and caring deeply about some
human being who is different from us.
Integration is a new set of relationships that
replace or supplement old relationships.
That's the problem of the modern university.
It tears down old relationships, but it doesn't
give students any new ones. An integrated
university is a place where both whites and.
blacks can find something new and someone
new to care about.
Tomorrow: "The price of 'hotel dorms' "
Averting disasters
FOR MANY years, multinational
corporations from the in-
dustrialized nations have been able to
operate less than adequate facilities in
less developed parts of the world. The
Indian Government's suit against
Union Carbide, in response to the leak
of methyl isocyanate in Bhopal on
December 3, 1984, may lead to a more
stringent set of laws regulating
multinationals.
There is little doubt about whether
the Indian Government deserves
restitution. Union Carbide officials are
currently negotiating with the Indian
Government in hopes of obtaining an
out-of-court settlement.
The real issue of the suit is what ef-
fect it will have on future regulation of
multinationals-and there are a num-
ber of possible scenarios. First, the
judge could award the Indian Gover-
nment a relatively small amount of
money, on the order, perhaps, of $100
million. Since Union Carbide and other
large multinationals reap profits in the
billions of dollars each year, such a
penalty would have little effect.
Secondly, the judge could award the
Indian Government a rather large sum
of money, perhaps $25 billion. Such a
fee could be strong enough precedence
to deter Union Carbide and other
multinationals from operating
inadequate facilities, but would not
address the need for a universal set of
standards multinationals should
follow.
Finally, the judge could award the
Indian government a substantial
amount of restitution but stipulate that
some of it be distributed to victims who
did not gain money in other settlemen-
ts with Union Carbide.
Additionally, the case may stimulate
action in Congress to create a set of
binding laws regulating multinational
behavior around the world which
would be judged by the World Court or
some other international organization.
The Bhopal disaster is one of the
greatest tragedies of recent years, but
if the judge in India's suit finds
strongly against Union Carbide, such
disasters will be less likely in the'
future, and the United States will have
begun to check the growing power of
multinational corporations.
Wasserman
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Letters
Abortion must remain a legal choice
To the Daily:
For a nation founded on
religious freedom, we seem to be
troubled by our neighbor's ac-
tion. When a women decides to
have an abortion a lot of decision
lies in her basic belief of when life
begins. Since the Catholic Church
tells us one thing, and everybody
else has their own ideas, it is con-
fusing for a woman who is unsure
of her beliefs.
When abortions became legal,
it was a step forward. No longer
could doctors charge atrocious
amounts of money for safe, illegal
abortions. And poor women do
not have to rely on a rusty coat
hanger or knitting needle. These
women were dying but now they
can have safe abortions.
Can you really expect a
teenager or a raped woman to go
through with her pregnancy?
Teenagers are not ready to be
mothers-they are still growing
up themselves. Raped women do
not want the fruits of their violent
victimization.
When the mother knows that a
genetic disease has been passed
to the fetus, she also considers
abortion. If she feels she cannot
handle taking care of a han-
dicapped child, why should she.
lower the quality of her life and
worsen that of the child?
When it comes to abortion I say
to myself, "You know what yo4
would do, let others decide for
themselves." Unless a woman
really feels that she made a good
choice, she won't be happy. If you
know a woman with an unwanted
pregnancy-counsel her but don't
pressure her. Let her know her
options; then let her decide.
-Debby Orr
April 2
Movie helps define life
To the Daily:
In an editorial on April 4 en-
titled "Silent Scream," the Daily
skirted the issue of what this film
by Dr. Bernard Nathanson is all
about-the occurances in the
womb during an abortion.
Through ultra sound imagery
Nathanson's film shows the fetus
moving in the womb. It shows its
head, its hands, its legs, and even
the fetus sucking its own thumb.
Then a suction tube is seen en-
tering the womb and subsequen-
tly tearing the struggling fetus to
pieces. The Silent Scream remin-
ds us that this and every abortion
results in a dead and mangled
fetus. This reality is something
we often try to forget or ignore.
The fundamental question,
however, is not whether or not the
fetus is torn to pieces (because all
doctors know that this is what
happens during an abortion), but
people are being dismembered
every day.
But how can we determine if
the fetus is a person? One way is
to be brave enough to stop avoid
ing the issue and actually look at
the fetus. Dr. Nathanson's film
and the use of ultrasound
technology allow us to do exactly
this-to peer into the womb and
watch the fetus yawn, kick, suck
its thumb, and struggle to get
comfortable. These are actions
that I normally associate with
people, and it makes me very un-
comfortable to know that abor-
tion is tearing to pieces so many
of these creatures that look and
act like new-born babies.
-Lawrence Kent
April 4
BLOOM COUNTY
Gun control overdue
To the Daily:
We are writing in response to
your April 6 essay, "Handguns
Must Be Controlled". We, too,
are supporters of handgun con-
trols and feel that our present
laws are outdated and ineffec-
tive. The time is ripe for the han-
dgun control movement to make
headway in Ann Arbor. By
passing a handgun ban in Ann
Arbor we can serve as an exam-
ple to the rest of the country that
it is possible for sensibility to
reign over the barbarism and
profiteering motives of the NRA
sand gun manufacturers.
-Miriam Darmstadter
Carol A. Schere
April 15
Letters to the Daily should be typed, triple-
spaced, and signed by the individual authors.
Names will be withheld only in unusual circum-
stances. Letters may be edited for clarity, gram-
mar, and spelling.
by Berke Breathed
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