4 OPINION Page 4 Wednesday, February 10, 1988 The Michigan Daily 4 1bre 3id igau Jai1a Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Vol. XCVIII, No. 91 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Unsigned editorials represent a majority of the Daily's Editorial Board. All other cartoons, signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily. Awoman's life in state prison U perpetuates racism LAST WEEK FLIERS advocating white supremacy were posted all over campus. The fliers, suppos- edly disseminated by a white supremicist group, are just one of a series of racist incidents that has plagued this campus all year. The fliers agree with the racially offensive statements made by LSA Dean Peter Steiner about Blacks and Black institutions. Steiner's com- ments were reiterated using collo- quial language. Although Steiner's office was called the day of the in- cident, he did not have time to comment. Later he issued a state- ment calling the remarks "obnoxious," but failed to denounce the fliers. The administration's lax attitude and weak responses to racial inci- dents add to the hostile atmosphere present on this campus. The Uni- versity does not foster an atmo- sphere conducive to minorities nor is it actively working to educate the community on the problems of racism and diversity. A good first step towards pro- moting a healthier atmosphere is a mandatory class on diversity. This type of requirement would broaden students' perspectives and dilute the racist atmosphere present on cam- pus, as some racist attitudes can be corrected by education. Education is the key to combating racism on campus and the University needs more than discipline if it hopes to achieve a change in attitudes. Instead of promoting a healthy learning environment where stu- dents can come and appreciate the many diverse cultures, the atmo- sphere on this campus harbors bad attitudes towards minorities. Blacks, for instance, are the victims of discrimination: the administration does not recognize them as intelli- gent enough to meet the Univer- sity's academic standards. The rich heritage of Blacks is over-looked in racist statements which imply that the quality of the University would be lowered with increased minority enrollment. Statements such as the latest flier exemplify the ignorance and blindness that comes from a primarily white Euro-centric education, such as offered by the University. When administrators such as Steiner and Interim President Robben Fleming refuse to remedy the situation through a mandatory class and sometimes expound racist attitudes themselves. As a result, the campus is bound to have a hos- tile atmosphere conducive to dis- crimination. The narrow-minded- ness exemplified by those in power is analogous to the institutionalized racism that is present in society. The University is in trouble. Our administrators set poor examples that must not be followed. Rather than insinuating that Blacks lower the quality of the education at the University, the administration should realize its own faults and take more positive actions to rectify its problems. To ' continue fighting against racist incidents, people should par- ticipate in the different groups on campus that began in light of the University's problems. Outside re- sources are important to combating this problem, such as asking the city of Ann Arbor to investigate the distribution of the recent fliers. We must remember that "A peo- ple united can never be defeated." By Mary Glover First of a three-part series My experience in the criminal justice system began in January of 1976, and that summer I was sent to the old Detroit House of Corrections with three life sentences. I was numb with grief, barely 21 years old, and "green as the grass." I had become involved in a shooting during an escape attempt after a larceny in a building. My husband had been "jumped" form behind by a man much larger and heavier than he was, and in the struggle over his gun, the gun fired. I was outside the building when this happened. The rent was due, we had less than ten dollars and were unemployed. The Judge was a chronic alcoholic who had been convicted drunk driving and was the sole Circuit Court Judge and prosecution in a very small town. We didn't have a chance. When the courts were "finished" with us, we had six life sentences between us. No one cared about what really happened that day truthfully, they wanted "just-us." On arrival at the prison, I could not believe my eyes. The 180 bed institution was completely uninhabitable. The buildings had been condemned and the housing "cottages" were filthy. I was processed as a new committment and taken to the hospital dining room for lunch. It was crawling with cockroaches and mice; plaster was falling out of the low, screenless window with a full litter of kittens in her mouth. She was bringing them inside to her home in the infirmary kitchen under a broken stove. They fed me black, burned hot dogs and beans. It was hot and muggy. Flies were everywhere. I was sick and in shock. Later that day, I was locked into a crumbling, graffiti-littered room and placed in "quarantine" with nothing but the clothes on my back. My physical exa.m.ination was pending. The mattress on the ancient iron bed was urine-soaked and decrepit. I remember standing in the middle of the room because there was nowhere to sit, crying. This was my first Mary Glover is currently serving three life sentences in Huron Valley's Women's Correctionalfacility. She is enrolled in the college of LSA and received a Hopwood award this year for an essay. Along with one other woman she gained the right to attend college through a civil rights suit filed against the State of Michigan. introduction into the "school of hard knocks." I was called to the clinic that sa.m.e evening, where I encountered a severely epileptic woman I will never forget. She was barefoot, wearing a frayed blue bathrobe. She had the eccentric and bizarre mannerisms of a Bette Davis character in the movies. In the dark, gloomy waiting room of the clinic she told me in detail how she laid to rest her 15 year old babysitter before she put her finger to my temple and "blew the trigger." I thought I would jump out of my skin. She told me the girl had beaten her son. She was the first of many women I would meet over the years who clearly needed to be in a hospital receiving treatment. The thought of spending the rest of my life in this hell was more than I could bear. I quickly decided, while fighting off mosquitoes day and night, if there was a way out I would find it. Once released on grounds, I discovered the biggest disappointment of all. Treatments progra.m.s consisting of educational and vocational instruction were virtually non-existent. There were some high school classes and minimal entry- level college classes offered sparingly. One lifer had taken the college classes steadily and in 8 years had not been able to obtain a 2 year degree. The "law library" consisted of a few volumes of wet, mildewed Michigan Reports from the year 1923 stored in the broom closet on the first floor of the administration building. Any use for appeal was impossible. Job classifications for new women consisted of mopping floors and scrubbing toilets, which were usually backed up. There was no way I could "work my way out," as work assignments were menial tasks like dietary scrubbing pots and pans. I wanted an education and to better myself as a woman while incareated, but survival took precedence. I felt buried alive. I was in a real A.m.erican jungle. Letters began to arrive from my husband, serving time in the largest walled prison in the world in Jackson, the State Prison of Southern Michigan. He informed me of the variety of treatment oppurtunities available to the men in the system that the women were denied. His living conditions were horrendous, like the women's, and in many ways even worse. His cell was several stories high with no screens and birds flew inside when thery were hungry. I was angry and frustrated, but by then it was snowing and we had no heat. There was three inches of water constantly standing on the floor of the showers, now frozen so solid you could skate on it. We were being denied basic human rights because we were small in number compared to the men and it was not "economically feasible" to provide for a separate women's institution. The Department of Corrections called us "the forgotten offender," and represented us as such to the public. But they certainly did not forget to abuse us. I found support in women's organization sponsored by the A.m.erican Association of Universtiy Women (AAUW) called the Lifeliners. That literally was what they were. The group provided sister lifers (exclusively) the forum to voice their concerns and define what changes needed to be made with priority to the most critical. My real salvation came that same year when a handful of women law students and lawyers began a class in the old employees dining room on civil and criminal procedure. They held a spaghetti dinner as a fund-raiser for us to raise the money for our law books. They listened to our problems, our complaints, our struggles to survive, which were only too obvious as the table discussion was frequently interrupted by plaster falling on us from the decaying ceiling . They understood. They could clearly see we were crying out from the pit of despair, and they responded by filing a class-action civil rights suit in federal court in Detroit requesting federal intervention to right the grievous condi- tionswe were subjected to. But it was so much worse before it got better: in May of 1977 women were chained together, dragged, beaten by guards and maced while being thrown on a bus to transport.them to a county mail because it was "overcrowded." It was a holocaust. The oppression was unbearable. I remember watching women being dragged and kicked brutally by "police" (guards) while tears streamed down my face. It was sheer horror, no one was told where they were being taken or why and none of us knew if we were the next ones to be dragged outside, chained and sprayed with mace. This practice was stopped later by the lawsuit. I was learning quickly the power of the law, and the wealth of volunteers concerned with ensuring decent living conditions for women. Tremendous change ca.m.e as a result of 'their efforts and constant work. I I 4 4 4 LETTERS Silent majority must combat racism Don't single out PIRGIM IF THE CAMPUS BRANCH of the Public Interest Research Group in Michigan were as profitable as it is controversial, it might displace IBM on the Fortune 500. Unfortunately, the environmental group's financial health depends largely on a 75 cent refundable fee attached to the portion of student tuition which goes to the Michigan Student Assembly. To avoid paying the fee students would have had to go to MSA offices and make a re- quest, but students can still receive a refund at CRISP. Last week, the Engineering Council passed a resolution oppos- ing the present funding of PIRGIM through student tuition.. Council endorsed a petition asking for a MSA referendum to eliminate the negative check-off system of pay- ment. The petition is currently being circulated by Rackham student Steve Angelotti and Business school senior Jon Bhushan. If they succeed in their efforts to collect the required thousand petition sig- The fee exists because 69 percent of the voters in the last MSA elec- tion supported it. Previously, PIR- GIM showed significant student support by collecting signatures from 16,874 students in favor of funding the group via a fee which students could reject on the Student Validation Form (SVF)., Critics of PIRGIM claim students were duped into signing the peti- tion, making it illegitimate. But is hard to believe that almost 17,000 students would sign a petition without looking at it. Furthermore, the petition was in support of a dif- ferent funding system which the University Board of Regents have already rejected. The true test of support for the current funding of PIRGIM was last March's MSA election, which PIRGIM won its cases by a large margin. PIRGIM should not be singled out merely because of the nature of the organization. Any other campus group which shows similar support can and should receive the same benefits PIRGIM does. The Engi- neering Council's resolution seems To the Daily: As a group.of faculty con- cerned about the issue of insti- tutional racism, we believe that the University's problems in this area are not caused by the words or actions of any single person or small group of ad- ministrators, faculty, or stu- dents. They are perpetuated by the actions, and often the inac- tions and silence of the vast majority of our community. Similarly, these problems will not be resolved by one person's or small group's actions. The majority of the faculty must speak in support of those stu- dents, faculty, staff, and administrators who are com- mitted to altering historic pat- terns of institutional racism. Because of our interest in working toward positive solu- tions to these problems, we are deeply distressed by recent events. Some, but by no means all of these evens have focused around Dean Peter Steiner's remarks and the protests they elicited. It is Daily ad is To the Daily: We would like to express our surprise and dismay that you would include the "U" insert that printed the Budweiser "Label Conscious" commer- cial. The ad is tasteless and clearly a mistake to focus too much frustrdtion on a single individual, when what is at is- sue is a broad institutional pattern. However, we are em- barrassed and pained by (1) of- fensive characterizations and stereotypes of the attitudes and values of Black faculty, stu- dents and community, (2) inadequate administrative ef- forts at dialogue and reconciliation in response to the just protests of the Black community to such offensive stereotyping, (3) the lack of any substantial and sustained response by the University leadership to the existence of institutional racism, and (4) the impression that the v a s t majority of the faculty support the substance of these offensive characterizations and remarks and are satisfied with the Uni- versity's responses. We are not surprised at sup- port for freedom of expression because that is a value we cherish, but we are concerned about apparent support for the tasteless into and are indistinguishable from the towel on which they rest. What does one do with a beach towel? One lies on it. This ad invites sexual abuse and portrays women as passive, inhuman Darts of the non-liv- substance of these offensive remarks and inadequate re- sponses. What is needed now is administrative leadership for genuine reconciliation and dia- logue, not continued adminis- trative defensiveness and polar- ization. What is needed is lead- ership for change by the Presi- dent and Provost, not mere rhetoric, promises, and an- nouncements of minor pro- grams an initiatives. What is needed is major institutional reform: in Black, Hispanic, Asian and native American faculty recruitment and reten- tion; in curriculum that is not ethnocentric; in a diverse and representative student body; and in multi-racial leadership in the colleges and the university. If you share these views, let the University know an com- municate with one of he repre- sentatives of FAIR listed be- low. Participate in the effort to alter historic patterns of insti- tutional racism. FAIR: Faculty Against Institutional Racism -Alex Aleinikoff Judith Avery Mark Chesler Ed Chudacoff Eugene Feingold Linda Franker Max Heirich Barbara Israel Lewis Kleinsmith Howard Kimeldorf Ann Larimore Richard Lichtenstein Mike Lougee Eliana Moya-Raggio Silvia Pedraza-Bailey Beth Reed Mark Sandler Pat Shure Kate Warner Helen Weingarten Andrew Zweifler January 29 0 a?, i ,x %: ,' ;.. '; ' t +r : [ ( +s+ . /,, / t . . . 1 _ .. d,