The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, October 24, 1990 - Page 7 Zinn speaks to inspire '90s activists by Mark Buchan Howard Zinn has taught history and political science at Boston Uni- versity, where he is now a professor emeritus. He is the author of A Peo- ple's History of the United States. His most recent book is Declara- tions of Independence: Cross-exam- ining American Ideology. Zinn will be speaking tonight as part of Stu- dents' Rights/Activism Week. MB: In one passage of your book, you talk of how you had been knocked unconscious by a police of- ficer while holding a banner at a demonstration, and that this made you lose all desire for 'objectivity,' whether in life or history. What ef- fect did this incident have on you? HZ: A very powerful effect. I was 17 years old, and a few of my 'radical' friends had persuaded me to go to a demonstration in Times Square. It was a peaceful demonstra- tion, and yet the police decided to charge the demonstrators. I was turned round, spun round and knocked unconscious. I remember very well the feeling of waking up a few hours later, and seeing Times Square deserted. It was very eerie; a few hours before, thou- sands of people had been there. I had * always been brought up to believe that the police, the state, were there to keep order, to protect the people. But for the first time, the things some of my friends had been saying about a 'ruling class' began to make some sense; the police were not there to protect 'the people,' but only the interests of a certain privi- leged group. ' MB: What do you say to people who agree that this happened in the past, but that it couldn't happen to- day, couldn't happen now? HZ: I think that it's just not true. Certainly during the Vietnam War, police were used to break up peaceful demonstrations again and again. And today, thousands of people protest- ing against nuclear weapons have suffered in the same way. And should opposition to the potential war in the Persian Gulf increase, the forces of the 'state' will be used again. Arawak Indians he slaughtered is somehow not 'objective.' It is 'objective' to talk of the rapid indus- trialization of the United States, and of the companies that engineered it, but not to talk of the thousands of workers who actually created that wealth, their struggle for humane working conditions and a living wage. MB: Have you experienced any harrassment from the university au- thorities for the way you teach? Zinn: Well, yes. The president of the university for much of my time here has been the somewhat notori- ous John Silber. Here is a man who has sent in police against students to break up demonstrations, who has sent in police to bust union pickets. He has openly tried to fire not only me, but four other professors here; fortunately, I already had tenure be- fore he arrived, and so had some pro- tection. And I have managed, by tak- ing wage cuts, to retain some sort of academic independence. MB: Silber is running as gover- nor. What do you think of this? Zinn: The fact that he is running as a Democrat underlines the lack of real political choice in this country. He openly boasts that he voted for Reagan and Bush, and yet runs as a Democrat, which suggests to me that there is no real, important dif- ference between the parties. You can vote for 'a' or 'b,' but c, d, e, or f are not even considered options. The Democrats or Republicans can argue about whether or not to cut a few billion from a three-hundred billion dollar defense budget, but to claim that we have enough weapons al- ready, or to completely cut spending isn't an option. They can argue about how much to cut Medicare, but the idea that medical care, or in- deed education, should be free for ev- eryone isn't an option. MB: A chapter in your book is entitled 'Second Thoughts on the First Amendment.' What do you think the point of free speech should be? HZ: Too many people think that freedom of speech is an end in itself. It is no more than a means to an end. It should give space for radical criticism of our society, which would in turn allow us to re-evaluate society and change it for the better. MB: And is speech free' in this country? Zinn: The reality is that speech is bought, sold and distributed in this society in exactly the same way that wealth is: unequally. If you pick up the letters page of the New York Times, you will find that of the one percent of letters they print, nothing can be considered anything more than a little left or right of center. What should be a forum for radical criticism of society, and real dissent, is simply not functioning. Mean- while, Mobil Oil have been running pieces on the page every week. The fact is that Mobil can buy the space to say whatever they want, whenever they want to say it, in a way the vast majority of people cannot. Paris with the bass and drums playing "The Devil Made Me Do It" counterpoint to it. (12") Tommy Boy Simultaneously as rough and smooth as the Black panther omi- nously stalking across the tape jacket, Paris kicks ballistics aimed at poaching our nation's pigs. Paris' panther struttin' is nothing like L.L.'s (not Bean) though. Paris is attuned to Amiri Baraka's idea that style equals ideology: as. dope as 'Trane, as holy as Allah, as revolu- tionary as Nkrumah. With Uncle Sam and his fiery red eyes "pointing his plastic finger" on the cover, it is obvious who "triple six" refers to. "The punk police" with the mark of the beast are Sa- tan's pawns in killing African Amer- icans for lust and greed, they are the harbingers of death, not only for the Black race, but for "civilization" as a whole. Paris signifies and drops sci- ence in a style of spitting rage that links generations of Black music with Trotsky, Castro and Ho Chi Minh. Mad Mike scratches with splintered iron claws over a claustro- phobic distorted guitar riff, leaving nothing but abrasive, rhythmic le- sions that shatter into brilliant stripes of Ashanti colors with the haunting echoes of Denmark Vesey, Toussaint L'Overture and Patrice Lumumba. Mad Mike's assault is as innovative as Jimmy Blanton's bass playing on Ellington's "Jack the Bear" in that his scratching functions as the dominant rhythm in the song Although it may cover the same musical terrain as his last 12" "Break the Grip of Shame," this time around Paris' rhymes have been ar- ranged in a statement of revolution as simple and powerful as a raised Black fist. "Now you know why the panther went crazy/ The devil made me..." is more than a justification and a stern, solemn warning that "food stamps and free cheese/ Aren't the cure for a sick disease," it is a short and potent summation of African Americans' position in this society - nothing but the sum to- tal of white stereotypes of Black- ness. Paris' style towers above bad- ness- he becomes the epitome of Baraka's In Our Terribleness: "I'll spit on your flag and government/ Because help the Black was a con- cept never meant/... Just as the devil planned it/ Rape and pillage every- one on the planet/ Give them false gods at odds with Allah/ 'Love your enemy' and all that hoopla." Attacking the white devils and assimilationist bourgeois move- ments that shed more Black blood than white with the same vehemence as a gang of Klansmen fire bombing a church in Alabama or an all-white jury in Broward County cowering in fear from the dreaded specter of mis- cegenation, "The Devil Made Me Do It" is absolutely essential listening "unless you don't give a fuck to be free." -Peter Shapiro See RECORDS, Page 8 Zinn MB: What do you think academic 'objectivity' is? HZ: First of all, I don't believe there is any such thing. Different people make different selections as to which aspects of history they choose to represent, and which they choose to ignore. What is called 'objectivity,' is teaching history the way it has always been taught, the way professors in past generations have chosen to teach it. It is history from the perspective of the state, its leaders. It is 'objective' to teach the 'discovery' of America from the per- spective of Columbus; but to teach it from the perspective of the HOWARD ZINN will be speaking at 6 p.m. tonight, at Rackham Lecture Hall, on "Student Activism: Challenging the Knowledge Factory." 1 r. _ _ L Don't Go Through Life Without A Personal Computer "Your computer should be IBMcompatible and fully supported, Should be powerful, complete VGA systems " Must do word processing, statistics, spread sheets, database. graphics and entertainment Can srve as your small business center when you leave school or when you wort at home r Corp.s" - I5%OFF E S Ifhc p0 1990 MICHIGANENSIAN yearbooks are on sale NOW! Yearbooks can be purchased between 8:00 and 4:30 weekdays in the Business Office on the second floor of the Student Publications Building, 420 Maynard St. Books are $29.00 cash only. 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