I
4 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, November 8, 2002
OP/ED
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EDITED AND MANAGED BY
STUDENTS AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
SINCE 1890
JON SCHWARTZ
Editor in Chief
JOHANNA HANINK
Editorial Page Editor
- NOTABLE
QUOTABLE
It's time for the
world to come
together on Iraq."
Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's
editorial board. All other articles, letters and cartoons do not
necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily.
SAMv BUTLER TiIE SOAP'BOX'
IAi'd so 44 e,
rA~a hak e es
his heiptes prect. -
Zt4
- President Bush, riding the wave of the
Republican Party's mid-term election victory in
a speech to the American public last night, as
quoted in the British paper The Independent.
Segregation stalemate
JOHN HONKALA Too EARLY IN THE SUN
h, November. have begun a protracted process of integration, slave reparations.
Her starved the racial picture tends toward segregation by Ultimately, Detroit suburbanites really
winds have class. But here in southeast Michigan, race is don't care about segregation and the inequal-
swept away October's such a powerful and salient force that even ity it has wrought. They're too tangled up in
barbarous campaign when blacks have had the money to move into their own bootstraps to lift a finger to help
ads and tepid editorial suburbs they have not. The percentage of the city that begat them. And most Michigan
endorsements. She has blacks in the suburbs has remained essentially politicians with the ability to do anything
" buried the specter of stagnant since the 1950's. about the problem are too chickenshit to risk
.-M x 3 a Jim Blanchard's cari- Why do these problems persist? Well, for their political careers for a city with inade-
cature debate-face far, starters, blacks are turned down for mortgages quate political capital.
far away beneath last summer's art fair booths on homes costing over $50,000 three times as In place of calls for integration and struc-
and presidential searches. Another Michigan often as whites.* Feel free to take a moment to tural remedies, Michiganders express either
election season has reached its terminus. Fur- let that sink in. Three times as often as whites. disgust with Detroit or a misguided pity that
ther proof that twits too shall pass. Nor has it helped that cities like Livonia acknowledges white abandonment of the city
Now that the election's over, we can rest and Warren have kept their welcome wagons but remains wholly opposed to regional solu-
easy knowing that our candidates ran a remark- rust-free on blocks in their garages when tions to address the consequences. Seduced by
ably issueless campaign. Somehow (man, I'm blacks have come house hunting. Nor that the myth that their hard work justifies their sta-
stumped) they managed to slip that one by an unanimated but effective demagogues like the tus, suburbanites have constructed an ahistori-
electorate that was more concerned with Jen- Dick Posthumi of the state have spent years cal and, frankly, silly narrative wherein Detroit
nifer Granholm's sex - she's a woman - than stoking white middle-class victimhood into is the money-grubbing aggressor and the sub-
her platform. A platform, by the way, that still indignant little fires that encourage white urbs are the friendless victim. So strong is this
has me scratching my head. Finding a vital issue homeowners in Northville to feel like Detroit ideology that at no time in the latest,campaign
in Michigan involves nothing more than a quick is out to get them and their hard-earned dol- - nor in campaigns recently past - did
jaunt down Woodward Ave., but if candidates lars. Nevermind that cities like Northville have Detroit's structural segregation and inequality
are really that hard up for something worth most of the dollars. make the political radar.
opining on they need to look no further than last It's little wonder that Detroit's racial pat- Reversing this trend is as important a cause
Sunday's Detroit News. tern didn't come up during the election, save as we have in Michigan. And if the Detroit
Last January the News began an insightful for Posthumus' inane advertisement. Outside News - a newspaper whose editorial page
investigative series that used 2000 census data of Detroit proper and a few liberal enclaves makes the Free Press seem liberal - possesses
to analyze segregation in Metro Detroit. That in the suburbs, Metro Detroit's segregation the cognizance to publish such a thought-pro-
series continued Sunday with the newspaper's seems as natural as the Detroit Lions losing voking and important series about the problem,
"Impact of Affluence" installment wherein the on Sunday afternoons. We rarely question those who choose to ignore it are only solidify-
paper showed that race continues to be a the region's racial pattern, let alone under- ing their space on history's list of complicit
stronger force than class on Metro Detroit's stand its consequences. And heaven forbid nonactors.
housing pattern. This in the country's most we make an election issue out of it. The first
segregated metropolitan area. serious gubernatorial candidate to address *See the Nov. 2, 2002 Detroit News feature.
Such large-scale segregation is disturbing the problem can expect to quickly become
in any form, but in Detroit segregation takes unserious. Witness, for example, Granholm's John Honkala can be reached at
on a particularly nasty demeanor. In many furious backpedaling when she was jhonkala@umich.edu.
U.S. cities, where the lower and middle classes "accused" of backing even a modest form of
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Despite improvement, WISE
stir unsatisfied with femiale
enrollment in the sciences
TO THE DAILY:
The Daily is to be commended in recogniz-
ing the important issue of the underrepresenta-
tion of women in many science, engineering
and mathematics fields ('U' female Engineer-
ing numbers still remain low 11/7/02). While
it is true that the percentage of undergraduate
women in the College of Engineering is lower
than that in the College of Literature, Science
and the Arts, it is equally true that the Univer-
sity is leading the nation in the number of
women studying for and receiving engineering
degrees. This year's incoming engineering
class was 31 percent female, compared to a
national average of 18 percent. In the 1999-
2000 academic year, the University of Michi-
gan graduated more women engineers at the
Bachelor's level than any other school in the
country. Several engineering departments are
approaching parity in terms of male and
female students. One department, biomedical
engineering, is 63 percent female at the under-
graduate level.
While we are justifiably proud of these
numbers, we are still not satisfied as was indi-
cated in the article. The Women in Science
and Engineering Program, the College of
Engineering, and the University are all deeply
committed to a diverse student body in these
nontraditional fields for women. We will all
continue to work on these issues along the
entire educational pipeline, from K-12 through
graduate school.
CINDA DAVIS, PH.D.
Davis is the Program Director of the Women
in Science and Engineering program.
Two obvious rules for 'wave'
at football games broken
TO THE DAILY:
There have been many things to be disap-
pointed with at the Big House this year. The loss
to Iowa and the generally quiet nature of the
crowd being the most obvious.
However, what has disappointed me the most
is the terribly poor job being done by the people
who start the wave. In my four years of attending
was last week against State w&hen they tried to
start the wave when the game was still close and
Michigan was on offense. Hopefully, by the Wis-
consin game the wave starters will learn how to
do their jobs.
DANIEL BAXTER
LSA senior
Let's prove we can discuss
issues peacefully, engage in
open debate on Nov. 13
TO THE DAILY:
Nov. 13, 2002 is slated as a national day of
action for the pro-Palestinian movement to pro-
mote divestment from Israel. Efforts on this cam-
pus are being organized by a student group called
Students Allied for Freedom and Equality
(SAFE). Similar events in the past hosted by
SAFE (the divestment conference) have been
called "deplorable" and "anti-Jewish" by the
Detroit News' editorial board and many others.
On behalf of the Michigan Student Zionists, I
would like to invite SAFE to a unique opportuni-
ty. Rather than advocating a one-sided perspec-
tive that will further divide the pro-Israel and
pro-Palestinian communities on this campus, let's
engage in open, formal dialogue.
I encourage leaders of SAFE to join with
me to set up areas for discussion of the issues,
and to formally organize a system where mis-
understandings can be clarified and compro-
mise can be reached. It is very important, but
sometimes difficult to look past the issues to
see an actual person on the other side. Let's
promote a dialogue to make sure that students
who disagree on politics only disagree on poli-
tics, and not on character. The divestment
point is moot, no University, including our
own will divest from the only democracy in
the Middle East, and its hateful implications
are making our campus a very unstable and
uncomfortable place for many students.
Instead, on Nov. 13th, let's get together to
prove that our counterparts overseas can in
fact co-exist peacefully.
RICHARD DORFMAN
LSA senior
Dorfman is co-founder and president of the
Michigan Student Zionists.
Reality of 'human error', 'free
speech' overlooked; don't read
. . , ',-- -,1 --) . U .--
(that happens to be blown out of proportion) and
perhaps address the matter with objectivity and
rationale (there's so few of us out there today).
What sparked me to start writing this letter?
Well, I was in the Union today, walking past a
stack of the Consider publication (right, who
reads that!), with the phrase "The role of the stu-
dent newspaper" boldly crying out to the students
of today. I use the term "students of today" for the
fact that this issue happens to be a compilation of
articles reprinted from 1986. It is now sixteen
years later and we still ask ourselvesthe same
questions, we still face the same issues. In this
edition of Consider (October 31, 2002), it's quite
relevant that the 1986 Editor in Chief of the Daily
threw in his two cents, recognizing the fact that,
yes, there are "too many inaccuracies, misquotes,
and grammatical errors, as there are in every other
student and professional newspaper. Even more
pressing is the issue of objectivity - will any
publication ever achieve that idealistic equilibri-
um between both sides of any issue at hand?"
I feel that we all too often overlook the
basic principles of free speech and human error.
We are so fortunate to have the opportunity to
live in a society based on freedoms, and too fre-
quently in misunderstandings and mistakes
rationale is thoughtlessly thrown out the win-
dow. So, if you don't like what the Daily has to
say, just don't pick it up. Am I too naive in ask-
ing, why can't we all just get along? I think we
have reached a point where the original mean-
ing has become garbled; though it makes sense
that the more voices joined together results in a
louder noise. However, being loud doesn't
necessarily mean you're being more effective.
Ultimately, I guess I have just given everyone
something else to boycott - so why not, I'll
join in - let's boycott Lauren Victor together.
LAUREN VICTOR
LSA sophomore
Reader misses'Weekend
Magazine ','rules,' boycotts
TO THE DAILY:
I have of late been very disappointed by
the Daily's lack of a Weekend Magazine! It
may quite simply be the embodiment of all
things that are good and far fewer things that
suck. Without it, dear editor, you are nothing.
Truly, your powers have been reduced to the
reporting of simple facts and lining the occa-
sional birdcage; a fitting end to a non-week-
end-containing Thursday paper.
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