OPINION TL-ne vsi ^ c 'ni ltUiy It Pa e 6 The MiChigan Daily 0 F (Zrw idrhin.ThiIn The struggle: land or death Edited and managed by students of the University of Mich Vol. XCIXNO 3-S 420 Maynar Ann Arbor, MI Unsigned editorials represent a majority of the Daily's Editorial Board. All cartoons, signed articles, and letters da not necessarily represent the o af the Daily. V- YM LKD 6ROM&pb., Ybi JL O\ PANA'MA!l igan THE MILAGRO Beanfield War is more than a whimsical populist d St. movie marking Robert Redford's de- 48109 but as a director. It is also a Holly- wood version of a very real struggle other over land and culture that has been pinion going on between Anglo invaders and indigenous peoples in the North American Southwest for over 150 years. And as is often the case, the truth concerning this struggle is far more interesting-not to mention important - than fiction. Beginning in April of 1988, an impoverished community of Chi- canos from the northern New Mexi- can village of Tierra Amarilla began to occupy and defend a plot of five hundred acres marked for develop- ment by the real estate company Vista Del Brazos, which claimed to own it. The local population knew otherwise, and was able to produce its own legal history of how the land belonged to a local Chicano, Amador Flores, and to the community of Tierra Amarilla. But the United States has system- atically ignored such histories, along with the tradition of communal land- owning which is integral to the Chicano people whom they con- quered in the Mexican-American Those peoples have stayed there for War. The treaty of Guadaloupe Hi- over a year now, through one of the dalgo, which ended that war, guaran- most bitter winters in memory, in teed the peoples who lived there full the hope of preserving that history. rights to their communal lands. The The odds, of course, are against subsequent century and a half is at- sordid tale of the lies, thefts, and them. Our outryslaone acth or- murders through which the Anglo like Bowie and Crockett who were invaders disenfranchised the indige- killed because they invaded and tried nous population of its rights and its to steal territory that was not theirs. land. The two million acres of The United States is a country that communal land in New Mexico actively suppresses Chicano culture, alone disappeared; the 60,000 acres as evidenced by phenomena like the belonging to the original six hundred English-only movement and carica- inhabitants of the Tierra Amarilla tured representations of L.A. gangs. region were among them. This country marginalizes struggles The recent Tierra Amarilla like that at Tierra Amarilla - of occupation is not only grounded which the mainstream press has said upon an absolutely sound case of almost nothing. 0 land ownership, but is, moreover, an effort to recuperate a small fragment of that original sense of community and culture which the U.S. continues to deny - by ignoring its Chicano population. The community occupying the land - defended by arms and with a series of bunkers-- hopes to build a cultural center and library there which will recognize the authentic history of the peoples of the region. U.S. residents must learn to fight against this silence and for the validity of those efforts made to break it. Only then will it be possi- ble for Northern Americans to understand the real history of the United States-and.why, at the cen- ter of the Tierra Amarilla occupation site, a Mexican flag flies. The flag is a reminder of who this land right- fully belongs to, and from whom it was stolen. Police and mainstream media's handling of Central Park case Ignoring the realities of rape and racism " SINCE THE April 19th gang rape of same attention it has paid to the rape society, the popular press continues a 28-year-old white woman in New of this white woman. This is clearly to publicize the most "believable" York's Central Park, the mainstream evidenced in the case of an April cases of rape, therefore reinforcing media has been obsessed with the 29th rape and strangulation of a images of people of color as suspects in custody - eight Black Black woman in Fort Tryon Park. maurading and violent. and Latino youths, all except one Her assault, occurring within 10 At the University sexual abuse and under the age of seventeen. In days and 100 blocks of the Central violence is explained away by com- rationalizing the incident, the press Park attack, was all but ignored by ments like "boys will be boys." has pointed the finger at issues of the media - it merited nothing When four white hockey players ter- race, class and contributing envi- more than a brief mention in the rorized and sexually harassed two ronment, ignoring that rape knows New York Times. Again, people women, this community was told by no boundaries of class or race. should ask "Why was this crime ig- Head Hockey Coach Red Berenson Millionaire Donald Trump's full nored?" that he could tell them how to play page ad which appeared in most of Continual focus on the Central hockey, but not how to "talk to the city's tabloids during the first Park event led one NYT reporter to girls." week of May, called for the death comment "...among inner-city teen- Both on campus and in the nation penalty for the perpetrators. Trump's agers, group violence is described as at large, those in charge continue to response, and the media's obsession springing less from boredom than deny responsibility for actions of with this crime, taken with the me- from an almost ritualized code of their male colleagues, friends and dia's lack of response to similar behavior between adolescents 13 to students who perpetuate violence crimes against people of color is in- 15 years old and their older, stronger against women. What is ignored by dicative of the racism embedded in brethren." (NYT, 5/9/1989). The re- the police and the mainstream media our culture. A doctor in Emergency porter inaccurately places the charges is that all men are capable of rape - at the Metropolitan Hospital in New of gang-mentality which leads to race or color is irrelevant. The dis- York pointed this out in response to rape as solely to those in segregated turbing lesson from these two rapes the media onslaught about the rape urban areas. Fraternities, not solely in New York, one of a white in Central Park. "Everyday," he said, in urban areas, facilitate this same woman, and one of a Black woman, "I see Black and Latino women who "gang mentality", and are the sites of is that rape asa crime, and especially have been raped and beaten -where at least 90 percent of all rapes on rape of women of color, continues to are you when that happens?" campuses. go unnoticed. The press does not cover rapes and Regardless of the fact that rape can The police, mainstream media, and assaults of women of color with the and does occur on every level in our elected officials such as New York City Mayor Ed Koch, seem to only get involved and express their "concerns" about violence when it is against whites, and the alleged assailants are people of color. For very few, is rape - violence against women - the main concern. Rape and violence against people of color and women are sanctioned by all sectors of society. They are questioned only when they fit the lynch-mob mentality of white America. The existence of this institutionalized racism is supported by thee xnerienc nf Inn Tres Unidos complex residents who com- plained to local police about vio- lence committed on a consistent ba- sis by the same eight suspects in the Central Park case. But these resi- dents were all people of color; the crimes went unchallenged by police and the mainstream media. Women continue to be raped in fraternity houses and in their own homes in Ann Arbor; rape is not an urban phenomena. It is time that all of society speak and act out against violence toward women - not only when it fits into rcist stereotvntes