Category: Uncategorized

Feb. 2004

“We Don’t Want to Integrate!”

That was the outcry

made by 4,000 students in 1963 when Texas A&M President, General Earl Rudder, convened a campus forum

to discuss plans to admit women. According to the Brazos Genealogical Society online, “Rudder’s

concluding remarks are drowned out by a chorus of boos.”
Even today at the College Station

campus, if 4,000 people are shouting together about something, it will not be a good day for

diversity.

How do we approach these persistent and discouraging dynamics? During Black

History Month, we are going to try to keep our scholarly wits. There are crucial questions to

answer.

For instance, we have yet to locate a document that supports the Texas A&M

announcement to extend the vestiges of Hopwood. We tried looking in the Regents’ agenda packet, but

there was absolutely no mention of race or affirmative action there.

Where is the

documentary trail that leads to the decision to uphold the vestiges of Hopwood and why was it made? It

is remarkable that the Regents didn’t put a single word in writing.

Professor Marco

Portales reports that A&M President Robert Gates met with “minority” faculty on Dec. 18, two weeks

after the announcement was made. So who did he meet with before?

As we continue to

collect materials and to think about the possibilities of winning a civil rights victory, we cannot

forget that we live in a state rich with civil rights intelligence. James Farmer, Sr., taught at Sam

Huston College in Austin (now Huston-Tillotson) and Wiley College in Marshall. He raised up a son,

alright, who was not a Young Conservative.

And speaking of Wiley College, we marvel at

the golden age of scholars who would today still be considered heroic for their intellectual

courage.

Oliver Cromwell Cox, for instance, who taught at Wiley College, wrote a durable

analysis of Caste, Class, and Race. For him, the anti-integration fervor of young people was not to be

explained by any innate tendencies to wickedness. These attitudes have to be cultivated. And behind

that cultivation, Cox looked for interests served.

So how do we understand the

conditions that cultivate such dreadful images as jungle parties, affirmative action bake sales, and

open protests against the arrival of a Vice President for Diversity?

As we continue to

sift for documentary evidence, we will also continue to read our Black History and reflect on the Texas

struggles that have brought us this far.

And we will not apologize for following quite a

different path of scholarship than what is being pursued by Young Conservatives these days, who are the

intellectual heirs of a staunch tradition to be sure. In the end, will the elite leaders of the state

do what Cox predicted they would do–cultivate neo-fascist youth–or will they stand up to the boos?

Mark your calendars for March 11, when the Univ. of Texas Regents have scheduled a

special meeting during Spring Break whose agenda has yet to be announced.

Greg

Moses
Site Editor

By Greg

Moses

CounterPunch

Winter takes the

color away, but people put up lights. In my own cul de sac of the global village, the light show this

year is fantastic. We have colors like I’ve never seen, electric deer that raise their lit-up heads,

candy canes, icicles, y mas santas. At night the frozen ground glows in magical grace. With hope, we

have electrified a dying world.

Where does this spirit come from? If you think it

comes from Jesus, I get it. If you prefer a pagan yule tide, I get that, too. My own favorite story

for this season of lights belongs to Africa, where the Nile River once rose and fell. By x-mas time

each year, the water had fallen low, but the low ebb of the river was matched by the high hope of

Horus, the baby born of Holy Mother Isis and Green God Osiris, each and every December

25.

Whether the water is low or the snow is high, x-mas in El Norte finds us asking

metaphysical questions. Will we believe in the returns of Spring? Stake our cheer on nothing but the

future? Or feed our fear on everything we see around us?

For Ramsey Muniz on x-mas, it

is neither low water nor high snow. For Ramsey, and so many with him, it is thick walls that must be

hoped through. If he had to do it all over again, says Ramsey in an interview with Rolando Garza,

he’d rather not run for Governor of Texas. He’d rather serve as minister of cultura for his beloved

party, La Raza Unida.

Cultura. Familia. And most important, says Ramsey, is

Love.

“Let us celebrate the birth of this historic spiritual man whose destiny was to

change the entire world,” writes Ramsey from Leavenworth prison. The email comes from his esposa,

Irma. “It is not about a white Christmas. It is about accepting the truth of faith, charity, love,

forgiveness, and spirituality. We are in the midst of a world spiritual evolution and those who open

their hearts with patience and understanding will witness the resurrection of spiritual power which is

greater than any other power in the world.”

Although he says nothing directly about her

in this message, Ramsey’s voice reminds me who else is looking out. The Lady of Guadalupe, her

resplendent image watching from the East. She is mother to all the children of Aztlan, and it would

take a soul made from dry husk not to thank her that you live at this glowing cul de sac while Ramsey

Muniz is locked up in Leavenworth.

If the best things come from prison, as Ramsey says,

then in what way do the best things exist, and why do the power-fools of this earth lock the best

things away? In solitary confinement, Ramsey encountered a vision of Ricardo Flores Magón, and, having

nothing more urgent at hand, they talked. Was it the same cell where Magon had been beaten to death in

1922, four years into his fourth imprisonment? Magon had coined the slogan, “Land and Liberty.” In

his journal, Regeneration, he reminded Mechika readers that “emancipation of the workers must be the

work of the workers themselves.”

At the Irish anarchist website, struggle, they say “No

Gods, No Masters.” If you think the spirit belongs to this slogan, I get that, too. On x-mas day,

the point is never to be caught without the spirit that takes you through the low water

times.

“The issue of admissions is fundamental to the university. Our

differences with the president’s
policy regarding admissions are well known. While we are pleased

that the university has
increased efforts in the areas of outreach and scholarships (including the

diversity fellowship),
the academic literature on minority enrollment is clear: affirmative action

is necessary to combat
existing bias in American society and create a diverse campus. Early evidence

from next year’s
class suggests that minority enrollments are up, and we are encouraged by this.

However, this
data is still preliminary. More importantly, the short-term effect of these efforts

does not speak to
the long-term ability of TAMU to maintain a diverse student body. We urge the

president to
reconsider his policy and allow race and ethnicity to be considered in university

admissions.
Because there is significant debate among those who support the consideration of race

in
admissions as to how such criteria are to be applied, we would also encourage TAMU to

review
the admissions policies of the Vision 2020 institutions.”

[May 18 (2004)

Recommendations from Texas A&M Univ. Faculty and Staff Committed to an Inclusive Campus (FSCIC) p.

3.]

Chronicle Daily News, Feb. 13, 2004

“I am outraged that

opponents of affirmative action would go to these lengths to mislead people, to collect information

that they will use to attack affirmative action,” said Ms. Berry, who was appointed to the commission

by President Jimmy Carter and has led the panel since 1993. “It is illegal, immoral, and unethical, in

my view, for a special assistant to a commissioner to send a survey to colleges and universities that

will be led to believe that this is the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights undertaking the survey.”

“I hope that colleges and universities will not respond to it,” Ms. Berry said.

The survey, which was printed on commission letterhead, was sent to the colleges’

presidents by Christopher A. Jennings, a special assistant to Peter N. Kirsanow. Mr. Kirsanow, a

Republican, was appointed to the commission by President Bush and has frequently criticized race-

conscious college admissions in articles written for the National Review. In an interview Thursday, Mr.

Jennings said he was “just acting on Commissioner Kirsanow’s authority,” and “this is not an

official act of the commission as a whole.”