Diamondback Online - The University of Maryland's Independent Daily Student Newspaper

Issue date: 2/29/08 Section: Opinion

Leaving an imprint


Mr. William F. Buckley, Jr. passed away two days ago, and with his passing comes a tide of praise and reflection on his contributions and their consequences. He is attributed with giving the great power of the pen to the conservative/traditionalist attitude, in his words the idea of standing "athwart history, yelling stop."

The passings of human beings act almost as tide tables to a weary observer looking out over the ocean of political history. Buckley represented an odd combination of old money, wit and liberal education with conservative thought, was perceived to espouse racism and McCarthyism at times, but for the most part did his best to turn these elements away from his blessed ideology. In his passing, in the coming election, in the miserable approval rating of the current president there is a change in tide that has begun to show.

Here at this university, a great anthropology professor recently died, and his students too numerous to count across the years should have felt both grief and happiness. Well, he has left us; they hopefully have retained some lesson learned long or not so long ago. Somewhat like an old Jedi straight out of Star Wars, good teachers never die, they just fade away. A professor who dedicated his life to education still holds an important lesson in humanity - that which we devote our lives to should matter more than anything else.

As we grow older, we must pay more and more attention to those leaving us, because they represent where we come from. Work to solve the problems left unsolved, answer the questions left unanswered, and pass on our great works to those who will be reading our obits, albeit preferably later rather than sooner.



Nathaniel Snyder
Junior
Biochemistry and philosophy



Double standard


This is in response to Aaron Thorne's letter "Where is the uproar?" printed Feb. 27. His complaint about the lack of gay coverage extends to a more general bias of sexuality in the media, as well as society. Race, ethnicity, religion and so on seem to take precedence over gender and sexual preference any day.

The media is not objective in that they choose to air only the stories whose causes they want to advance. Rape is a hate crime of women, and it gets a headline but not to the extent the noose did earlier this year.

But why is there so much more support for the noose-hating club than the sexual abuser-hating club? People are allowed to jump to conclusions about the origins and motive of a piece of rope resembling a noose with no concrete evidence whatsoever; but when it comes to criminalizing a man who potentially permanently damaged a female's dignity and self-respect by making her feel horrible about the fact that she is a woman, we need to presume that he is "innocent until proven guilty."

This double standard for protecting race/ethnicity over gender is present at sporting events as well. When students chant derogatory remarks toward the other team, the chants usually consist of degrading remarks referring to women or homosexuals, thus demonstrating the societal/patriarchal belief that it is a bad thing to be gay or female. This is acceptable. But calling someone on the other team a racial slur is utterly out of the question. Even after all the civil rights movements of the 1960s and '70s, some prejudice and derision - also known as sexism - is more condoned than others. Unfair? Definitely.



Allison Gowallis
Sophomore
Government and politics


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