[From the Monitor, Aug. 26, 1987]

Letters

Open your mind

Sen. Jack Chandler is lucky
he's a small fish. Otherwise he
would have been cleaned and fried
for his visionless and ignorant re-
marks regarding the Rev. Jesse
Jackson.

Nobody else was willing to dig-
nify those comments with any sort
of reply. The senator should have
followed suit, rather than trying to
cover his obviously bigoted com-
ments with such shallow reasoning
as "I think it's a certain form of
folklore humor, you might say."
You might say a lot of things, sen-
ator, but you probably ought to
stop before you get any more feet
in your mouth.

If you were blind and a friend
had described the occasion of Jes-
se Jackson giving a 9-year-old girl
a kiss, without mentioning the skin
color of either, would you have
found it repulsive"? I sincerely
hope you will be able to open your
eyes and your mind to the oneness
of humanity.

Natural mindset

News headline: Chandler's Constituents Are Willing To Forgive

remarks. From your paper's
script today (Aug. 21) it would
seem your editorial staff is rather
angry and frustrated over Sen.
Jack Chandler's comments about
Jesse Jackson. It would seem to
me the nature of your anger and
frustration is your inability to set-
tle into the basic and natural mind-
set of the predominantly white
public of the state of New Hamp-
shire, and of New England in gen-
eral.

and Forget. Editorial: Repugnant The air is free

If the general feeling bothers
the staff of the Concord Monitor so
much, all I can say is you better
get used to it. Because unless we
get a mass migration of colored
stock, you're not likely to see any
great change in the public attitude
regarding ethnic jokes, especially
involving blacks.

Now personally, I found Jack's
joke interesting but I've heard and
laughed at better. What I think is
that there are a lot of hypocrites
out there that are afraid of being
called "bigots." You liberals don't

Do you have a small sailboat,
such as a Sunfish, or are you a
wind-surfer? If the answer is yes,
you know the feeling of freedom
that comes when you move with
the wind.

But did you know that the wind
isn't free in New Hampshire? Any
sailboat, or sailboard, that is 12
feet or larger must have a New
Hampshire license each year. The
fine for not having the New Hamp-
shire decal license is $44. In a state
where the slogan is "Live Free or
Die," it seems ironic that one must
pay for using the wind.

If you, too, feel that licensing
small boats and boards, which use
only the wind to propel them, is
wrong, then let's start writing our
state representatives today to get
this law changed, and restore the
meaning of "free" in New Hamp-
shire.

New London

JOAN LAMSON

Against

A Wall

At UNH, Blacks

administrators. There are less than a dozen black professors, though the proportion of black staff members is probably better. "But what's better than one tenth of one percent?" Thomas said. "Most people who are educated will admit that it really diminishes the whole educational experience of students to live in such a homogeneous environment."

University Plans Policy Changes

s a state university, the University of New Hampshire is primarily obligated to admit

A of

With Racism minority population within the community, and
Cope

By LESLIE ROBINSON
For The Monitor

R

ebecca Carroll is no stranger to all

white schools. She was one of three
blacks at Kearsarge High School, and
the only black during her first eight
years of education. Her adoptive
parents and natural mother, with whom she is
close, are white. So are her two siblings.

Still, Carroll cannot reconcile herself to the
feeling she has as a black student at the
University of New Hampshire. After three
semesters there, she is leaving the school,
planning to take the spring semester off and
transfer next fall. One black professor, who made
her feel "celebratory" about her blackness,
wasn't reason enough to stay. Nor was the Black
Student Union, the group she helped form last
spring to confront the university's great racial
imbalance.

"What saddens me most about this university
is the students have no qualms about learning in
this unhealthy environment," Carroll said.

Despite awareness among administrators, the number of blacks at UNH remains very low. The most recent statistics available are from the fall of 1906, but administrators say they have changed little since. That semester, UNH had 9,000 undergraduates. Of these, 37 were black Stephanie Thomas, a registrar who reports on affirmative action, said UNH has no black

that population needs to include
administrators and staff who are minority
persons."

The few black teachers at the school often
find themselves besteged by minority students
eager to share their ideas. One former member
of his department, Fish said, felt obliged to act as
a role model for black students. "They sought
him out in such numbers for support that it
really became very difficult for him to feel he
could meet their expectations," Fish said.

Carroll felt the benefit of having even one
black professor. Lester Fisher and his Afro-
American literature class had a major impact on
her, "The literature we read and the thoughts
and feelings that were elicited from me - it was
an awakening for me," she said. "That class and
Les gave me a lot of inspiration. He made me
feel like I did as a child, real celebratory about
being black, and different."

Much of Carroll's perspective comes from
growing up with white siblings and attending
white schools. "Pve been in the limelight. I've
gotten some mileage out of being black). I've
been a token," she said. Carroll believes
tokenism is "completely detrimental to your
growth in the long run.

She calls herself "culturally white and cosmetically black. I can speak on black culture

See RACISM-Page D-4

whom belong to minorities. All minorities, however,
receive preferential treatment in the sense that
UNH reviews their applications as though they
were in-state candidates.

This year, the admissions office in Durhamn
received 288 minority applications. Forty of those
students enrolled in September, seven were black.

UNH has always sought minority students, said
Dean of Admissions Stan Fish, but such efforts
have found little success. The retention rate of
black students "is well below the general university
retention or graduation rate," he said. Faced with
the isolation of being a minority student, some drop
out even when they are doing well academically.

UNH offers three scholarship programs, one
largely for Hispanics, one for blacks and one for in-
state minorities.

The university wants to improve the
representation of blacks among faculty, staff and
administrators, says Stephanie Thomas, registrar
and special assistant to the president. It has no full-
time affirmative action officer, but plans to hire
one, Thomas said. For now, several employees
share the job.

The school will soon implement new guidelines
for hiring minority teachers. When a department
with low representation of minorities and women
has an opening, advertisements to fill the vacancy
will say. "Women and minorities encouraged to
apply." All tenure-track search committees will
have an affirmative action advocate.

Thomas also plans to instruct departments
about how to actively recruit women and
minorities. The University of New Hampshire has
to be aggressive.

"You've got to get on the phone and call
institutions, she said. "Pass the word on. That's
what being aggressive is."

Racial climate may not be the only thing
detracting from the school's appeal to minorities.
Salaries, the number of teaching assistants and
research money combine to make up a package.
UNH, Thomas said, "just can't compete in that

arena

- Leslie Reblasen

D4-CONCORD MONITOR, Wednesday, December 28, 1988

RACISM

Continued From Page D-1

because I've read,
and because of people who've influ-
enced me who know, but I've never
been in the heart of black culture
She admits she cannot say what it's
like to be culturally black at UNH, but
she notes, "I do know what it's like to
be black

Last spring, in an effort to create a
black presence en campus, Carroll
helped found the Black Student
Union, which was mainly a support
group then. Members hope to work
more as activists this year, but a re-
cent meeting revealed a split in their
ranks.

"My foundation for starting this
was anger," Carroll said to the few
members who remained after the
meeting. That declaration disheart
ened Keith Carpenter, who respond-
ed that, to draw more people into the
Union, the group needed to plan
some fun activities.

To Carroll, the purpose of the
Union was primarily political, not so
cial. There are times, she said during
that divisive meeting, when she
would not recommend UNH to a sin-
gle black person. "Are you trying to
start this so you won't feel that way?"
another student asked her.

"I'm trying to start this so you
won't feel that way," she answered

"Now that I'm in the Union, I'm
not gonna go bomb something." be
said with a laugh. "I may not be as
angry as Rebecca is. Whereas I've
lived in a black culture, she hasn't
I'm not saying she's less black than
The opposing visions within the me, or I'm less black than she is.
Union caught Carroll by surprise. By... She should be in charge of the
the next day, she was rethinking her tough stuff, and I should be in charge
role as leader. "My big error is to as of having the parties. That's me any
sume the other black students, be way. I go into the meetings and jok

me?'"

agreed that ignorance is the root of
much racism. He refers to the "large
scale ignorance that continues to vic
timize many people in our culture"

Although he has encountered bla-
tant racism from store clerks and
even from repairmen in his own
home, he believes "the college con-
munity is much more difficult. Guys
get drunk, they yell things. It's often
worse on campus because there's a
high level of rudeness. (The students)
have a general disrespect for other
people. When you have that kind of
environment, those people who are
obviously different become the ob-
jects of frustration."

An ideal UNH, Fisher said, would
have women in the administration's
top ranks, and "people of minority ex-
perience all throughout the different
functions of the university, so that in
the daily encounters certain experi-
ences would be available in the most

"Flowering

By DONN TIBBETTS State House Bureau Chief CONCORD Although proponents claimed growing grassroots support, a bill to have New Hampshire celebrate the birthdate of Martin Luther King with a holiday sustained one of its worst defeats in 10 years yesterday.

A move to overturn an adverse committee report and substitute ought-to-pass garnered only 89 votes in the House with 255 representatives opposed. Moments later the bill was killed via voice vote.

The nearly 3-1 majority refused to dump New Hampshire's traditional Fast Day holiday on the fourth Monday in April and replace it by observing the federal Martin Luther King holiday on the third Monday in January.

Only 65 Democrats and 24 Republicans voted for the bill yesterday following a 70-minute emotional debate.

Rep. Wayne Burton, D-Durham, hailed the slain civil rights activist as envisioning "a country free of hate, prejudice and violence in a dream we should remember."

But Rep. Maurice MacDonald, R-Derry, retorted that "many have worked and suffered to gain rights for many people."

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Linda KING Page 6

KING

(Continued from Page One)

Long, D-Nashua, complained of
receiving mail "telling me to go
back to hell where I came from,
but I'm staying here." MacDon-
ald assured her "that the House
has the highest esteem for you,
but every member of this House
has no respect for anyone who
sends out mail like that."

Rep. Jacquelyn Domaingue,
R-Manchester, told of service
men giving their lives for the
U.S. flag "with a sense of honor"
in Vietnam at a time she said
Martin Luther King "was label-
ing the U.S. the greatest purvey-
or of violence in the world" and
accusing the U.S. of "testing our
weapons on peasants as did the
Germans."

Gregg said he would not oppose a King birthday observance if it were held on a Sunday.

This month 1,523 of 1,706 readers responding to a poll by The Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News were opposed to the King holiday effort.

"We will keep trying to pass this bill as long as it takes," said Arnie Alpert who helped coordinate the King holiday effort this

year.

He said the public is behind the bill "but the word just hasn't reached some of our legislators yet."

For hours on Feb. 8, the pros and cons of the controversial

"I can't turn around and give holiday bill were voiced at a the same honor to a man who condemned" the U.S. military, she said.

Later Burton told reporters that as an Army captain who served in Vietnam, "I resent her remarks."

A move to have Domaingue's remarks printed in the House Journal failed 124-198.

Gov. Judd Gregg said he wanted to retain New Hamp shire's unique Fast Day that originated with a day of prayer for colonial Gov. John Cutt who became ill in 1681 and died.

public hearing in Representatives Hall at the State House. The overwhelming majority hailed King's contributions to the cause of civil rights, including former Sen. James Splaine of Portsmouth who first attempted such legislation 10 years ago.

A similar King holiday bill was killed in the Senate March 12, 1987. Another was killed in the House in 1985. The House and Senate both defeated separate measures in 1981 and the Senate killed another bill bac in 1979.

[Monitor, May 16, 1989]

Swastika,

Slur Painted On Temple

Someone spray-painted a swastika and the words "blood drinkers" on the roof of the Temple Beth Jacob on Broadway Sunday night.

Rabbi Robert Schenkerman said members of the temple were shocked and outraged.

"It's something that belongs back in the days of the Holocaust," he said. "We do not find this a prank at all. It was a malicious act of unwarranted hatred and bigotry and stupidity and ignorance."

The graffiti is the first sign of bigotry against Jews in Concord in a long time, Schenkerman said. "There are people who have lived in this community for 30 years who have never seen anything like this."

The temple was vulnerable to vandalism during the construction of its addition recently, but suffered none, Schenkerman said.

The graffiti was scrawled high on the sloping roof in white paint sometime after 11 p.m., according to a police report. A passerby saw it from the road Monday morning, Schenkerman said.

The fire department covered the graffiti with black paint yesterday, but the paint is darker than the roof, so the words and sign are still obvious, Schenkerman said.

Linda Goetz