[Peace] Re: "Comparing UI protestors past, present"

[Kranich, Kimberlie]

My letter to Tom Kacich, the "moderate" on the News Gazette's editorial
staff.  I'll let you know if he replies. Peace activists are referred to in
his column and my reply.

Kimberlie

>  -----Original Message-----
> From: 	Kranich, Kimberlie  
> Sent:	Monday, April 26, 2004 1:46 PM
> To:	Tom Kacich (E-mail)
> Subject:	Re: "Comparing UI protestors past, present"
> 
> Dear Tom,
> 
> I read with great interest your 4/21/04 column "Comparing UI protestors
> past, present."  I knew some of that history and was appreciative of
> learning about other parts in the more distant past. Thanks for digging
> out that information.  I feel proud to be a resident of C-U with its rich
> history of dissent and activism on-campus and off.
> 
> I didn't quite understand the final two sentences of your column, though.
> You wrote, " but because they are tolerated politically, they survive. The
> Chief will too, as long as it has more supporters than opponents."  Your
> conclusion appears to contradict the very information you presented. 
> 
> In the late 50s and early 60s African Americans and others protested
> businesses, such as Carmons, that refused to serve African Americans, and
> JC Penny's because it refused to hire Blacks except as janitors, the
> protestors had more opponents than supporters. Hundreds of people
> picketed, but thousands more lived in the twin cities and their silence
> preserved the status quo without them having to do a thing. It was only
> because of the direct pressure from a relatively small number of activists
> in the form of protests that those businesses were made to change their
> ways.
> 
> Carle and Provena have changed their medical debt practices as a direct
> result of organized and sustained direct action by a dedicated and small
> (by percentages of the population) group of committed individuals.
> 
> Eighty-five percent of the residents of Illinois believe that it is wrong
> to discriminate against an individual in employment based on her or his
> sexual orientation. Despite these numbers, the Illinois legislature has
> failed to add sexual orientation to the Illinois Human Rights Act, which
> would make such discrimination illegal. Even when the majority of folks
> are on a minority group's side, it still takes great effort to make
> institutional change.
> 
> Peace activists today are treated with no less hostility than what was
> reported in your column about the findings of a 1974 doctoral thesis.
> Signs are torn down on campus, trucks drive up on the sidewalks where
> protestors are on N. Prospect, peace activists are spit on and have things
> thrown at them and are given the finger often. The "we" is a mixed group
> of university and townspeople. 
> 
> The anti-Chief movement started with a single individual, Charlene Teters,
> and has grown in the past decade to hundreds strong. The Chief will one
> day be retired and this will happen even though there will be more Chief
> supporters than opponents. Once the Chief is retired, students, faculty
> and staff will slowly embrace the new symbol and mascot and feel the same
> sense of school pride they did when the Chief was the U of I symbol and
> mascot.
> 
> The minority always has an uphill battle in every struggle. That battle
> includes being misrepresented, mischaracterized, underreported and
> ridiculed in the news media. I wish the News Gazette would do a better job
> than it is in this regard. Even if there was one local columnist who wrote
> with respect about local protest movements, that would be an improvement. 
> 
> Perhaps a column on how protest groups are written about by columnists in
> the news media? This is a serious suggestion. I am not being flippant.
> Remember those editorial cartoons against women's suffrage?  How were
> Blacks who protested against JC Penny's written about by News Gazette
> columnists? Any of Phil Bloomer's columns on local protest actions would
> provide rich material for an examination.
> 
> Thanks for listening and be well,  
> Kimberlie Kranich
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