University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor

Louder Voice For Coalition

The night of Feb. 11, Dick
Gregory spoke at Mary Washington
College of the University of Virginia.
Mr. Gregory addressed a
conglomerate mass of people - a
large group of uptight MWC girls
who aren't quite as liberal as the
people of Fredericksburg fear; a
few radicals from various environs,
a few Marines training for Vietnam
at Quantico, Va., and a few black
people from town who rode in the
front gate for a change, instead of
walking in the back door marked
"service entrance." There was a lot
of laughter that night because Mr.
Gregory has a penchant for delivering
a good line. What he said,
however, really wasn't at all funny.
For Mr. Gregory was talking about
America. Not America "the land of
the free;" America the great democracy
which shines the last beacon of
hope for the enslaved world;
America where truth and mercy are
the watchwords of the people and
where great men guide the ship of
state. No, he was telling of an
America where freedom is given to
the black man on the installment
plan; an America which has its
foundation rooted in the exploitation
and extermination of the
Indian; an America where truth is
what the men in authority decide it
shall be and mercy is arresting a
looter instead of killing him; an
America where politicians, not
statesmen, run the government to
insure their own reelection rather
than to assure that the needs of all
the people will be met even if the
men with campaign funds don't like
it.

I venture that what Gregory said
can be led into the situation at the
University recently. What an
influential group of students are
saying is this: "We're tired of living
at the University of Virginia when
its really the White University of
Virginia. We're tired of having
housing regulations prohibiting discrimination
when little old ladies
who are as afraid of black people as
they are of losing student rent are
told at a garden party by an
administrative official not to worry
because the regulation will never be
enforced. We're tired of hearing
how expensive our University is
when many black people who work
here are paid $52 a week on which
they have to live.

But, man, look what's happening!
Here's a bunch of people who
lay down eleven points they feel are
an integral part of the demolition
of U.Va.'s institutionalized racism.
What do they do? Put the ones not
already channelled into the deep
water to find their way to
Shannon's desk. How long will it
take before these eleven points
come back down? Sure, Shannon
can see everyone's sincere - a
whole bunch of cats got together in
coats and ties on the steps of the
Rotunda and said so. Do they really
think that things are going to move
faster because coats and ties said so
instead of Levis and beards?

The Cavalier Daily reported
that one comment at a recent
Student Council meeting was that a
man like Wheatley cannot be
judged on his past. What are the
black people whose education was
wiped out in 1958 by his astute
leadership going to judge him on -
their present? The direct result of
his past! Mr. Wheatley states that
racism is no longer a good idea.
He's right. So the rest of the
Board have settled on "installment
plan" freedom for the black people
who are in any way related to the
University structure. The installment
plan isn't going to work much
longer, says Gregory. Black people
aren't interested in tomorrow or
yesterday. They're interested in
today.

What Mr. Gregory is saying is
that the black man can no longer be
co-opted by the people who hold
the freedom strings. They will no
longer listen to the honeyed arguments
of "don't judge a man by his
past," "do not consider the heights
you have attained, but rather the
depths from which you have
come," "you can't change society
over night, it takes time and
patience"...ad nauseum. This has
been going on for several hundred
years. The black man does not
believe the white man any more. He
sees too many contradictions - the
Indians "freed" on reservations
with no citizenship rights; the
people who bewail the assassination
of Kennedy, King, and Kennedy
and say nothing of that of Malcolm
X and George Lincoln Rockwell
(isn't an assassination an assassination?);
the people who welcome the
Shriners who came to Chicago to
do their brotherhood thing but beat
the hell out of a group of students
who came to Chicago to talk about
brotherhood for all men, not just
the man who wears the fez; the
people who put white women on
TV advertising super girdles, living
bras, and love making with the first
slick cat who comes down the
street yet lock up a black man
when he manifests any sexual
interest in a white woman.

These anonymous "people" are
the same not so anonymous people
at the University who hire a black
recruiter for six months, who think
integration is the extreme of
racism, who say that the reason
black men and black women can't
get their hair cut or styled is
because the white hairdressers don't
want to mess up black hair. This is
the kind of insult the black man
will tolerate no longer, says Gregory.
And to not tolerate an insult
does not mean to bow and scrape
saying, "Yessir," "Surenough," and
"Yessir, boss," when the University
throws this insult back to the
students who are asking nicely this
time around. Then, are the students
going to have the guts enough to
demand...a little louder?