Mirror - Vol. 17, No. 10 - December 03, 1992

              The
FairfieldMRRORV Volume 17, No. 10 Thursday, December 3, 1992 Better thanThe New York Times — We're Free
Shannon Develops Strategy To Tackle Beach Issue
Debra De Shong
News Editor
Tensions and problems at
Fairfield Beach are nothing new.
Traditionally, with the start of ev-ery
new year, the complaints and
accusations fly between students
and residents, right up until the
students pack up and go home in
May. FUSA president Steve Shan-non
says, however, that this is it.
He is tired of the battle and hopes
that through his efforts, this will be
the last year for bad feelings at the
beach.
Shannon proposes to
work this miracle through raising
consciousness, cooperating with all
parties involved to establish a
proactive role for students, and by
expanding non-alcoholic program-ing
on campus during the week-end.
Through the Student
Beach Residents Association
(SBRA). Shannon claims that stu-dent
beach residents are slowly
being made aware of the exact com-plaints
of residents, "Students who
live at the beach are more con-scious
because of the work done
by SBRA." SBRA attempts to im-prove
relations between the stu-dents
and the residents through
programs like the chore service,
and babysitting services.
Shannon feels that if the
students were able to personally
meet the residents, they would be
more aware of the residents needs.
"If a student could put a face with
a name, they would be more con-scious
of their actions and of the
problems." he said.
SBRA president. Carrssa
B'dami. is also attempting to alert
students to exactly what their rights
are under the law. Shannon says.
"Students are not deliberately
breaking the law. they are just not
conscious of what the law is."
B'dami had consolidated a list of
laws that affect students directly
and plans to send it out "to all beach
residents.
Although beach residents
are the tareet of most of the criti-cism,
and are the focus of SBRA,
Shannon feels that he must also
reach underclassmen with his
message ofharmony at the beach.
"Students going down to the
beach don't look at it the same as
those living there," he said.
From the beginning of
the year, starting with the full
page ad in The Mirror in Septem-ber,
FUSA and SBRA have en-couraged
underclassmen not to
venture to the beach without a
specific destination and an invi-tation.
Shannon plans to tar-get
the 2,600 students not living
at the beach to inform them of the
problems. In order to do so,
Shannon plans to hold a meeting
in each of the residence halls to
voice his message, "do not come
down," as well as learn what are
the concerns of the underclass-men.
The second step in his
plan to eradicate problems at the
beach involves meeting with the
four parties concerned: the year
round residents, the students, the
police and the administration.
This will hopefully lead
to a comprehensive program to
alleviate tensions. "All four par-ties
have to feel comfortable with
the proposal in order for it to be
effective." he said. Shannon is
positive that the end result will
be a proactive position for stu-dents.
The final phase in
Shannon's solution is the expan-sion
ofnon-alcoholic programming
on the weekends. His goal is to
provide programming every week-end.
One proposal was to provide
"Club Dancing" at the Black Box,
in the Quick Center, every other
weekend. Shannon feels that there
is no reason why some of the 39
clubs and organizations who re-ceive
money from FUSA can't co-sponsor
events. He also cited the
fact that the Inter-Residence Hall
Government has a budget of
$53,000 a year that could be used
for programming.
In response to allegations
that Shannon is spending all of his
time dealing with the beach situa-tion,
he said, "I do not feel I spend
all of my time on the beach, and it
does affect the entire university
community."
Shannon says that he is
not concerned with fighting the
townhouse alcohol policy because
it is a misconception that students
cannot have parties with under-classmen
at the townhouses. "You
just can't serve alcohol to under-classmen
and the administration is
enforcing it," he said.
For now. the problems at
the beach remain a thorn in the side
of the university with no real end in
sight. However. Shannon says.
"We would be at fault if we don"t
take every chance to improve rela-tions."
Race Relations: A
Community Concern
Hacker Discusses Origins
Of Racism
Jennifer Luongo
Assistant News Editor
Fairfield University held
its first conference on Race Rela-tions
during the week of Novem-ber
16. Larri W. Mazon. Director
of Multicultural Relations and Aca-demic
Support Services explained
that the concept qf the conference
was initiated "in response to the
racial incident that took place on
campus last year." Activities aimed
at understanding issues of diver-sity
were geared toward the entire
University community—students,
faculty, and administration. "The
University community needs to
deal with these issues, especially
when pursuing diversity," Mazon
added.
The first two events of
the conference had an excellent
turn out. On Monday, the Confer-ence
began with students partici-pating
in cultural activities in the
residence halls. Some residence
halls showed Spike Lee films and
held open discussions afterward.
The next event was a
brown bag luncheon for adminis-trators.
Seventy-five people were
present at the luncheon to listen to
a panel discussion of race relations
from a national and historical per-spective.
A video teleconference
took place the next day and to end
the week. Queens College Profes-sor
Andrew Hacker, author of the
bookTwoNations: Black. White—
Separate. Unequal and Hostile,
made a public address.
Although attendance at
the last two events was disappoint-ing,
the week-long conference was
promising. "For a first time, there
were pros and cons. But, the high-light
was the community partici-pation,"
Mazon said.
Mazon would like to
make the Conference an annual
event and would like to form a
committee to organize the activi-ties,
in the future, he hopes to see
the Conference become a commu-nity-
wide activity, with input and
participation from various clubs,
organizations, and departments.
Mazon added, "We must
focus on issues of living together
as human beings. If we are to lead
the world, we have to deal with
these issues."
Caitlin Whelan
Staff Writer
A speech last Thursday by
Dr. Andrew Hacker, Professor of
Political Science at Queens Col-lege,
was the final event in a week-long
series of activities on race-relations.
Hacker is the author of
Two Nations: Black and White,
Separate, Hostile. Unequal. Dr.
Hacker began by speaking about
the thoughts of white Americans,
and stated that he seeks to dis-cover,
as a white American, "how
we think, how we feel, and more
importantly, why we think and feel
this way." ."
Dr. Hacker acknowledged
his observation that "to have white
skin is to have protection and secu-rity"
in our society. This belief
stems from the dehumanizing act
of slavery blacks have been sub-jected
to throughout history.
The origins of racism,
Hacker says, can be traced to sla-very.
The justification for slavery
was that people from Africa were
not seen as fully human. The prob-lem
then lies, says Hacker, in the
question, "Does not that view per-sist,
somewhere, someplace?"
Dr. Hacker went on to dis-tinguish
between racism in con-servatives
and liberals. In his book,
he shows conservatives as ulti-mate
racists. At the same time, he
says, liberals share the conserva-tive
viewpoint, but hate themselves
for having those feelings.
Hacker added, on the view
of higher criminal tendencies
among blacks, that "criminal ten-dencies
are evenly distributed
among races and classes."
Hacker ended on the note
that "what we face is not a problem
that one solves... but a predica-ment."
With the extent of racism
in American history, Hacker says
he cannot propose solutions, only
awareness. "This has been the defi-nition
of America for almost four
centuries, and I am here to teach
about it the best I can."
Batman spreads
iis wings and tells
all
page 4
Students bite back
in war against
town
page 5
The legacy of
Malcolm X
page 13
WVOF listeners
turn to Asylum
page 15
Meet the 1992-93
Lady Stags
noges 18-19