way, is not unrealistic in regard
to student publications, The
Harvard Crimson is run this way.
for _nsiance,

2. College investigation 01 the
possibility of setting up an onset
printing tacility or at least the
camera make , up end oi the
operation. This would solve the
problem or iowa printers’
“handsotf ‘d‘ l’ ” policy and
would be a iinancially sound way
tor the college to print its own
literature. Also. more, higher
quality and a greater variety of
student publications might spring
up if this iacility were available.

But. above all, in terms oi sug
gestions. . . on the Board oi
Publications!

Krystyna Neuinan

CANCEL!

Dear Sir:

We have today received our
edition of Scarlet and Black with
your editorial insert, Please
cancel our subscription to your
paper immediately, as we do not
care to subscribe to a paper with
such an irresponsible attitude by
its editor, Freedom of speech
and freedom oi press are not
licensed to insult the decency of
the public.

We certainly expect that an
adult attitude be exhibited by
collegeragc students, We
heartily endorse and commend
Mr. Shaw (or taking his stand for
the side of decency. Futhermoro,
we believe obscenity laws of the
United States prohibit an insert
as was sent to our home We do
know the laws of Trinidad and
Tobago prohibit the mailing of
obscene and pornographic
literature.

Yours very triily.
J.E. HAYNES
San Fernando.
Trinidad. W.I.

RESPONSlBleES!

Dear Mr. Brandon:

You have not been censored so
much as you have been reminded
of your responsibilities!

For instance, in your editorial
of November 21, you state that
Mr. Shaw could not answer, to
your satisiaction, “what is dirty
about “that word?” Your choice
of “that word” to describe a
terrible war puts the respon»
sibility squarely on you, as
editor, to answer that same
question. You are guilty of
following the many who have
been equating a commonly used
sex term with the horrors and
dirt of war. Those of uS who are
now parents or college students
learned long ago to accept ”luck"
as a crude but honest enough
word, and have round it used
quite legitimately in literature
and life, It has been around as a
shock term iorcver, but now it's
being borrowed out at context
once again by those oi you who
consider yourselves “sex »
enlightened", for heaven's sake‘

You have been served fairly
and well by Grlnllell College in
being allowed to print the
explanation sheet. The collcgc
need not and should not cater to
you beyond this point.

Grinnell has its Pterodactyl
which is printed and distributed
with surprising regularity
despite its problems, The campus
does not need another outlet for
this kind of experimental
journalism. It needs, instead, a
newspaper to tackle the tar more
dillicult job of seeking solutions
through a courageous approach

that eliminates the crutch of
stupidly oliensive terms For
instance, alter reading the news
item about tiie Pterodactyl in the
so 13, we were ready to rush out
to buy it because it tantalized our
prurient interests. Your
explanation oi the black smudges
gave it away as another “Big
Yawn" You went and told it all!

If you are indeed interested in
what may be a very real threat oi
censorship. look to the Open
Forum oi today’s Sunday
licgisier. You will see how
concerned citizens are debating
this age . old problem once again
When you have a worthwhile
cause, digni itas being oi worth
by the choice or thoiightiul terms
or persuasion Shop . worn shock
tactics belong only to the unde-
servmg cause.

Mr H, G. Apostle
llli Last St.
Grinncll

Ntuotiw!

Dear Mr. Brandon.

As a kindergarten teacher,
dedicated to free speech, even
as yourself, I am very iamiliar
With the “naughty” words little
boys love to use in an attempt to
shock me. My policy has been to
allow the use of such words under
the assumption that as a tow
years and a little discrimination
descend upon the little fellows
their language may become
slightly more reiined, i iind I
must question my methods. Can
you tell me, did your
kindergarten teacher shush you
when you wanted to yell “shit,
shit, shit,” (as a little boy did this
very day) 7 Did that repression
lead to this delayed concern you
have for such words? Or did she
allow you to do it, thus
establishing a habit of juvenile
expression? I really must know
soon, as tomorrow is another day
and who knows what those little
rascals may say!

Anxiously awaiting your reply.

Yours truly.
RJS.) GailS. Ravitts
Rockiord, lll.

BE Pm EMT 1.

Michael —

i have been iollowing the plight
of Grinlicll , based publications
with great interest the past iew
months. Having known Mr, Shaw
for several years and having
always admired him as an easy
man with whom to work i was
surprised at his recent
aberrations vis-a-vis the
venerable 5ch I would imagine
but have no way at knowing that
there were pressures irom other
directions on Mr, Shaw. ii you
would, try to be kind and patient
and try to understand Mr Shaw
He has had a goal or a set of goals
for which he has been working
hard iora long time These goals
may be unarticulated or maybe
prc . conscious but they are very
real nonetheless. He has been
seeking tamong other things of
course) a paid up mortgage,
respcet train the pastor, iriendly
nods from the neighbors when he
meets them on the streets, that
all around warm, secure feeling
ot being part oi a pleasant iowa
village. These goals, which we
may not admire but with which
we really should not be too light,
may have been threatened by

printing hick and similar words -

You know his neighbors may
have started talking about him
and nooding curlly on the streets.
in worse yet not nodding at all.
Perhaps the pastor threatened to
preach a sermon about him at the
daily news. Worse yet, his
mortgage payments may have
been th cateiied when the larger
adverti ers in town hinted darkly
that ads for their pure January
white sale could not be printed on
a press that had been beiouled by
fucking. Or perhaps. more kindly
and not impossible, Mr. Shaw
really does feel those words are
evil and dirty and as an act oi
principle he is giving up all the
money the son pays him to print
the paper rather than violate uae
principle he has about those and
similar words, So try to
understand iihe wants to keep his
press pristine and vninal Don’t
attack Mr. Shaw personally. He’s
really a fine guy, good to dogs
and children. You can’t expect
much more than that these days.
or course, I wouldn‘t want my
daughter educated by him but
then I wouldn‘t care if my son had
a beer with him.

Bobllodierne

Mama is
net i G‘lP!

To the 55:8:

I can sympathize with Mike
Brandon‘s exasperation in his
search for a printer who would
print the 85:13 without censoring
it. However, I am disturbed that,
in fixing the blame for his
difficulties, he should conclude
that, “As far as freedom of the
press is concerned, America is a
gyp." (8&8 Special, Decr5)

Freedom oi the press, as i
understand it, guarantees the
right of the individual to publish
whatever he wishes to publish, as
long as in doing so he does not
break any other laws Freedom
to publish presumably implies
freedom not to publish, also.

Mr, Brandon obviously
disagrees with Mr Shaw and Mr.
Sutherland on matters of social
propriety. But the printers were
free not to publish Mr. Brandon’s
material, and Mr. Brandon was
free to take his business
elsewhere, as he did. Freedom oi
uie press does not mean, and
certainly ought not to mean, that
a printer must enter into a
private business contract against
his wishes. Mr. Brandon may
think little of the printers'
reasons for reiusing to print, but
nowhere in this personal conflict
is lrccdom oi the press at stake

in fact, it would seem that
exercising ireedom oi the press is
one proiessional principle which
Messrs. Brandon, Shaw, and
Sutlicrlandhave in common, The
fact that they all were iree, under
law, to make public what they
thought appropriate for
publication, is testimony that, as
Mr as lrccdom oi the press s
concerned, America is not a gyp,
Mr. Brandon’s inconvenience and
irritation notwithstanding

/\llll Davis, ‘70

UNDERSTRNUNQ
thorium!

To the Editor:

These words are prompted both
by Sally Moore's article on the
“newwoman” two wecks ago and
Robert Finley‘s reply last week.

I suspect it was Mrs. Moore’s
intention to excite wider discus»
sion oi the ”new Woman”,
although Mr. Finley was clearly
responding to his own cartoon

DECEMBER 12, 1969 SCARLET & BLACK PAGE 5

Sammie: waste was:

1: mm DIPLOMA ,1

stereotypes — woman as rolling -
pin battleaxe, as frustrated do -
gooder, as eviscerated
intellectual a and not to Mrs.
Moore’s words. But ifl find the
male paranoia of Mr. Finley’s
rebuttal too conventional to be
worth noting tor its substance, his
seli , righteous fervour suggests
that continued explanation oi
women’s liberation is in order,
i was not happy with Mrs,
Moore's (teclu tion, it (lid not
distinguish priority among the
“demands” of the liberated
woman and, more important, its
eonirontation style is alien to
many of the issues its raises.
As a movement, women’s lib-
eration has widely adopted the
successful philosophy oi the
Black revolution. Just as self -
pride and racial consciousness
have become a mobilizing force
ior Black people. so militant
women, considering themselves
as a group another of society’s
“niggers”, have set about to
change their image, both in their
own eyes and the eyes oi men.
The analogy is not wholly inap-
propriate: Mr Finley's cartoon
stereotypes at women (including
the positive stereotype or woman
as bustling, happy homemaker,
“baking wholesome bread" 7
and scrubbing wholesome
toilets?) have infected the minds
of women as well, limiting their
perception at alternative liie -
styles to rigid catcgorics- One is
either a good mother or a career
woman, a lovtng wife or an
independent mind.
increasingly women (and now 1
relcr primarily to college .
educated, middle . class women.
For working . class women,
liberation means something else
—l are expressing their dissatise
iaetion with these categories.
They are discovc ing that as
individuals they wish to create
their own liie - styles, whether
single or married. in the home or
out, with all kinds of variations on
the traditional themes of house-
wiie, mother, and career woman.
it is at this point that l diverge
both from Mrs, Moore and Mr,
Finley. what interests me about
women’s liberation is precisely
the ﬂexibility it allows each
woman [or choosing her own

AND new:
607‘ Fol/z yin/z:
ro REM/it Ir.’

style. 1 consider it no more
liberating to lit Mrs, Moore’s set
oi prescriptions about personal
habits and relationships with
husband and children, than to tail
iinquestioiiingly into Mr. Finley’s
patterns . or womanhood
Conirontation has shown its
eiicctiveness where matters oi
ovcrt discrimination and legiti-
mate grievance are concerned,
but one’s personal lite is another
matter.

To be sure, men and women
both need educating to tree their
minds irom restrictive
expectations ior themselves and
each other, but who washes
dishes or pays bills or initiates
lovc - making is iinally a question
[or individuals who live together
to decide Put another way,
neither the woman who enjoys
rearing children and making a
home nor the woman who enyoys
working or any combination at
these need feel guilty.

But such personal freedom
presumes equal job opportunity,
humane abortion laws and day -
care centers in the children oi
working mothers In these
matters women can confront

Latte

The Scarlet at his;

Student Newspaper ct
Grinnell, College,

Grinnell, Iowa
no An’ independent
"Ma newspaper p u p.
_litncd weekly. e
Accpt during hot
Edays and extant.
, iion periods, by
inc oilnncu Com
milleL on Student
pnolicaiions, siibsciipiion rate
soot: per schoo| year
Edllor Michael J. Brandon
Associate Editor . Tom Thomas
nuslnes: Mnnncer Lynn Adams
Layout Edllor maria salurl
chic: rhoiognbhei Run siclnhoin
SDDIIS Edltor vac wens
circulailnn Manager key Carlson
ncnoriers we ondemn,
Sue sieeei. Henry Scheti.
mice oogoti, Molly McGulm,
John Gardner. erk oiaesei,
kooert oersien, .tcn Stein,
L. Angelo Mysirrlorn
Photographers .icn Gwllllnm,
nave Snyder

Sara Andrew,
Keith reitersen, Leon

”rd cape

’w iowrnsc o‘i‘

Production

 

 

 

