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Panel discusses civil rights
 Media Credit: Matthew Kaster Jane Olson and Phyllis Greenberg lead a discussion during �Civil Rights 101� which was held to urge the community to challenge the evils of stereotyping and myth.
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Last Friday, as part of Out Proud Week, four SCSU faculty came together in a panel discussion: Civil Rights 101.
To talk about discrimination, injustice, inspiration and hope were Trish Cook, graduate assistant of the American Indian Society, Phyllis Greenberg, assistant professor of Community Studies, Jane Olsen, director of Women's Center, and Bill Turner, assistant professor of History.
To combat discrimination, Olsen recommends resistance. "I'm getting better at it." She doesn't watch T.V. and turns the radio off when the viewpoint expressed is not accurate.
Greenberg however does watch T.V. "I want to know, as painful as it might be. That's (T.V.) what people believe in. And that's what my students watch."
"I challenge the issues," said Cook, "and now it's the mascot issue.
"Do we look like that? To many people we're caricatures."
Turner celebrates pride.
He thinks it would be a boring life being straight.
He finds his life interesting and never would have met so many diverse people in his life.
Turner said that although being gay might not be obvious, when gays are employed in the History Department, they don't last very long.
Cook shared a frustrating family moment:
"We had to sit down with our five-year-old when the Peter Pan movie was brought home. There's the old chief and the little girl - my family never did this - to so many people we're cartoons."
Greenberg, who is Jewish, said, "They (Jews) think they have assimilated, but when push comes to shove," one issue is "being different from the dominate culture. We are not just surviving for a few thousand years, but also thriving."
Greenberg doesn't identify a nation as her own, and when asked "What country are you from?" replies "I'm Jewish."
"Many people don't know there were quota systems in place as to how many (Jews) to allow in universities," Greenberg said.
Olsen mentioned many issues women have: violence against women, value or worth that women have for themselves, and pay inequality.
Cook sees American Indians as a minority within a minority - "one or two percent. We're really invisible."
She said there is a "skill at being stubborn" that is displayed over the mascot issue.
She said that the issue is not about losing profit: The sport teams can keep the jackets and memorabilia as collector items and can market all new items.
"Legislation helped attitudes change," said Olsen, giving hope.
She said the Civil Rights Act, Title 9, and Roe vs. Wade are examples of legislative change.
Olsen said that in recent history, married women could not get credit cards without their husband's signature.
"There is still a gap between the Have and Have Nots," Olsen said.
Women with children are only allowed five years of being on welfare. On the subject of pay equity, women get 76 cents to a man's dollar, Olsen said.
Women who fit particular standards in education or employment are doing well.
"These women are breaking the glass ceilings."
Olsen cites Pat Schroeder, Flo Kennedy and Geraldine Ferraro as women who are inspirational.
In 1973, Schroeder was the first woman elected to congress. Kennedy was one of the first black women to graduate from Columbia Law School. She led a mass urination by women protesting for more women's restrooms at Harvard.
Ferraro was chosen by Minnesota's Walter Mondale to be vice president on the DFL ticket for the 1984 presidential election.
The big issue for Turner is employment discrimination. Turner said that on the federal level suing a company for discrimination does not exist.
Turner said that legislation-wise, nothing has changed in the last 25 to 30 years.
It was courageous though, Turner said, for people to protest at the White House even before the Stonewall Revolution.
Out Proud Week is traditionally held in June in many places because of the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969, Turner said.
It was at the Stonewall bar that the police were about to raid. However, the gay men and women fought back starting the Gay Liberation Movement.
And now there is such a thing called hate crimes, Turner said.
For this history teacher, Silvia Revera is an inspiration. Revera died last week, at the age of 50. A street person who was a transgender, she was a figure in the movement and was at the Stonewall Riots. Revera was not as white as some wanted her to be, Turner said. Her being supported by her sex life in the 1960s might not qualify her for all as hero material either.
For Cook, it is her mother, who is white, that she looks up to. In the forty-degree-below weather in frigid Minnesota, when the Buffalo Bills played in the Super Bowl against the team from Washington, a team Cook's mother protested, she was asked why this was an issue for her. She said it was for her husband and three kids.
People who inspire Greenberg are the ones behind the scenes. She sees hope,
"We're here. There's a promise, a future. It's better than the past."
Greenberg said, "Let History inform us but not let it confine us. A civil wrong is a civil wrong and what is done to one of us, is done to all of us."
These four people shared with students experiences of discrimination and injustice. It amazes them that this topic is still talked about. The people in power are still protecting their power.
"Use your voice, write letters to the editor," Olsen said.
Tom Meyer can be reached at: [email protected]
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