Defend yourselves

The day after Christmas 1968, two members of the Ku Klux Klan tossed a firebomb through the storefront window of Kirkwood Avenue's Black Market, an IU faculty and student-owned store specializing in "Afro-American" literature, jewelry and clothing.\nThe era in which the incident occurred marked a period of nationwide black reawakening. Several stories in the Indiana Daily Student around that time were dedicated to reporting ongoing discussions of the need for more "Afro-American" courses, less discriminatory greek rush procedures and the like. \nSisters in black-rimmed glasses and serious-faced brothers sporting slim-fitting suits seemed to appear in every edition of the January, February and March 1969 newspapers. Letters from black students spotted the opinion pages, many commenting on the bombing, begging questions regarding race and offering solutions for handling the various situations cropping up on campus. The Daily Student, it seemed, had become a tool of black student activism.\nIt was a secondhand account from my mother describing a 1960s lockout at Ballantine Hall staged by black student activists angry at the IDS's printing of the word "nigger" in its pages that had led me to the Wells Library micro films floor. My mom had heard the account from the son of a patient on her floor.\nI'd thought, what a great way to explain the historical relationship between the IDS and black folks on IU's campus. I never found a report of the lockout, but I did find myself inspired by a spirit of black student activism that I've never seen in the folds of today's Daily Student's pages. In fact, I was even impressed by the level of coverage regarding black students in general. \nYou see, for more than three years, I've been writing for the IDS -- first as a staff writer, then as a columnist and, for one period, as co-editor of the opinion page. \nI work for the newspaper for the very same reason that over the years I've taken breaks from its newsroom. \nSave for the same one or two people, I'm one of the paper's only black writers. I endure this uncomfortable position because quite frankly, I'm afraid no one else will. \nYesterday's racial battles enlisted the kind of people who tossed firebombs through store windows. Today's conflicts, on the other hand, allow close-minded people to wage wars with their words. What better way of fighting back than through utilizing the newspaper as a tool of promoting and balancing dialogue.\nYes, the IDS has had a reputation of reflecting larger media -- i.e., misrepresenting black students or not covering black students enough. But the truth of the matter is that without the input of the misrepresented and the virtually invisible, things won't get better. \nI sat down with Black Student Union President Courtney Williams, and we came to the consensus that the only way to "fix" the problems at the IDS is to have more students of color participating in its newsroom. We are defeated not by what's said against us but by what we fail to say in our own defense.