Letters to the Editor

Votership campaign deserved better coverage

I was upset and disappointed when… Votership campaign deserved better coverage

I was upset and disappointed when reading the Aug. 30, 2002 headline of The Pitt News. Apparently, the Pitt News failed to recognize the efforts of other organizations to get out the vote. Delta Sigma Theta, Sorority Inc. was outside tabling for the same purpose days before the Student Government Board or the United States Student Association. One could argue that a good effort is in fact a good effort regardless if it goes unrecognized. However, it seems to me that credit should be given where it is due. If the Pitt News can publicize the efforts of SGB and USSA, then it should also do the same for Delta Sigma Theta. They should be commended instead of ignored. The black population is a difficult one to encourage and educate about the importance of voting. It is black in general, who because of educational inequity and various social, economic and political disparities are the least likely to vote. There are black students who leave this University more often than not because of financial issues driven by tuition hikes and lack of government funding for student aid, issues being stressed by the SGB and USSA get out the vote campaign. In knowing these things and about the general apathy of all students on campus, one would think that special efforts would be made to include representatives for that population of students, as their votes would certainly make a difference.

In all sincerity, coming together on an issue such as increasing votership is not something that should be applauded or used to obtain praise. No reward or special recognition should come of it. At most it should be about knowing that you helped to educate and inform people about a fundamental right that they have by virtue of the laws of this country. It’s not about speaking for other people or getting them to follow your lead, it’s about giving them the tools to make their own decision. This isn’t an SGB, USSA or DST issue, it’s a campuswide issue, one whose goal would be better realized through the united effort of all students.

DeShaun Sewell

Senior

Urban Studies and Political Science

Photo gave poor endorsement

With your stand-alone photograph of the “honest panhandlers” (Aug. 29, 2002), your paper missed a brilliant opportunity to take a stand on a couple serious social issues that are of major importance to your readership.

Your “objective” presentation of this photo, without editorial comment, really amounts to a passive endorsement of this activity and what it represents: a group of spoiled brats tugging at the public’s sympathy while millions in their own country are truly in need of basic necessities but must do without them. Two blocks away, workers at Pitt bust their butts for a truly honest (but not a living) wage, while some jerk earns up to three dollars an hour more because people think it’s funny that he’s so open about his pitifulness. I guess sometimes objectivity isn’t objective, and honesty isn’t always honest.

Jeff Johnson Jr.

Graduate Student

Linguistics