Dartmouth has been up in arms because of the violation of a precious code by which all Americans live and die -- that is, some live with it while others die trying to attain it. On campus, letters have been sent to The Dartmouth. There have been harassing and insulting Blitzmail and door messages. Physical confrontations have occurred and muted physical threats issued.
Our position is this: the freedom of The Dartmouth Review to print and distribute is not in jeopardy. The Review has done this for 13 years. A small group of students is not going to stop it from doing that.
However, if we are to talk in these abstract terms of rights and freedoms, then there is a freedom of speech which has been violated in this "land of the free." This is the right of Black Americans to freely express themselves. In fact, this freedom has not been violated, just never granted.
It is a sad world we live in when hypocrites who profess to "hate the Review," and "read it only for laughs," or "just to see what they are going to do next," defend it in the name of a freedom they do not and will never have.
Over half of the campus is now sufficiently brainwashed with these falsehoods to defend the Review in the name of the First Amendment. The racist Review uses this "supreme" law as a cloak to terrorize, demoralize, and denigrate the Black community at Dartmouth. Martin Luther King Jr. said that if any law can be used to defend an injustice, then that law itself is unjust.
Let me clarify -- freedom is not something merely written in the Constitution that every American has equal access to. In order to truly be free in this country, one has to be able to exercise rights, be they civil or human. The Review always has been and will be able to do that. Why? Because it has money and power. Freedom comes in terms of money and power!
The Hanover Review, Inc. has more than enough money to exercise its freedom of speech. The Black community cannot see the ideal about which John Strayer '96 wrote: "The great thing about free speech is that you can always say something back..." Unless he wants to finance our printing costs, distribution costs, publishing equipment, labor costs, etc., this is empty rhetoric. So much for freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech is not our issue with The Dartmouth Review. They are not within their rights nor freedoms in printing what they do. The Constitution is interpreted to mean that the way one chooses to exercise one's freedom cannot interfere with another's freedom. The Review has systematically attempted to deny the Black community here opportunities to exercise our freedom. One may look upon the example of Bill Cole, a former faculty member in the music department, as a success in The Review's mission.
In light of this perplexing problem, my associates and I decided we would exercise what power we had. Manpower.
Nowhere but in the United States (and in America's European role model countries) does one find people so blinded to reality by their indoctrination in these false ideas of rights, freedoms and liberties. Was this country built on freedom of expression? No. It was built with guns, slaves, and fire over the bodies of murdered Native Americans.
Was this country upholding the right to assemble when it invaded a sovereign Cuba in the Bay of Pigs? No. The U.S. attempted to subjugate a third world country. When the sons and daughters of the slaves who built this country are consistently disenfranchised, is this country being fair and meritocratic? No. Ask Manuel Noriega. Ask Fidel Castro. Ask Saddam Hussein. "Keep them in their place."
If you do not benefit from this "new world order," it is clear that the world operates by two guiding forces: power and opportunity. Pure brute power, and the opportunity to exercise it.
The Dartmouth Review has both power and opportunity in excess. History has taught us that The Review uses its power maliciously to deny certain students' rights and opportunities and to destroy the fabric of the Dartmouth community.
Now, The Review has perverted one of America's 'sacred' tenets to defend itself. The Review has even proclaimed that it, "will be delivered ... by any means necessary." We find it ironic that The Review, with "Special Thanks to William F. Buckley, Jr.," has begun to cower and whine about the actions of a handful of students. Perhaps, The Review can see that some Dartmouth students will no longer tolerate its abuses.
