The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Good evening, bleeding the news this Monday. The Philippines volcano appeared to calm down as U.S. military dependents were evacuated. And South Africa repealed the last apartheid laws. We'll have the details in our news summary. And after that, to experts examine the Philippine volcano story, we begin a series of conversations about being politically correct, and we have a report from Houston on AIDS and politics. Robert McNeil will be here for an interview later in the program, a daytime fire in our New York offices prevented his further involvement tonight. Funding for the news hour has been provided by PepsiCo.

Every day, we enjoy people being cold to us, cutting us up, getting fresh with us, tearing into us, and calling us chicken. In fact, the more people do it, the happier we are, PepsiCo. And by AT&T, and made possible by the financial support of viewers like you, and the corporation for public broadcasting. All 20,000 U.S. military dependents are leaving the Philippines because of the Montpina Tubo volcano. The U.S. operates two major bases in the country, the Subigbe Naval Station, and Clark Air Force Base 10 miles east of the volcano. Seven U.S. Navy ships, including the aircraft carrier, Abraham Lincoln, took about 5,000 people from Subigbe today, and many buildings on that base collapsed under the weight of ash and sludge created by heavy rains. The week of eruptions also dumped tons of ash on Clark Air Base, making its runways unusable. The volcano was relatively quiet today, scientists said they believe the worst was over.

The Red Cross said at least 101 people have been killed, since the volcano began erupting June 9th. 180,000 Filipinos have taken shelter and refugee centers, and there are shortages of food and clean drinking water. A volcano in Japan showed new activity today. Mount Uzzan, again, began spewing hot rock and ash down its mountainside. At least 39 people were killed when it came to life earlier this month. We'll have more about the volcanoes right after this news summary. The last official law of apartheid fell in South Africa today. We have a report narrated by Tom Brown of worldwide television news. After four decades, the Parliament abolished the last major apartheid law, the racial classification of citizens. President DeClec set the tone. The government is unqualified in its commitment to the elimination of racial discrimination from every law and act of government.

Nothing in the repealing legislation is in conflict with this commitment. In fact, it substantiates our seriousness and sincerity. The overwhelming majority of MPs voted for abolition, but a small minority, including conservative Don van de Mervre, called it a sad day. We are losing our nationality today, but we are certain that we will find new ways of establishing our identity as our free corners. And we hope when we pray that in due course, we will restore our right to self-determination. ANC's spokesman Terre Lakota welcomed the legislation ending the apartheid laws, but cautioned that there's still a lot of work ahead. But now we remain to deal with the damage they have already done before they were repealed. And that is the process of the elimination of apartheid, which we see will continue for many years to come.

Returns from India's parliamentary elections today showed the late Rajiv Gandhi's Congress party ahead. Supporters celebrated in the streets that the lead did not appear strong enough to give the party a majority. That means they will have to form a coalition government with another political party. The election was the most violent in India's history. On addition to Gandhi's assassination, more than 300 people were killed during the campaign. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled a day a city can start its own cable TV system in competition with a private company already in business. Warner Cable Communications and Nashville, Florida, had argued a city-owned system would force them out of business and thus violate their rights to free speech. The High Court also made it more difficult for prison inmates to win lawsuits that challenge their living conditions. And a five-to-four ruling, a justices said prisoners must prove poor conditions were the result of deliberate indifference by prison officials. A federal judge ruled a day a state-supported military college in Virginia does not have to admit women.

The U.S. Justice Department had filed a lawsuit claiming the Virginia Military Institute's men-only policy was discriminatory. The judge said it was constitutional because the Lexington Virginia School provides a different kind of education. Researchers may soon know whether the 12th president of the United States was murdered. The remains of Zachary Taylor were removed from a crypt today in Louisville, Kentucky. A biographer claims Taylor was poisoned with arsenic 141 years ago because he opposed the spread of slavery in the southwest. A Kentucky medical examiner will conduct several days of tests to see if the theory is correct. And that's it for the new summary tonight. Now it's on to the Philippines volcano, politically correct thinking, and AIDS and politics. The volcano in the Philippines is our lead story tonight, scientists now say Montpina Tubo

is simmering down after an explosive week that killed 101 people. Our coverage begins with three reports, files in Saturday by Mark Austin of Independent Television News. Dave Reak and Mount Tinnertubo first angrily into life again. It's been minutes the surrounding area was thrown into darkness by the vast cloud of ash and debris. This is the city of a longer boat at nine o'clock in the morning. Its 25 miles from the volcano, the power's been cut, people queue for fuel, the lamps and generators. In the shadow of the mountain, it's raining mud, wet ash covers everything. The rivers are brown, flowing under relics of a previous natural disaster, the earthquake a year ago. Under threat from the mud flow and ash cloud, hillside villages are evacuated. A number of tribesmen are reported buried under the mudslides, others arrive at evacuation

centers to be reunited with lost relatives. This woman believes she's lost her home for good. In the hours of darkness, they left Angeli's city, whichever way they could. And then the place they called the city of Angels, buildings wrecked by ash and rockfalls in which several people were killed. Eight of them are the main bridge in Angelis, collapsed on houses below Doreland mudflow. In the main street, they waited for help, which for many never came. In Angelis, the wet ash was six inches deep in places, even with transport, getting out as a problem. With every eruption, more mud, ash and debris, it flows down the mountain. Houses and villages have been destroyed, many people reported dead on the city. In the shadow of Mount Pinatubo, towns and villages like covered in a thick blanket of volcanic

ash and mud. They're attempting to clean up, but it's an almost impossible task, and another eruption would bring it raining down again. In places, it's already a foot deep. This is the city of a longer boat, 25 miles from the volcano, whole rows of buildings collapsed under the weight of sludge, homes, shops and businesses, a church and the local bus station. Several people were crushed to death, more bodies are still being discovered. While volcano experts here argue about Pinatubo's future behaviour, the people below continue to move out. It's estimated half a million people have fed their homes. The US naval base at Subic Bay is now effectively closed, 20,000 American dependents are being evacuated after more than 50 buildings on the base collapsed, and a young girl was killed. Ironically, they'd be moved there from the nearby Clark Air Base, because experts presumed

it would be safer. The Americans are being taken by warship to the Philippine island of Subu. And Brad, they'll be flown to the United States. Now the two volcano experts, Richard Fisk, studies Pacific volcanoes at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History, Chris Newhall does it for the US Geological Survey. There were to peers to be overs, is that correct, Dr. Newhall? Yes, we think it is over now. What happened? There was a series of quite large explosions that began back on the 12th of June and continued on up, getting even worse on the 14th and 15th of June, and it erupted a very large volume of magma out from under that seemed to... Magma. Molten Rock, excuse me, the molten rock that had been stored underneath the volcano probably for hundreds of years came out in a very short period of a few days, and although I'm sure there's still some down there, we think the most eruptable part has been erupted.

And what caused it to calm down, I mean, there was speculation going into the weekend, in fact, even as late as yesterday, that this thing could actually, the whole thing could explode and there could be a crater and all of that, what likely caused it not to happen. Actually, it did happen. The weather was terrible at the time, there was a typhoon passing by, and the people observing it at a very hard time telling exactly what was going, except going on except that ash was raining down on them, there were some large rocks raining down, and after the dust had settled, we were able to see, our field crews were able to see that there was a large crater left in the volcano, and that a huge volume of molten rock had been erupted out. So in fact, the prediction did come true, it was just hard to know if that's exactly what was happening as it was happening. But there were some projections, Dr. Fisk, that if there was this kind of explosion, it could be a catastrophe of great proportions.

This is true. What happened, let me expand a little bit on what Chris just said, the eruption of a very large volume of material, which did take place, creates a, you can think of it as a cavity underground, a cave, the magma reservoir is partly emptied, and the top of the volcano fell into this underground cavern, and that makes what is called a caldera. We're not sure, you've got a mountain, there's a hole in it, the inside of the mountain comes droop, comes out, and then the mountain starts falling in as a, the liquid material, the magma, inside the volcano is erupted. This creates an empty space in the summit region, part of the summit region of the volcano simply becomes weakened and collapses inward, forming a structure similar to crater lake in the state of Oregon. Many viewers are familiar with that. This is a smaller version of crater lake, but nevertheless, as Chris says, a major eruption has just taken place.

Where on the list of great eruptions does this one rest, Mr. Fisk? Until volume estimates, good volume estimates are in hand, we really can't tell. It's not as large, apparently, as the great eruption of Crocodile in the then Duchy's in 1883, but it's larger possibly than Mount St. Helens in 1980, and so it's a large event, and literally until the dust clears, scientists won't be able to tell us. You agree, it's a great event, and volcano terms at least? Yes, I do. I think it's one of the largest eruptions that's occurred during this century, and also one of the, it's by far the largest eruption that has occurred in a, in a populated area. I have a list here that the worst one or the biggest one was, was Crater Lake in Oregon, and that was 5,000 BC, is that right? That's right. And then one in Indonesia in 1815, one in another one in Indonesia in 1883, one in Alaska in 1912, and then Mount Vesuvius in Italy.

This one could be right under that, is that right, in terms of, of its intensity? It might be, but again, we must await the measurements of material that was erupted to the surface. What caused, what causes a volcano to erupt, and the simplest possible language that either of you are able to come up with, beginning with you, Dr. Newhall? I think in a word, it's gas. There are dissolved gases, mostly water, some sulfur gases carbon dioxide that stayed dissolved within the molten rock, just like carbon dioxide is dissolved within a bottle of coke. But if you release the confining pressure, like taking the bottle off the, or the cap off the bottle of coke, that the gases come out of solution and they bubble up and they cause the magnet to be buoyant and to erupt quite violently at the surface. Dr. Fisk, why are so many of them in the Pacific, in that area of the world? The Pacific is rimmed by the so-called ring of fire, and this is because these types of explosive

volcanoes occur where we've got a giant tectonic plates that make up the surface of the earth are converging, or where they come together. And the red band, seen on the screen here, in effect, marks convergent margins as geologists call them, where one plate is colliding with another in descending. And this geological environment, volcanoes and earthquakes occur, they're very common. And so it's not surprising to have volcanoes erupting around the Pacific rim at almost any time. Well, there's one in Japan, you've just gotten back from Japan, the, in fact, there was new activity on that one today on Zen, that I pronounce that correct? Zen, yes, Zen, zen, zen. Is there any connection between Umsen and Benetubo? Not really, only in the sense that they both occur in the same geological setting. At this point, they're both on the Pacific rim, and they're both in regions where the large tectonic plates are colliding with each other, and one is descending beneath

the other. So it's a similar situation, but we honestly, at this time, cannot say there's a direct connection, a cause and effect relationship. You agree? Yes, I think it's more likely coincidence, of course. Is it possible to predict these things coming? It is, and actually, this is one of the better success stories, I think, of volcanic prediction. There were some early precursors to this eruption that began on April 2nd. You talk about the one in the Philippines? Yes, I'm speaking of the one in the Philippines. There were some early precursors on April 2nd, and during the course of the next two months, those signs, warning signs escalated, and the scientists were able to ramp up the levels of alert, levels of warning to the local authorities, and as a result, as it came very close within a day or two, most of the people that needed to be evacuated were evacuated out of the area. Is there anything good that comes from an erupting volcano, or are they like typhoons, hurricanes, and other natural disasters?

Is nature telling us anything or doing anything good when this happens? Well, when the broader scheme of things, I think, very definitely there is good. Volcano is create new land, islands, the Hawaiian Islands, for example, or their existence to volcanic activity. The word Pinotupo, as Dr. Newhall just mentioned, means good ground, good area for growing crops. And so fertile soil is a product of volcanic activity. And also, simply the beauty of volcanoes, volcanoes generally are extremely attractive parts of this earth. And so yes, indeed, some amounts of energy can be extracted from volcanoes through geothermal, geothermal drilling. The western United States, for example, some electric power is produced when holes are drilled into or near volcanic systems, and hot water or steam is extracted, and electricity can be generated from this energy. And so there are positive things, you know, with lots of things in life, they're good sides and bad sides, and right now, unfortunately, we're seeing some very bad sides of

two particular volcanoes. Do you agree there's an upside to a volcano erupting? Yes, I think over the longer term, although I'm sure it's hard for people who are right in the middle of the ash fall to see that. How does the ash, as you say, when you said Dr. Fisket, it can, well, it does create new land and its fertile and all of that, but it also causes great destruction. What is there about it that does that? The destructive character of these eruptions is mostly from the blast activity where hot blasts of ash and rock come down the slopes of the volcano, similar to what happened at Mount St. Helens, also from mudflows that are farther down the slopes, and from the ash, falling as a blanket over the wide areas of cropland. It will take a few years, at least, for the areas that have been most devastated to come

back to productivity, agricultural productivity, but where there's the blanket of ash, I think that can come back more quickly. The farmers can plow it into the soil and be unhelpful, it will be helpful. How hot is that? That ash that's coming down the sides of these mountains, whether it's in Japan or the one in the Philippines. The ones coming swooping down the sides of these hot blasts are very hot. There are anywhere between 500 and 800 degrees centigrade. That's exceptionally hot. It just burns everything in their path. The ash that rains down like snow, as has been seen in many of the television images, is actually cold by the time it falls. Is that exciting work to be a volcanologist? It certainly is. There's no question about that. When you're fortunate, if that's the right word, to work on active volcanoes. You agree? You bet. It's a form of geology.

It is a specialty within a specialty, is that it? Yes, it is. Actually, volcanology draws expertise from a whole bunch of different fields. Physics, chemistry, a whole variety of fields. And it's a chance, I think, for one of the things that is most appealing to me, is that we can put this technical expertise to very, very real humanitarian, practical benefit, as for example, with the warning of people, so that they can live more safely with volcanoes. Well, gentlemen, thank you very much for being with us tonight. Thank you. Next tonight, we begin a series of conversations about political correctness, that is a topic that has generated debate, curiosity and confusion on college campuses and elsewhere. What is political correctness? Well, depending on who you ask, it is either an attack on free speech and traditional scholarship, or a long overdue movement to recognize the achievements of women and minorities.

We'll explore the political correctness question each night this week. We begin with a look at the debate on campus at the University of California at Berkeley. Elizabeth Farnsworth, the Public Station KQED in San Francisco, reports. School has just ended at the University of California. The Tranquil Berkeley campus belies the image of university life that hit the press this spring. provocative magazine covers caricature American campuses as propaganda factories, where traditional academic values are branded sexist, racist, or fascist. According to the headlines, a muzzle awaits any opinion not deemed politically correct by militant special interests. What's really happening here? At Berkeley, the same venerable names still grace the library walls, but there is intense pressure to add more women and minorities to the academic pantheon.

University Vice Chancellor Russell Ellis. A lot of young intellectuals of all colors and sorts are very interested in rethinking how the material of history and literature and so forth are presented. I guarantee you that's in there. And this is threatening to some people and that's why I'm not sure. Sure it is. You know, I've done this all my life. You asked me to do it a different way, especially someone's breathing down my neck with a new orientation to the literature I've been dealing with all my life. The traditional texts have staunch defenders, philosophy professor John Searle. I don't think in fact that it's that the traditional conception of the required reading necessary for an educated person has been as narrow as a lot of the critics have complained, but in fact it turns out of course that many, and probably most of the books are by white males.

I don't see any objection to that if in fact the books are first-rate, but that a lot of people want to substitute a notion of representativeness for the traditional notions of excellence and importance. We're fighting against a very powerful system of stereotypes. Today a group of professors is rethinking the role of American ethnic groups in history and in virtually every other field of study. Blanks are perpetually seen to be inferior wherever they are. This summer seminar is part of a dramatic effort to craft more than a hundred new courses in history, literature, religion, even urban planning. All of them emphasizing the interplay of ethnic groups in American culture. Starting next fall, every Berkeley student must take one of these courses to graduate. Students have an opportunity, hopefully, to step inside the experience of rich people, and I think of various ethnic racial groups. And I think that that really allows, at least to see another point of view, and I mean

I come to the same conclusion. Berkeley imposes very few course requirements. A student can easily graduate without ever having red-shaped spear. Opponents attack the American culture's program as academically unjustified. The debate surrounding it at the beginning when it was first being put into effect this new requirement, suggests that it'll be stupid or idiotic, that it's not really designed around high-level intellectual standards or criteria, but it's supposed to be some kind of political field good course. The American culture's program is a direct response to complaints that minorities were left out or misrepresented in what the university was teaching. Ten years ago, rights made up 65% of Berkeley undergraduates. During the 80s, new admissions policies began to adjust the ethnic mix on campus to match California's diverse population more closely.

Today, fewer than half the undergraduates are Caucasian. We are now prepared to construct substantial courses at faculty debates student demonstrators demanded the American culture's requirement. The faculty senate approved the requirement by a narrow margin. Opponents derided the action as a cave-in to political correctness. And I fear that in practice, the course will lead to an unjust and unwarranted demonization of Western culture. PC has been the buzzword of the year on American campuses. It's been applied to everything from feminist interpretations of the Bible to people who won't eat beef, because they suspect Brazilian cattle ranchers are destroying the rain for us. When PC began to infiltrate discussions about race, it touched a raw nerve. Well, for example, if you thought races were genetically unequal, if there was a genetic basis to intelligence, then some races were genetically better endowed than others.

That would be of you that would be so outrageous that you couldn't express that in public and not be interfered with in some way. Or if you thought that certain forms of affirmative action were wrong, that would also be regarded as an outrageous few professor on our own campus, Professor Serge, had his lecture interrupted. Professor Vincent Serge teaches human evolution to first-year anthropology classes. His style is to teach by provocation. For example, suggesting a relationship between brain size and intelligence, understanding that women on average have smaller brains than men. The thing about brain size is I sort of introduced that as a topic, even though a lot of people said Vince just lay off that one, all right? The reason I introduced it is that it was the most contentious aspect of an evolutionary

perspective on human beings that I could think of. Serge is a respected anthropologist, but his approach provokes even his colleagues, plus her Nancy Shepper Hughes. For example, the relationship between brain size and intelligence. There are many studies that discredit that. Vince does not present those studies. He just goes back to that argument and says, no one's looking at it now. Well, that's true. No one's looking at it because it's a bad scientific question. Last September, Serge took on another forbidden subject. He charged in the Berkeley alumni magazine that the school's admissions policy favoring ethnic diversity was bringing in minority students who can't make the grade. Basically what our admissions policies have done is produce two communities on the Berkeley campus. And I don't think that's such a great idea. What are the two communities? Well, basically white Canadians on the one hand and blacks and Hispanics on the other. One group is coming in, that's something like college juniors, and the other group is more

like high school juniors. There's about four years worth of academic achievement, and Berkeley is not a place to play catch up. Those were fighting words. Two months later, a group of student protesters infuriated by Serge's allegations shut down one of his lectures. About 75 people or so came in shouting and chanting and such. A number of students said to me, I mean, these people had an clue as to what we were talking about in the class. And they knew anything about it and what's just a bunch of sloganary and so forth. The protesters demanded Serge be fired. He wasn't. But the anthropology department sought balance by suggesting that he team teach a course next year with a scholarly opponent. Actually since Serge and I have been debating each other since 1982, and he seems to get a kick out of the debates, we talked about it and he was rather dubious at first. But in fact, this is the way we're handling it, and I think it is a much better solution

than the department saying Professor X has his course taken away from him. The demonstrators were never disciplined. We had no witnesses. The students in the class would not name anything. It's more elaborate than that. Berkeley is a peculiar kind of place. And even the people who dislike the episode don't, it's not even intimidation. They just don't want to go out and testify and get people kicked out of class. That's fact of life. A group of students met with us to air their views on the Sarahage controversy. The action in the class isn't the real question. The real question is what motivated people to take such an extreme step. And I think what motivated them is because they saw people really being damaged and really being hurt in that class. And they saw that students in the class in general weren't aware of some of the implications and some of the... Don't you think students can think for themselves? I mean, isn't that what going to college is about? Well, I'd like to say this for yourself. Let me say this about Sarahage's provocativeness. I agree with you that Vincent's Sarahage is trying to be provocative.

But I think it's very ironic that he claims that a demonstration of his class is suppression of freedom when he sat an hour or an hour and a half to spout his views. We have students coming in from high school who probably did not take an anthropology class, probably do not have any foundation in anthropology other than what they've received in their first class, their first semester in college. Did you really have to understand there and believed everything they heard of? No, I don't. I don't think that they had by the fact that they were freshmen dealing with this professor who did not encourage any sort of practical discussion of what he was saying. The students were also divided in their perceptions of political correctness. No, there is no such thing as PC, it's a myth that's been invented. I've never heard PC used as anything but a joke by people who are considered themselves progressive. And it's only been the media who's been popularizing this term as some sort of new McCarthy ism. It just doesn't exist as such.

I would disagree with that pretty strongly. I mean I use the term political correctness quite seriously. I think on this campus there's a lot of oppression from the left wing as to topics that can even be reasonably discussed. And as a student I felt inhibited throughout my college career in talking about certain issues. And I know students with whom I spoke and feel similarly but are afraid to even bring it up because of the repercussions of talking about certain issues. I mean the issues that Sarah's talks about aren't considered acceptable topics which to me is rather astounding at a university where you're supposed to be able to talk about anything and students are expected to have their own critical insights. I think it's actually the opposite of that. When students raise critical discussion about the university policies about the situation on this campus, they're marginalized, they're called politically correct. What their criticisms are all lumped together, anything at all that's critical of the university is lumped into this PC label to marginalize the criticism and to avoid dealing with the

issue substantively. This student reported feeling intimidated in class. But when the American culture seminar broke for lunch, the professors argued that most intimidation still comes from the right. I have had students who've entered my class who've accused me of being communist, who've told me that I'm blame America first, who have checked my syllabus to see whether or not I am teaching things that are anti-American. For students, the PC debate is on hold. It's summer and they've turned to more trivial matters, but the problem will still be there next fall, with each side charging that the other is out to impose a political agenda on the university. We turn now to the first in a series of conversations about political correctness. Tonight we hear the views of Professor Malefi Asante, he is the chairman of the African Americans of African American Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Robert McNeil interviewed him this afternoon. Professor Santi, thank you for joining us. What do you think of imposing an American culture's program on students in a college like Berkeley, which has very few other curriculum requirements for students? Well I don't think that the question is the opposition of such a curriculum. I think that in the best interest of the university, normally what happens is that faculty members debate these issues and then as in the case of Berkeley and other universities decide that in the best interest of education in the 20th century and for the 21st century, it is necessary for students to have courses that teach about other cultures. Coming by. Well there are a number of reasons. In the first place it is fundamentally sound, philosophically sound, for education in the 21st century, in the 20th century, 21st century to deal with real live problems and also

to deal with information that will allow people to make better decisions in their own lives. You cannot make good decisions at this time in our society or any other place in the world without having some knowledge of people of other cultures. What do you say to defenders of the traditional curriculum and the traditional texts like the Professor Cyril, a philosophy professor who was quoted in that piece, who suggests that many of these new studies are not of an intellectually high standard, but are he used the phrase political feel good courses? Well I don't know any political feel good courses myself, at least not in my university and not courses that we teach at Temple, however I do say this, the tradition changes. What is traditional today may not be traditional, 50 years from now, 100 years from now, and we must always be open in the academy to the expansion of discourse, to the enlargement

of vision and what we see is that it's possible that we will continue to have the development of new and more traditional information and courses, I mean texts are written all the time. That is what is considered a classic at one age or one era, may not be considered a classic at another era, another time, I mean now we have a larger vision, we have far more understanding of the complexities of our society and not only of the complexities but the interrelatedness between the different cultures and the different ethnic backgrounds and societies and consequently it is almost incumbent upon us as academics to at least be exposed and open to all the possibilities in the world and certainly our students ought to be exposed to that. One of the leading critics of political correctness, Dinesh D'Souza, who's on this program tomorrow night, the author of the book Illiberal Education, says that some of these

multicultural courses to use his words degenerate into a kind of ethnic cheerleading, a primitive romanticism about the third world, combined with a systematic denunciation of the West. Would you comment on that, John? My comment on that is that that's a lot of gobbledygook. There is no example at all that he gives in his book of that sort of course. Yes, there are no examples that he gives of that sort of information. Now it is of course an attack, I think, on the fundamental premises that have been promulgated for the last 25 years in this country and that is that to have a better society, it is essential that we know more about each other and that we know more about each other by developing a multicultural literacy and unfortunately Mr. D'Souza does not have his historical depth in terms of what has happened in this country or where we are in this country.

He also says you are, you teach African-American studies. He also disses as Afro-centricity, as opposed to Euro-centricity in a way of cultural looking at the world, is basically an attempt to trace the lineage of American blacks to Egypt when Egypt has never been considered an African civilization. Well, he is wrong on two counts in the first place. He does not understand Afro-centricity and obviously has not read my books. In fact, had he read my books on Afro-centricity, he would have learned that Afro-centricity is simply the perspective of looking at information from the standpoint of African people as subjects rather than as objects, rather than as being marginal to the European experience. As being subjects, human agents, rather than being simply in the peripheral of anybody else's experience. In a way of looking at the reality, it is a way of looking at phenomena. In that instance, when you talk about Afro-centricity, you are not talking about a black

version of Euro-centricity which has been promoted as a universal perspective. It has been imposed as a universal perspective so that when people say classical music, they mean essentially European concert music, not classical Japanese or Indian music or Zulu music, classical has become a preserve of European. So Euro-centricism has become, in many respects, a view that has been promoted as a universal perspective, even though it is of course a particular perspective as well. So you think the fact that a piece of music was written by Beethoven does not give it a higher value necessarily than a piece of music written by a Japanese classical composer or a Chinese or a Zulu, or by Duke Ellington. I mean Duke Ellington, the most prolific I think composer in our history, I think is written certainly many classical works. So that's one issue.

Now the second issue, the issue of Egypt, Mr. DeSouce is wrong again, unfortunately, simply because he does not know the research in this area. This happens to be an area in which I have done work. And essentially, Egypt is to Africa and African people as Greece is to Europe and European people. In other words, the now valley civilizations, including, and you have to understand that the now river itself is 4,000 miles long, out of the heart of Africa, I mean it flows downward toward the Mediterranean. It doesn't flow into Africa, it flows out of the heart of Africa, down toward the Mediterranean. But that civilization, those civilizations, Maroy, Nubia, Oxun, Kimet, which was the African name for Egypt, Egypt of course is a Greek name, that civilization was an African, that's an African civilization. It's not only the continent of America, North America, South America or Asia or Europe, and even though after the last major war, people have called it essentially the Middle East, it is on the continent of Africa, there's no continent, Middle East.

There is a continent of Africa and that's where Egypt is, that's where it's always been, and the fact that Arabs have been there since the 7th century AD does not mean that Arabic or Arab people were indigenous to Africa. That's turned to the other aspect of political correctness, as it's called, the Aspect President Bush attacked in a recent speech as an assault on free speech, universities banning certain words or expressions referring to race or gender. My feeling is that, unfortunately, again, the President probably got this wrong. I mean, quite frankly, it has always been in the best moments of this society. We have always felt that there were certain things that even though you had a right to them, they were morally indefensible. It is ethically morally insensitive for an individual, as some of these individuals apparently have wanted to do, to be able to say anything they want to in the classroom or to use

projections against other people, ethnic groups or gender or women. I mean, I think these are serious problems and I think that schools, universities and colleges, that have had the courage to say that there are certain ideals, certain principles that as a university, we believe, or necessary, should be praised rather than blamed. D'Souza mentions the University of Michigan, where a man was punished for saying publicly that he thought that homosexuality was a sin, was morally a sin, and he was required to admit publicly that he was wrong and to take sensitivity courses in that. You don't regard that as an infringement of his free speech. You know, one of the things that I've always said is that what happens is that you have two things here. You have, certainly, the individual's right to say whatever he or she pleases to say. I mean, that is fundamental to the Constitution itself.

You have the other point to this, of course, which is the collective interest. I mean, what is, of course, in the collective interest? What is best for the community? What is best for the society? And certainly, I think that the whole question of insensitivity is basic to this issue. And if an individual is insensitive to his or her peers or colleagues, then I think that certainly the University ought to be concerned about this. You consider it the constitutional equivalent of crying fire in the movie theater that is... I would think that would be... Because it's inflammatory. I would think it would be a very good analogy. I see. What about the charge that this restriction on speech is being called the New McCarthyism? Well, I think, again, that's an overstatement. And not only is it an overstatement, it is, again, wrong. This has nothing to do at all with McCarthyism.

If anything is a McCarthyism, it seems to me that the McCarthyism is being promoted by those individuals who sort of use this sort of emblem of political correctness as an attempt to bash other people and to say that I want to have the freedom to bash other people. I mean, if anything is political... If anything is McCarthyism, it would seem to me that that would be the aim. The philosophy professor at Berkeley, who was in that report, said that even if you thought that some forms of affirmative action were wrong nowadays, you wouldn't be able to say so because you'd get landed, it would be regarded as outrageous to say so. So you wouldn't be free to criticize affirmative action, do you approve of that? Oh, people criticize affirmative action all the time. I mean, I've criticized it in the past myself. I mean, I think that affirmative action is really sort of a down payment or reparations. I believe the reparations to the African American community, 40 acres and a mew.

I think that that's probably more basic to what is needed to solve some of the problems that have been inherited after 244 years of Africans working for free from sign up to sundown, and then 100 years of discrimination, affirmative action can be criticized. But I think what the professor is getting at, he is raising the question as to whether or not individuals can criticize affirmative action and say, for example, that affirmative action should not be used because it's discriminatory toward white males. My only reply to that is that I don't even know of those cases, at least in my own circles. However, we do know that in terms of affirmative action, there are many kinds of affirmative action programs. I mean, many Ivy League schools, for example, have legacy programs for alumni children. There are other affirmative action programs that people have in terms of geographical diversity.

I got that point. I don't want to cut you off. I have to wrap this up. I just want to ask you, do you think the fuss or the attack on political correctness is an attack on affirmative action? That is what is really fundamental to this. The attack on political correctness is an attack, not only on affirmative action, but on what has been considered by some people in what I call the New York Conservative Camp as the progressive agenda of the last 25 years. is an attack on affirmative action. The attack on political correctness is an attack, not only on affirmative action, but on what has been considered by some people in what I call the New York Conservative Camp as the progressive agenda of the last 25 years. is an attack on affirmative action. The attack on political correctness is an attack, not only on affirmative action, but on what has been considered by some people in what I call the New York Conservative Camp as the progressive agenda of the last 25 years. is an attack on affirmative action. The attack on political correctness is an attack, not only on affirmative action, but on what has been considered by some people in what I call the New York Conservative Camp as the progressive agenda of the last 25 years. is an attack on affirmative action. That is what is really fundamental to this. The attack on political correctness is an attack, not only on affirmative action, but on what has been considered by some people in what I call the New York Conservative Camp as the progressive agenda of the last 25 years. is an attack on affirmative action. That is what is really fundamental to this. The attack on political correctness is an attack, not only on affirmative action, but on what has been considered by some people in what I call the New York Conservative Camp as the progressive agenda of the last 25 years. Our professor, thank you very much for joining us. Finding tonight, politics and AIDS. The 10-year-old AIDS crisis has left many gay political leaders puzzled about their agenda for the 1990s. Betty Ann Bowser, a public station KUHT Houston reports. Today, members of the gay community like Candles to remember the 3,000 people who have died from AIDS in Houston.

The crosses tell the story of how AIDS has taken the lives of gay political activists, people like Michael McAdory, who organized the AIDS Foundation, Bruce Cook, who set up a soup kitchen for AIDS sufferers, people who gave the gay community its political momentum. 10 years ago, they lit candles to pray for gay and lesbian rights. Then, it was not unusual for 25,000 people to turn out for gay pride week. Houston had one of the most politically powerful gay communities in the nation, just one step behind San Francisco, activist Brian Keever remembers. It was wonderful. It really was. I had just moved here and I said, oh my goodness, I found it. This is it. This is utopia and I was just really impressed with the amount of clout that the city had and they allowed the gay community to have that much clout in the fourth-largest city in the nation. In 1981, a young city controller named Catherine Whitmire was running for mayor. She asked for and received support in the gay community. Back then, Attorney John Paul Barnich was an admirer.

The Cathy Whitmire's opponent was openly anti-gay and that rallied the gay community around her, all the gay community supported Cathy Whitmire and is credited by some with her initial victory. She thanked the gay community by appearing in a number of gay bars, thanking the people for having supported her. That same year, the first cases of rare cancers in gay men were reported by the Centers for Disease Control. What was killing them didn't even have a name yet. Throughout the early 80s, the gay community flourished in Houston. So much so that in 1984, the City Council passed legislation for bidding discrimination against homosexuals in city employment. The measures came at a time when an increasing number of political leaders in the gay community were dying of AIDS and fear of the disease was widespread. Anger over passage of the anti-discrimination legislation brought out another kind of marcher, the Ku Klux Klan.

There were also calls for repeal. But we let Houston become a hotbed of homosexuality that threatens our public health and children enough is enough. A referendum was held in January of 1985. The gay job rights measures were rejected by voters overwhelmingly in the largest voter turnout ever on any single issue in Houston. The referendum was a disaster for the gay community. I think it turned the community at large against the gay community and therefore against the AIDS issue. And I heard it reflected by one state legislator who said, you know, good, we've got a disease that kills gays and junkies. And I think a lot of people took that attitude that these people got the disease because they deserve to have it. Rice University political scientist Bob Stein says the political consequences were overwhelming.

I would say that after the January referendum, it was clear at that point that the gay community was not politically as powerful as they thought they were. And that their numbers had been overestimated and then I think from the 85 election on you began to see a pretty distant wholesale distancing of the established incumbent elected officials from the gay community. Political leaders in the gay community continued to die. So many that a local gay publication began running weekly AIDS obituaries and priorities shifted. Their lovers and their brothers and sisters that were dying were their main point of life. They dropped everything else to take care of someone. And I think that had a lot to do with it. I think that people started doing fundraisers for AIDS. People started working with AIDS foundations and with different groups that worked in AIDS instead of working in politics. Gay activists say the politicians whom they helped elect lost interest in AIDS.

So that today this is the only publicly run clinic where AIDS patients can be treated when their money runs out. Hi, you have some prescriptions ready for Zupon? Okay, a vast majority of the sick lose or use up their medical insurance and wind up here at the Thomas Street Clinic. John Zupon has been suffering from AIDS for four years. You feel like you're hearted into a bullpen and they just work as best they can with a heavy patient load. But you don't feel the individual care. Harry Livesey is a case worker supervisor for the Harris County Hospital District that runs the Thomas Street Clinic. We've been used to living with the concept that the right people of this disease are dying. The gay population is getting sick, poor black people, poor Hispanic people, IV drug users.

And the mindset that we're dealing with both the City Council, the mayor's office, the hospital board, the County Board of Commissioners, and our worldly control state legislature is that concept. But more than anybody else, some gay leaders blame the mayor they helped elect 10 years ago. Not one penny of city tax money has ever been put aside to take care of AIDS patients. John Paul Barnage has lost two lovers to AIDS and is especially critical of the mayor. I think the way that the City and the County have dealt with the AIDS epidemic has bordered on criminal negligence. And it just has been a non-response. If I could characterize it, it would be to do as little as possible, yet give the appearance of something's being done. I think he's totally wrong about that because there isn't any lack of activity on the part of the City with regard to the AIDS crisis. We have put together a City County Coalition. We've organized a program through the Thomas Street Clinic.

We now are diverting some of our HUD funds to expand the Thomas Street Clinic. We have programs in our health department that are very active testing and counseling programs. Let's say one thing about Kathy Whitmer that the gay vote is not important enough for her to make even the most symbolic of gestures in the budget through the health department to make some token expenditure on the AIDS crisis. Has any City money been given to treat or take care of people with AIDS? The City money that's spent is on education because the County has the responsibility in the state of Texas for care of indigent patients and the City has the responsibility for education. So there will never be any City money spent to care for any patients with any disease. Early polling shows Whitmer can easily win reelection in November without support from the gay community, which in Houston is refocusing the way it conducts its politics. Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan recently addressed the graduating class of the medical school of the University of Texas here.

And this is what happened. But in order to continue to provide the best possible care for the citizens of our nation, I would like to challenge you. They belong to a new organization called Queer Nation whose theme is, we're here, we're queer, get used to it. And I want you prepared to meet the challenge. David Fowler is a member. They will not ever forget what went on at that graduation, you know, and what the purpose of that was, years and years to come. What do you accomplish with disrupting a graduation like that?

Attention. If we had done this 10 years ago, imagine where we would be now, you know, because we're not going away. Not the whole gay community is dying of AIDS. The new president of Houston's gay lesbian political caucus is Tony Knight, who favors a more mainstream philosophy. What actually is our power base and building up of our power base is you and me and, you know, five other people going out door to door and registering people to vote. The gay community in Houston right now is split over which avenue to take, getting attention or registering voters. And while the community's political strength has suffered because of AIDS, it is also the one issue that still unites it. Again, the major stories of this Monday, the Philippines volcano appeared to calm down, but the U.S. began a large scale of accusation of military dependence from the Subic Bay Naval Station in Clark Air Force Base.

And South Africa's parliament repealed the last official apartheid law. That's the news hour for tonight. We'll see you tomorrow night when we continue our conversations on political correctness with Dinesh D'Souza, the author of an illiberal education. I'm Jim Lara, thank you, and good night. Funding for the news hour has been provided by AT&T. AT&T connects the world from equipment to networking, from computers to communications, AT&T, the right choice. And by PepsiCo. And made possible by the financial support of viewers like you and the corporation for public broadcasting. Schools, public libraries, other organizations and home viewers may purchase news hour video cassettes by calling toll-free 800-424-7963. This is PBS.