Scholastic Update articles from April 1992

Scholastic Update archives from April 1992

The ugly American. (includes related material on tolerance)
April 3, 1992... With his heavy-metal mop of blond hair and brawny build, 18-year-old Ken Mieske would have looked more at home on a football field than on a witness stand. But once he opened his mouth, it was easy to see why his friends called him "Ken...

No rest for the vicious. (includes data on hate crimes)
April 3, 1992... No one knows the true extent of hate crimes in the United States. Experts believe the true number of bias crimes far exceeds the total actually reported. The dispatches listed below, compiled by Klanwatch, a watchdoy group of the Southern...

Portrait of a hate crime. (George Jones accused of gay harassment)
April 3, 1992... Why are so many crimes of hate committed by teenagers? Where do you people learn the values of hatred and bigotry? These were just some of the questions the staff of UPDATE grappled with as we put this issue together. Late last year, we...

The voice of a victim. (gay hatred)
April 3, 1992... Imagine that all your high school classmates despise you. Every time you set foot in school, they harass you and call you names. Some of them punch you out. And a few of them are so crezed they even try to kill you. That's what it's...

Why do people hate?
April 3, 1992... * Shortly after school opened last fall, more than 100 white-robed "Christian Knights" of the Ku Klux Klan marched down the main street of Lenoir, North Carolina, a small city nestled on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The next day,...

Brotherhood of bigots. (Ku Klux Klan)
April 3, 1992... In December 1865, six men sat together in a small house in Pulaski, Tennessee. The Civil War had ended, and the men, all veterans who had fought for the South, wanted to form a social club. Postwar life in their small town was both harsh...

Getting harsh with hate. (punishing hate crimes)
April 3, 1992... In October 1990, a group of racist skinheads in Daytona Beach, Florida, attacked a fellow skinhead after learning he was Jewish. The group beat the 17-year-old victim, John Daly, and held his head under the ocean surf. Four of the...

The war on women. (abusing women's rights)
April 3, 1992... In April 1990, President bush signed into law the Hate Crime Statistics Act, which directs the Justice Department to collect statistics on crimes motivated by the victims' race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Civil rights...

Freedom of hate speech? (legal aspects of free expression)
April 3, 1992... Of all the rights guaranteed to us under the United States Constitution, none is more cherished than freedom of speech--and perhaps none is more controversial. The words protecting this fundamental freedom seem fairly simple. In the First...

Talking trash. (messages of popular culture media)
April 3, 1992... Anyone who follows Guns N' Roses knows their lyrics aren't something your grandmother would want to hear. The platinum-selling rock band sings such songs as "One in a Million," which includes a scathing attack on blacks, recent immigrants,...

Learning to live together. (racial tolerance)
April 3, 1992... Cicely, a black high school student in Brooklyn, New York, doesn't hesitate when the question is asked: Have any of you been called "nigger"? "Oh, I was," says Cicely. A white student in her gym class said it while complaining that...

Do the right thing. (includes data on organizations that oppose prejudice)
April 3, 1992... At a school in Oregon recently, student government leaders noticed an increasing number of small fights between black and white students. As part of a plan to resolve the tensions, they invited an African-American political activist from the...

Earth's wake-up call. (facing environmental problems)(includes quiz)
April 17, 1992... Today's environmental problems affect everyone on the planet. Only a worldwide mobilization can prevent ecological disaster. Are the nations of the Earth up to the task? THE TIME: AUGUST, 2052 A.D. The place: North America. The citizens of...

A global crisis. (seven environmental threats)
April 17, 1992... From Alaska to Zaire, from the North Pole to the South Pole, the world is facing unprecedented environmental destruction. As you can see from the map on these two pages, the problems extend to every region and every continent. Study the map...

Here comes the sun. (ozone layer loss)
April 17, 1992... Household chemicals are destroying the ozone layer, Earth's protective blanket. The consequences for public health are enormous--and could change the way we live. SUMMER'S ALMOST HERE. SOON AMERICANS will be heading for the beach, the pool,...

The cost of survival. (reducing carbon dioxide emissions)
April 17, 1992... Everyone agrees that to avert global devastation the environment must be saved. But rich and poor nations disagree on how to do it and who should pay the cost. World Leaders Arriving in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, for this June's "Earth Summit"...

An owl or a job. (environmental problems)
April 17, 1992... Across the great Northwest, environmentalists cry, "Save our owls!" while loggers reply, "Save our jobs!" Can we do both? "Save a Logger--Kill an Owl" exhorts a bumper sticker on cars and trucks in logging areas of the Pacific Northwest. "I...

Friends of the earth? (presidential candidates' environmental policy)
April 17, 1992... Saving the planet is not much of an issue in Campaign '92. Still, all the Presidential candidates have an environmental record. Here's where they stand. It was one of the most publicized events of the 1988 Presidential election campaign:...

Dumping on minorities. (location of hazardous waste sites)
April 17, 1992... Studies show that minorities suffer more from industrial pollution than whites. Waste companies say it's just business. A growing number of activists say it's racism. In a New York City neighborhood like Williamsburg, where drug dealers hawk...

Beam me in, Scotty. (Biosphere 2 project)
April 17, 1992... The Biosphere 2 project has been called everything from a prototype for future space colonies to one massive publicity stunt. Whatever the case, it's no stranger to controversy. Last September, four men and four women clad in jumpsuits that...

Hollywood goes green. (environmental themes in films)
April 17, 1992... With celebrities and a slew of new films preaching about the rain forest, Hollywood has jumped on the environmental bandwagon. Is this for real or is it just the movies? On a recent Sunday, a group of Hollywood's most-sought-after young...

Miss Rose White.
April 17, 1992... Almost everyone in America has roots planted here by outsiders from many different lands--except for Native Americans, who were so overwhelmed by European immigration that they began to be treated like "outsiders" in their own land. When so...

Making a difference. (teen age buying power and environmental consciousness)
April 17, 1992... Spurred by the growing threat to the world around them, teens are taking on environmental issues--and forcing government and industry to pay attention. IT'S 11 ON A COOL FALL morning, and Sol Solomon, an 18-year-old native of Santa Monica,...