The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour (PBS) - 1992-07-23 - 2 of 2
Channel: malgent
Transcript
Language: English (original, YouTube automatic captions)
[0:00] organized by the local Catholic Church.
[0:03] Psychologist Ombberto Rodriguez works
[0:05] with the commission.
[0:09] >> There is a loss of rationality here
[0:11] because of the war. Fantasies grow
[0:13] tremendously. We begin to be afraid of
[0:16] our own shadows and there is a silence
[0:19] in the face of all this. People prefer
[0:21] to remain silent thinking it will save
[0:24] their lives.
[0:27] Our office helps people break their
[0:29] silence. For example, our lawyer
[0:32] responds to the desperate cries of
[0:34] families of people who have been
[0:36] detained or have disappeared.
[0:39] >> The leaders of the Catholic Commission
[0:41] are convinced there can be no peace in
[0:43] the Wyaga until other crops replace
[0:46] cocoa.
[0:50] We could produce alternative crops. The
[0:53] Catholic Church has an organization, an
[0:55] itinerant missionary team that's working
[0:58] now with support from other countries to
[1:00] help farmers develop alternative
[1:02] products.
[1:13] of support for this work from the
[1:15] government, from international
[1:16] organizations and from other countries.
[1:18] We can't escape this crisis that
[1:20] suffocating in our country.
[1:25] >> There are only a few isolated programs
[1:28] in the Wyaga promoting alternate crops.
[1:31] Most of the Peruvian government's meager
[1:33] resources and almost all US counter
[1:36] narcotics aid have gone to the police
[1:38] and the military. Meanwhile, cocoa
[1:41] production continues to spread.
[1:48] We're precisely in the place that's the
[1:50] future of Koka. Because of the
[1:52] repression of the army as well as the
[1:54] gorillas, all the people in the upper
[1:57] Wyaga have come to plant koka here.
[2:00] And from here, the great valley of
[2:02] Chanuzi begins. an unexplored virgin
[2:05] valley where there are thousands of
[2:07] acres newly planted in Koka.
[2:12] >> As we left the Wyaga, the general strike
[2:15] was over and trucks traveled the highway
[2:17] again. We stopped above San Miguel de
[2:20] Rio, a village where 400 people, half
[2:24] the population, had been arrested during
[2:26] the strike. The army was looking for
[2:28] guerilla leaders. Most of the 400 were
[2:31] released and now children played
[2:34] peacefully on the riverbank.
[2:36] But there's a saying here that the river
[2:38] is hungry. It's a death threat used by
[2:41] traffickers and gorillas. And children
[2:44] like these often stop during their play
[2:47] to watch as the victims of the violence
[2:49] float by.
[2:59] Finally tonight, another answer to
[3:01] Rodney King's question, can we all get
[3:04] along? He raised it after a California
[3:06] jury acquitted four police officers
[3:09] charged with his beating. Since then,
[3:11] Charlene Hunter G has used King's Point
[3:14] as a text for an ongoing series of
[3:16] conversations. Tonight's takes a
[3:18] slightly different form. Pulitzer
[3:20] Prizewinning cartoonist Doug Marlet
[3:22] thinks the way to deal with relations
[3:24] between the races is with humor and he
[3:26] uses his own southern background to
[3:28] exploit the stereotypes and to turn them
[3:31] on their heads.
[3:33] >> Being a a white male southerner um you
[3:37] know I represent and grew up
[3:38] representing everything wrong with the
[3:40] 20th century. I mean
[3:42] >> enter Marlet's kudu guiltridden about
[3:45] being white and now politically
[3:47] incorrect. He sings even white boys get
[3:50] the blues.
[3:51] >> My people are the only people who it's
[3:54] okay to make fun of. And uh the the
[3:57] southern white, especially male,
[4:00] straight at this in this age, we're
[4:01] politically incorrect, you know. And so
[4:04] in my strip, I make fun of my people.
[4:07] That's what I know, the reason I I do
[4:08] that. And and I I like playing with this
[4:10] cultural stereotypes.
[4:12] >> Enter Marlet Moraurice. black, a skilled
[4:15] athlete, and Marlet says about as
[4:18] comfortable with himself as Kudzu is
[4:20] awkward.
[4:22] >> One of the things I kind of am proud of
[4:23] in the strip is that is that uh from the
[4:26] beginning I've had blacks and whites
[4:30] uh interacting, but it's very natural.
[4:32] It's not a big deal. It's it's part of
[4:34] the backdrop. It's not a self-conscious
[4:38] um
[4:40] um liberalism trying. It's just in the
[4:42] south that was that was our experience.
[4:45] >> Take the interaction between Maurice and
[4:47] Nasil T. Lard Bottom. Voted the whitest
[4:50] white boy at Bypass High School. He
[4:52] wants to be black like Maurice says
[4:55] Nasil. I don't understand Maurice. The
[4:58] brothers still don't accept me. I've got
[5:00] my Jive dialect down, my high fives, my
[5:03] jam box, my Air Jordans. What's missing?
[5:07] Says Maurice. 400 years of oppression,
[5:11] says Nasil. Can I take a weekend seminar
[5:14] or something? And what are you saying
[5:16] there with Nasil?
[5:18] >> Nasil was this little tight, obsessive,
[5:21] compulsive little white boy, you know,
[5:24] who who wish aspires, who wishes he was
[5:27] free, wishes he had was, and he projects
[5:30] onto blacks that all of those traits he
[5:33] projects onto Maurice that he is, he
[5:36] seems cool, he seems natural. And so I
[5:38] he wants to and he thinks if he can
[5:39] learn to speak jive if he can just all
[5:43] of the white it's making fun of and
[5:45] playing with the white assumptions about
[5:47] blacks.
[5:48] >> Nasel wants to be an athlete like
[5:50] Maurice says Nasel as an aspiring
[5:54] brother I better practice my vertical
[5:56] jump. I've got all my equipment my knee
[5:59] pads my crash helmet my air Jordans my
[6:02] altimeter. Watch this. Maurice says
[6:05] Nasil. I've been practicing my vertical
[6:07] leap, says Maurice. Go ahead, jump.
[6:12] I did, says Nasil.
[6:15] You know, if he can just develop a
[6:16] vertical leap and have hang time, you
[6:18] know, he he feels that and if he wears
[6:21] dashikis and and and grows a high top
[6:24] fade, I mean, he he thinks this is going
[6:26] to take care of I mean, he he got went
[6:28] so far as to have a race change
[6:29] operation in Sweden. Uh, now to me, this
[6:32] is
[6:32] >> But then he came out and he was still
[6:34] white.
[6:34] >> Well, that's right. And what was
[6:35] interesting is he came back with
[6:36] bandages from Sweden and he was he was
[6:39] slamming and jamming, running and
[6:40] gunning. He had great h hang time and he
[6:43] had all these attributes that he thinks
[6:45] was right. But it turned out that it had
[6:47] not taken the race turn and he was still
[6:49] white and when when in mid-flight he
[6:52] realized this and he and he destiny
[6:54] rendevous with gravity I think is the
[6:56] way put it in in the strip. But in in
[6:59] other words it's in our it's in our
[7:01] psyche. You know, these are all
[7:04] metaphors and symbols. You know, as an
[7:05] artist, you're dealing with these things
[7:07] and you're and but
[7:10] what race, you know, when you get down
[7:11] to it, what it's about is that there are
[7:14] people who are different from us and we
[7:17] project onto them
[7:19] aspects of ourselves that we worry about
[7:23] or that we love or that we but we can't
[7:25] tolerate within us. Then there's Uncle
[7:28] Dub, the quintessential Bubba, says
[7:32] Kudu. Uncle Dub, why do you suppose we
[7:35] were put here on this planet? Says Uncle
[7:37] Dub. Oh, shut up, Kudu, says Kudu. Dub
[7:41] is not given to philosophical
[7:43] speculation.
[7:46] >> Uncle Dub, you know, is the last of the
[7:49] of the good old boys. And uh he talks we
[7:53] talked about that as Bubba side is the
[7:55] we're getting rid of all the Bubbas and
[7:57] and uh and so he's holding out. He's
[7:59] like that uh the one uh uh remaining. Uh
[8:04] it's fun to play with that to that
[8:06] that's a part of I grew up with I had
[8:07] uncles who ran service stations and
[8:09] we're always hovering over car engines
[8:11] and and uh and have a kind of there's a
[8:13] kind of an integrity there. we usually
[8:15] get in in the popular culture uh the the
[8:19] police chiefs and the southern, you
[8:22] know, uh uh guy, you know, the sheriff
[8:26] who's fat and and chewing tobacco and
[8:29] and has an IQ of 10, you know, and he
[8:33] does is not influenced or impressed with
[8:35] the with the passing fads and and and
[8:39] there's a there's something uh
[8:41] impressive about him and that that runs
[8:44] against the the popular stereotype. You
[8:47] know, my people, the Bubbas are really
[8:50] products. And I think this is part of
[8:52] the the reason I have some sympathy is
[8:53] because they were brought here as
[8:55] indentured servants. You know, they are
[8:57] not the powerful. They are not the
[8:58] people who are they are not the enemy.
[9:00] >> You talking about poor white.
[9:01] >> The poor white, the indigenous. Yeah.
[9:04] But the bubbas, the the the rednecks,
[9:06] the crack crack American, Roy Blunt
[9:08] calls them, that they they are um and
[9:11] they are exploited and victimized in
[9:13] ways that uh that makes their experience
[9:18] akin to that of blacks in America. I
[9:22] grew up with people who held hideous
[9:24] notions, obscene,
[9:26] abstract notions about race, about
[9:30] politics, and yet they were very kind,
[9:32] decent with people of other colors and
[9:36] belief in the concrete,
[9:39] in the reality. I go to New York and I'm
[9:42] around people who have all the correct
[9:44] notions, all the perfect
[9:48] political beliefs, the liberal views,
[9:50] the humanitarian, and yet they're
[9:52] horrible and hideous and obscene in the
[9:55] way that they interact sometimes with
[9:57] people of different races or people of,
[10:00] you know,
[10:02] uh, minorities. Uh, and so, you know, I
[10:04] as a southern I kind of prefer I I don't
[10:06] care what somebody thinks that they
[10:08] think, you know, I'd rather I want to
[10:10] know how they interact concretely, you
[10:12] know, and that's one of the advantages
[10:13] or gifts that we have is that I think as
[10:15] Southerners is that that we we rub up
[10:17] against each other. We see each other
[10:19] and so, you know, it there's something
[10:22] that happens in that, you know, marinade
[10:26] that that is healing. I think
[10:29] >> you've been dealing with race in your
[10:31] comic strip. Why did you decide to deal
[10:33] with it in in that way with humor?
[10:36] >> Well, it's it's kind of natural. I mean,
[10:37] for for one thing, it's something that's
[10:38] on everybody's mind and uh that's what I
[10:42] do. And also, as a Southerner, you know,
[10:44] you you I I deal with race, but you
[10:47] can't be a Southerner and not deal with
[10:48] race and and religion and all this
[10:50] because it was such a part of our uh our
[10:53] history. uh and uh you know slavery and
[10:56] and and then the civil rights movement
[10:58] the the battlegrounds were of the civil
[11:01] rights movement were where where I grew
[11:02] up. You I grew up on this uh those
[11:06] things to me as a southerner these
[11:08] issues are more concrete than they are.
[11:10] They're not abstract. You know when I
[11:12] grew up people were uh
[11:15] were dying in the neighborhood. I mean
[11:18] the or in you know Mississippi and uh
[11:22] those places I lived there when I was a
[11:25] teenager and so it was not and and and
[11:27] it affected our lives. It was something
[11:29] people we talked about over dinner and
[11:31] you went to the demonstration or you had
[11:33] you know I had friends of friends in my
[11:36] family who were suspected of being of
[11:38] clan activity and there was you know at
[11:41] school uh these are white boys in the in
[11:44] Mississippi. Uh parents arrested for the
[11:47] murder of Sherner Goodman Cheney. Uh and
[11:51] so it was much more
[11:53] >> three civil rights workers who were
[11:54] killed in Mississippi,
[11:55] >> right? The civil rights workers. So who
[11:57] who died in Philadelphia. Um
[11:59] >> Philadelphia, Mississippi.
[12:00] >> Philadelphia, Mississippi. Uh so it was
[12:03] much more uh concrete. That's one of the
[12:05] things I think that's part of the
[12:06] southern uh experience is, you know,
[12:08] we're we're kind of the testing grounds
[12:10] for all of America's ideals in in the
[12:12] South. That's where we played it out.
[12:14] You know, that's where we fought the
[12:15] battles. That's where uh you know,
[12:17] America came into itself. the you know
[12:19] the the um the civil war was you know
[12:24] fought. U
[12:25] >> why humor though? Because for so many
[12:28] people this is a very volatile very
[12:31] frightening thing.
[12:33] >> Yeah. Well it's it's natural to me and
[12:35] and the um uh that seems to me to be
[12:39] appropriate. you know, uh, these are
[12:44] these are human things and all this
[12:46] that's that's human or is is funny is is
[12:49] amusing. It also kind of helps um
[12:52] diffuse things. I think that, you know,
[12:54] it humanizes us to be able to laugh at
[12:56] things, but it is it is these are these
[12:58] are um are areas that we all get kind of
[13:02] uptight about.
[13:03] >> But what you're doing is not just
[13:05] entertainment, not just fun. For me,
[13:08] it's always and it's always uh it has to
[13:11] mean something for me. My drawings have
[13:14] to mean something to me and to to Yeah,
[13:16] I think there's some wanting to uh shake
[13:19] things up. I like to be shaked up. I
[13:21] always learn from being shaked up, you
[13:24] know. I always uh I like learning and I
[13:26] like I like being disturbed by things. I
[13:29] So I like drawings that make my hair fly
[13:31] back, my you me choke on my coffee. I
[13:33] like drawings like that.
[13:36] So here again, I mean, do you think that
[13:38] humor is the key to narrowing the
[13:40] divide?
[13:41] >> It's like a spoonful of sugar makes the
[13:43] medicine go down. I mean, you can get
[13:45] truths in, but it needs to come in a way
[13:48] that people can accept. And and you
[13:51] know, I think a a sense of humor is a
[13:54] sign of of emotional maturity that when
[13:57] we're able not not to I'm not talking
[13:59] about the humor that where we're
[14:02] laughing at other people and deriding
[14:04] and putting people down, but I'm talking
[14:06] about laughing at ourselves. That's a
[14:09] sign. And when we can laugh at
[14:10] ourselves, you know, be amused by our
[14:14] posturing and our our pretense and our
[14:16] struting and boasting and and our our
[14:20] humanness when we can see it, accept it
[14:22] and have find it amusing, you know. I
[14:25] think that's and that's the role that's
[14:27] our role is to is to kind of encourage
[14:30] that.
[14:31] >> Well, Doug Marlet, thank you.
[14:33] >> Thanks.
[14:36] Again,
[14:42] the main stories of this Thursday.
[14:44] President Bush met with his top military
[14:46] advisers over Iraq's refusal to comply
[14:48] with Gulf War ceasefire terms. Syria
[14:52] ruled out any concessions to Israel for
[14:54] the curtailment of Jewish settlements in
[14:56] the occupied areas. The Bush
[14:58] administration predicted the
[14:59] unemployment rate would drop to 6.9% by
[15:02] the end of the year. It now stands at
[15:04] 7.8. And tonight, Colombian drug lord
[15:07] Pablo Escovar offered to surrender if
[15:10] the government would guarantee his
[15:11] safety. He made the offer in a call to a
[15:13] radio station a day after he escaped
[15:15] from a jail near MedÃ. Good night, Jim.
[15:19] >> Good night, Robin. We'll see you
[15:20] tomorrow night with Gergen and Shields
[15:22] among other persons and things. I'm Jim
[15:24] Lara. Thank you and good night.
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