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Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Whitehead’s research in Guyana shaped life Professor found that violence is universal By Samy Moskol The Daily Cardinal
Neil Whitehead, professor and chair of the Anthropology Department, died Thursday, March 22 after an illness. He was 56 years old. This story is a product of the last interviews he had with the Daily Cardinal, Jan.
abigail waldo/the daily cardinal
Students gathered at Library Mall Tuesday in protest of the recent shooting deaths of Trayvon Martin and Bo Morrison.
Student protest reflects national, state outcry over recent shootings By Ben Siegel The Daily Cardinal
While a larger tide of public outcry focuses on the killing of African-American teen Trayvon Martin in Florida, a “SpeakOut” on Library Mall Tuesday focused on the less-publicized killing of Bo Morrison in Wisconsin and the state law that protects his killer. An unarmed Martin was killed Feb. 27 by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who was released after questioning under a Florida law that allows a person to use deadly force in self-defense if there is reasonable belief of threat. Both the shooting and the legal benefit of the doubt Zimmerman received have propelled the incident into the national spotlight. In a similar incident, 20-yearold Morrison was killed the night of March 3 after leaving a house party in Slinger, Wis. A neighbor shot Morrison after finding him on his porch. He claims he is protected by the recently expanded Castle Doctrine, a law that defines the use of his handgun on his property as self-defense. Some in the crowd wore hooded sweatshirts, which have become a symbol of the movement protesting Martin’s death. Attendees also
heard from Morrison’s friends and current UW-Madison students who described the friend they knew and lost. “It was really sad hearing from the girls [that were friends with Morrison]… your heart goes out to them, that they lost their friend like that,” said sociology graduate student Jenn Sims. Organizers and some in attendance also connected the killings with racial incidents on campus, pointing to the recent alleged verbal harassment of two female African-American students. “This event came out of the idea that there’s been these attacks on black men and blacks not only across the country but on the UW-Madison campus as well,” said event organizer and International Socialist Organization member Dan Suarez. “We need to provide a space for people to be able to express themselves, and this is already a hard enough place for students of color to go to school anyway.” When asked about the reported harassment that took place during a Delta Upsilon Fraternity party, Sims agreed. “It’s just scary for the undergrads,” she said. “I see black women and men in my classroom, and that could have been one of my students.”
31 and Feb. 7, 2012. While Anthropology students knew Neil Whitehead as the “quirky English professor” whose expertise ranged from sexuality to terrorism, scholars around the world recognized him mostly for his groundbreaking work on how groups use violence to make sense of the world around them. Though the setting of his research was among the Patamuna people of Guyana, he emphasized how their violence is telling of our own. On his first trip to the Guyana highlands in 1992, he did not to
expect to encounter the violent Shamans that call themselves Kanaima. But after he learned they were more than myth, and after falling victim to a Kanaima attack himself, they became the center of his research. Patamuna, with training, can obtain three shamanistic qualifications, of which Kanaima is one. While the other two qualifications involve charming and healing, the Kanaimas are known for violently killing and
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Fraternity member, multicultural leader look to end racist incidents on Langdon By Alex DiTullio The Daily Cardinal
In 1988, UW-Madison’s Zeta Beta Tau fraternity was accused of sponsoring a slave auction party that included members of the fraternity wearing blackface and Afro wigs. The incident sparked a small, but passionate, student-led protest on ZBT’s property, at which eight students were eventually arrested. Twenty-four years later, Multicultural Student Coalition
Executive Member Althea Miller said Langdon Street continues to be a hotbed for racist incidents, pointing to a recent report of students yelling racial slurs from a fraternity balcony and throwing a bottle at two African American students. The most recent incident at Delta Upsilon came eight months after residents of a Langdon Street apartment hung a black SpiderMan doll from a balcony, an act some students said resembled a
lynching. Miller said she sees the two incidents as part of a trend. “There’s a really huge issue with Langdon Street because things keep happening on Langdon Street,” Miller said. “Quite frankly I’m getting sick of it.” While former interfraternity council vice president and Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity member Tom Templeton recognizes a pattern of racial issues within Greek
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City Life
Men at Work
Mayor Paul Soglin helped set off construction on the Madison Central Library branch at 201 W. Mifflin St. Tuesday. The city hopes to finish the $18-million renovation by 2013. + Photo byDylan Moriarty
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”