Word: berkovitz
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...more likely to take it out on himself, not society." The '60s may have held down the teen-age suicide rate by providing a sense of community, built around drugs and opposition to Viet Nam. "But even that's gone," says Los Angeles Psychiatrist Irving Berkovitz. "There's nothing to distract a teen-ager today...
Matthew Rothschild's personal attack on Nathan Berkovitz (April 16) added nothing to the discussion of race at Harvard. Charging "insensitivity to racial injustice" because Berkovitz disagreed on the importance of some issues adds only to the antagonism already built up around this issue...
...Berkovitz's points are not without merits. The ethnic studies demands are excessive. It would be a waste of effort and money to make separate study departments for the dozens of U.S. ethnic groups. How could they be limited to the seven he mentions? More importantly, separate departments will help very little if the administration doesn't want to teach these subjects. The Afro-Am Department is a good example, and these new ones would get even less support. A better approach would be to emphasize these groups in existing programs...
...Fourth, Berkovitz mentions the protest of the Levine appointment of Afro-American Studies. The participants of that protest recognize that they may have been acting on the basis of some misinformation. Nonetheless, the essence of the protest is unimpeachable. Generally, Blacks called for self-determination of their own education. Specifically, they demanded a Black chair of Afro-Am, and the rehiring of Ephraim Isaac, whom the federal government has found a victim of the University's discriminatory employment practices...
...Berkovitz closes his letter with a lament that the "true" needs of Black students are not met by their alleged overreaction. Berkovitz might do himself good to acquaint himself with Black people, Black concerns and Black needs before he assumes to speak for their "true needs." His insensitivity, though, is not atypical. Having spent four years at this campus, I find it impossible not to conclude that the chasm between Blacks and whites here owes much more to white insensitivity (re: racism) than to any Black "overreaction." Matthew Rothschild