Society-Aid Goals Perish With Coed

»f O O
Society- 1 oa s
P ° h W 'th C d
* BY William Tfeml t i
i a (News P°H°e R°P°ff°f> 'i" t
Alice Elizabeth Kalom, before She was _____A___‘ N'
bsrutally slain some time last Sunday, had , ""
gllvwing visions of what she wanted to do ____ __,,
f°I\1>e0P1@- _ f ‘
a 1.--@1“ ambitions and her ideals are re- "'1 .
f1e‘-‘fied ill 3 Paper she submitted last De- .A- l _iet 2. __"t
ffembef to the Uf1iV@1`Si'fY"S S¢h°01 Of SO-
Ciial Work to Whichxshe was applying f°’
aflimiSSi0I1 as a graduate Students- She ~___
Phamled *O enter Graduate S<=h°01i11 J 311-
HWY", 1970, after receiving her Undergrad-
“me d»e21‘ee here last month- i
lin the paper the Slain girl spoke Of hers _e-_ _.._ I i
atltitude toward minority group-S, partie- _4
ulairly Negroes, and of her desire to com- "" ff§§§§i§ M
racism and bigotry. She said she felt ____ ' “V
social Work would help her understand ' 'i "' ` -_ g ~
“lgiuman relationships.” "" _ _ '
“_ She tellls of growing up in a small south- " i
ern Mic igan town and notes that her first ~ '
encounter with a minority group was in ALICE KALQM
herf own family-her father was a Russian She Says she Worked in her fathel-'S
Jew who came to Amen” when he was store from the time she was eight years
13' ` ‘ old and was taught by her father to “treat
i every customer, everyone with respect.”
Mexicans and Puerto Ricans who worked
in canning factories nearby came fre-
quently into the store, and she says her
_ father “got on well with all, and any
group living in the community.
“My father impressed upon us that
there were ‘good and bad’ members of
any group. He really practiced the policy
, of trusting a man until he 'proved you
wrong and then, giving him a second
chance.”
She says she had little contact with Ne-
groes before- coming to the University.
“It was my Negro roommate who guided
my impressions of Negroes as a group,”
she wrote. “We established a very close
relationship-she was my first direct ex-
' perience with a Negro. Through my close
association with my roomate I had the
opportunity to meet and make friends
with a large number of N egroes-men and
women. Because my initial experiences
with Negroes was favorable, it made it
much easier to- develop a favorable at-
i titude toward Negroes in general and
especially, as individuals within a group.
“Men as a whole are conditioned to ex- *
pect unhappiness and disappointments as
the natural condition of life,” she wrote.
“If a person .feels negatively about her-
self this feeling spreads ov-er her whole
life and towards other people. It is this
type of negative feeling which can be
harnessed to' support racism, bigotry and
the 1ike.” » d
Miss Kalom said she planned to launch
her personal program of human under-
standing in the schools as a teacher.