Task force probes penal treatment
of poor
Hawkins hits Nixon "Workfare >>
I he Commission for Racial
Justice has been (.'unearned
about the Injuetlcea and In
equities ot the crim inal Justice
and penal system for aeveral
years.
We have noted with
anguish that the courts and
prisons of this country ate
populated with Blacks, min
orities and the poor. We are
also quite aware that there is
a systematic campaign to Im
prison Black activists aa they
aeek to bring about some
meaningful change In the llvea
of Black and minority people.
Anglea Davis, Rev. Charles
Koen of C a iro , Illinois are
Juat two examplea of this.
71ie concerns about the
crim inal juatlce and penal
ayatem and the recent unex
plained death of George Jack-
eon and the Attica 43 prompt
ed the Commission for Racial
Justice to call lor the ere a lion
of a Black investigation Task
Force to look Into the condi
tions of prisons and ihe treat
ment of prisoners.
The conflicting explanations
of the death of George Jackson
and the attempt by New York
Slate prison officials to mis in
form ths public about the
Attica tragedy reaffirm to us
that ths only way Blacks w ill
receive the truth about (twee
Incidents la to do our own
Investigation.
M ore Impor
tant, however, that the In
vestigation Is the formulation
of a “ Black agenda*' to deal
with the Injustices of the entire
crim inal Juatlce and penal
system.
The
Black Investigation
Task Force Is composed of
Blacks from various philo
sophical, religious, political
economic
and
educational
backgrounds. This diversity
reflects varluua trends of
thought within the Black com
munity but affirm s our desire
to do something about pro
blems that confront Black and
minority people however dif
ferent they may be Indi
vidually.
The Task Foroe represents
ths desire and the w ill to do
something about our Brothers
and Slaters presently Incar
cerated and those who w ill
meet the wrath of a aick and
racist society in tlw future.
Groups represented in the
Task
Force Include con
gressional and atate political
figures, ths Congressional
Black Caucus, National Con
fers nee of Black Lawyers, ths
National
Bar Association
Congress of African Peoples,
Urban League, Ohio Black
M inister's Conference, Dis
ciples of Christa, In stltite of
the Black World, Howard Uni
versity, Malcolm X Liberation
U n lv , In Greensboro^ N .C „
Commission for Racial Jua
tlce and others.
The Task Force activities
will focus In aeveral areaa
of concern. The areas aret
Investigation,
Legislative,
Legal Confrontation, Public
Relations
and
Education,
Community Organization and
Mobilization, Research and
Finance,
The staff co-ordlnator of
the Task Force Is Irv Joyner
of the Commission for Racial
Justice s u ff.
At this point
the Task Force la seeking to
contact aa many groups and
Individuals aa possible that
are working on the Ilia of the
crim inal Justice and penal
system.
We are also quite
interested In correspondence
with Inmates who can docu
ment the conditions of p ri
sons and the treatment they
receive.
Both of the fore
going are quite Important aa
we seek to develop a Black
agenda for ourselves.
All
Information and correspon
dence should be mailed 101
Irv Joyner, Commission for
Racial Justice, 2*7 Park Ave.
South, New York, N .Y . 10010.
Congressman Cu a Hawkins
a c c u a s d President Nixon of
“ doubletalk** and trie spon
sible action regarding hia re
cent stand on w e I f a r e recip
ients.
He challenged the adminis
tration to produce some real
Jobs for people who a re willing
to w o r k instead of attacking
persona unable to find employ
ment.
Nixon Juatlfled the“ w o r k -
fare’ * provision in the new So
cial Security Act which c u t s
out welfare recipients who re -
Ombudsman
solves problems
I
Do yoa know any 12 year old junkies
Ib is year a survey by ttw
Addicts Rehabilitation Center
found there were 40,000 a d
dicts in Harlem . Thai's about
one out of every six people.
Walk along nearly aay street
u p to w n and you’ ll see H a r-
lem a great a d d ic t army —
slumped o v e r in doorways,
stumblIng a I o n g in a trance,
nodding In front of bars and
soul food Joints, staixllng in
the cold without enough clothes
on. Chances are you’ ll also
other all too fam iliar Har
lem scenes: the dope (usher
who sets up shop on a street
corner and deals like he had s
license; the Junkie couple who
have established residence In
an abandoned building and are
playing man and wife; the teen
ager who Is wearing $100a lli
gator shoes and a $300 s i l k
suit.
I he streets of Harlem used
to serve the same puipose as
the cafes InEurope. The side
walks would swing with m en
smiling and rapping with each
other and everywheie you'd go
there would be crowds, noise
and laughter.
But It's not quite so a n y
m o r e . F e a i now peivades
Harlem . The derelict horde
menaces our s t r e e t s aikl
parks, lurks outside o u r
homes and stores, and preys
on neighbors and f r l a n d s .
Whole neighborhoods have de
clined; others have been com
pletely abandoned to Junkie
squatters.
Heroin has destroyed th e
functioning of our school sys
tem. Eight-year olds expei I-
ment with heioln bought In the
grade school yard and in Ben
jamin Franklin High School,
where drugs are as available
as chewing gum, young girls
shoot up In the locker room
aixl 13-year olds buy dope from
IS-yesr old peddlers.
But most devastating of a 11
is the effect heroin has had
on our young — the hope of tha
black nation.
used to be that
• mother would pray that h e r
son would finish high school.
N o w , she dare not admit to
herself her worst fears: that
her son's corpse w ill be found
on some rooftop, s n e e d le
sticking from his arm ., (p e r
sonally know of a mother who
Il
has foui sons, all of them ad
dicts, and such a situation Is
not unique.
The sad f a c t Is that Junk la
so readily available In Harlem
that any kid with some curio
sity and some small change la
bound to try i t . One of the most
demoralizing experiences I
ever had in Harlem was being
panhandled by a 12-yaar old
Junkie.
Meanwhile, back at the Es
tablishment, the s t a t e has
slashed funds f o r
narcotic
programs by 65 per cent and
reduced the number of addicts
who can be treated in resklen-
tlai c e n t e r s f r o m 6,435to
2,167. T h e pharmaceutical
companies won't Invest laige
funds lodevelop a nonaddlctive
heioln substitute since there's
no profit In It for them. De
spite much heralded pledges of
lntrsgovemmental coopera
tion to halt the International
diug traffic, not a single her
oin laboratory has been busted
In France In two years, opium
Is still helng grown on a vast
s c a le In Turkey, and th e
amount of heroin smuggled in
to th e United States f r o m
Southeast Asia Is up sharply.
The people of Harlem may
oi may nut know of these de-
velopments. but tfiey do m m
the cops of Harlem; cops who
are quite willing to defend the
Republic against permissive
ness arxl long hair, but look the
other way when a heroin sale is
being transacted. Cops who
proudly w e a r the American
flag, h it a c c e p t payoffs to
make a heroin bust and then
r e s e l l what they’ve confis
cated, and cops In pan ol cars,
with the windows rolled upand
the doors locked, whodon'tev-
en bother toglance at the push
ers taking care of business on
the sidewalks.
That’ s the way it is in H ar
lem. The s i t u a t i o n never
changes except that more am
more of the young are s h o u t
ing, “ Genocldel"
fuae to accept any type of em
ployment. Nixon said work Is
••preferable to life on the pub
lic dole".
H a w k in s said, " |t i l l -
behooves the President to talk
about the dignity of work when
he h as dellberatelydeprtved
over 2 million Ametleans of
Jobs sines 1969. Apparently
his definition of work ethic la
slave laboi, not real Jobs that
enable Individuals to feed and
clothe and shelter themselves.
"T h is Congi ess has passed
an employment program, that
Ezra Parrott
Berkeley, California, has a
new ombudsman, one of the few
in the nation. E zra Parrott Is
the middle-man between th e
c i t y and Berkeley residents.
He Is r e s p o n s 1 b I e for re -
celving citizen* com plaints,
Investigating th e m by c o n
tacting various departments
am working out some sort of
solution.
Since November P arrott has
ham led 75 c o m p I a I n t s , re
solving most of them toevery-
one's sstisfaction, “ 1 must re
ly on the good faith am coop
eration of city departments to
f in d out what the particular
problem is. But thst doesn't
mean 1 take tha word of a city
official over that of a private
citizen,** he said.
“ If, however, the official Is
right, I can add credibility to
what he says.**
Ezra P a r r o t t , 41, is a 20
year A ir Force veteran. He
recently earned a B.A. in phi
losophy and psychology from
the Unlvei sity of California at
Berkeley.
The problems he deals with
cover a broad range from re
quests for assistance, l a n d
lord-tenant d i s p u t e s , and
complaints about police treat
ment am city hiring practices.
Nixon accused of
POW politics
senator George McGovern
(Dem - SJJ.) am Representa
tive Robert L e gg e t t(D«m -
C a lif. ), both of whom h a v e
talked to the North Vietnamese
In P aris, charged President
Nixon with d e c e i v i n g the
American people on the Issue
of the prisoners of war being
held by North Vietnam.
McGovern (old a news con
ference that the NorthVietna-
mese g o v e r n m e n t will ex
change the PoW ’ s for a dead
line for U.S. troopwlthdrawal.
He revealed t h a t he had re
cently called the North Viet
nam delegation In P a r I t to
verify that their o f f e r e t i l l
stands.
Rep. Leggett called Nixon's
remarks on a television Inter
view , January 2m , contained
* ' a fantastic reversal of th e
truth.'* When asked about the
trade, Nixon said w h e n th e
question was "floated out this
fa ll, the North Vietnamese to
tally rejected it."
" F e r from rejecting t h is
tra d e ," Leggett s a id , “ th e
other s id e ha s explicitly of
fered to do it. They offered it
to me In private on May 31 of
last year, am again at the of-
f i c i a l negotiating ta bl e on
July I ."
Portlsnd/O bserver, Thursday, Jan. 21, 1972
th e President vetoed, w h ic h
would have provided meaning
ful jobs.”
He explained, "T h e re a r e
now pending other bills which
would create at least 500,000
p u b lic service Jobs w h 1c h
could be filled in90days If M r ,
Nixon really b e l i e v e s In
'work-ethlc* and w a n ts to
abolish tha so-called ‘ t r e « -
loaders on welfare'.**
Hawkins attacked the Nixon
policy declaring that "h is ad
ministration does not intend to
create Jobs In the public sec
tor. The President Intends to
rely on some mysterious, un
named sources In the private
sector to deliver the jobs of
his new economic policy.
“ At best the delivery date
is three years away and de
pends on fat government con
tracts out of which big profits
must be scooped off the top."
Hawkins accused the P re si
dent of making racism In his
statements. “ 7 he hardest hit
are black women and y o u th
whose unemployment r a t e s
under the administration have
soared as much as 40$ in the
I n n e r cities. These are the
worst-offended victims of the
new policies. They seek o p
portunities, not dole payments
disguised is workfare.”
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Figurine
Shaping
I
Directors
named
:1
Studio
Four Portland area resi
dents have been elected to
the Board of Directors of
Project Equality of the North
west, Inc.
They areK evC olllns, social
action director for the Catho
lic
Archdiocese,
who is
finishing a two-year term;
Andy
Huckfeldt,
Catholic
Archdiocese representative to
Project
Equality; Marlene
Bayless, Unitarlan-Universa-
llst representative to Project
Equality; and Don Hayashi.
East CAP.
Project Equality is an lnter-
faith program which attempts
to use the buying power of
churches and church-reIa ted
Institutions to open up job
opportunities
for minority
persons.
If your belt has grown too tight, but you hate the
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ASSOCIATED
When he was asked i f th e
United States had ever asked
the North Vietnamese If they
would agree to a trade. Pres
ident Nixon sald,“ That parti
cular m atter has been under
discussion at various times In
the Paris peace talks."
Leggett said,'‘M r . Nixon's
response was incredible” am
was interned to give the im
pression that the question had
been asked when it had n o t."l
repeat, It has not been asked,”
he said.
CENTERS
Goldschmidt plodges commitment to pollution standards
In Section 2 of your Clean
A ir Act Implementation Plan
you state that “ it Is the In
tent ol the Department io
explore with th eC Ity" sever al
alternatives am “ obtain a
commitment from the City,
by no later than September I,
1972, to Implement a specific
program sufficient to meet
ambient a ir standards by
1975."
1 pledge to do ev eryth in
possible to eee that you have
that commitment from theCity
to a specific program that Is
sufficient to meet ambient air
standards by 1975.
Son»
people may say that your pro
jections show that we w ill
meet ambient a ir standards
In the city of Portland by I960,
with an Inspection program hut
without any other efforts, so
why should we make any other
efforts at all?
I believe tire re are several
good answers to that question.
F irs t, It la Important to
note that, according to your
standards we must make re
ductions. To me, that means
that our a ir needs Improve
ment now. My child and other
children of this city are
breathing the a ir now, amt they
w ill be breathing It between
now and 1980.
What Is the
cost to our children. In terms
of their future health, of
bieathlng this air?
One of the pollutants you
say we must reduce Is carbon
monoxide, which Is a dan
gerously heavy levels Indown
town Portland on many days.
Carbon monoxide Is danger
ous because It slows down
the delivery of oxygen to body
tissues, as everyone knows.
It la also dangerous because it
Is completely invisible.
I
would like to read to you
part of a wklely-quoted 1969
article by Nicholas Gage,
written In the Wall Street
Journal.
M r . Gage fays,
“ During daytime houra when
traffic la heaviest, the carbon
monoxide level in Manhattan
often soars to between 25
and 30 pans pet m illion, hav
ing an Impact on the lungs
equivalent to (hat of two packs
of clgareta a day." (And here
I would like to parenthetically
note that Portland carbon
monoxide, periodically, lathis
high In certain locations.) M r.
Cate goes on to say that,
"According to medical stu
dies,
exposure to carbon
monoxide, even for short
periods can cause headaches,
nausea and dizziness. After
90 minutes of exposure to only
50 ppm., the ability to make
ceitaln visual discriminations
and time Judgments Is Un
paired-Indicating that high
carbon monoxide levels on
streets and highways may be
a factor In traffic accidents.
Even exposure to levels as low
as IS ppm. may have an effect
on mental and sensory re
sponses, researchers say.
Another pollutant that you
say must be reduced, and thst
our children are breathing
now. Is nitrogen oxides. Re
searchers
at UCLA have
learned that nitrogen oxides
reduce the oxygen-carrying
capacity of laboratory ani
mals* blood by up to 38$,
and can also induce Inf tarna
tion of ths respiratory tract
In laboi story animals. Higher
doses can restrict breathing.
And, you add, of course,
devices. F o r example. It is
that we must reduce hydro
now apparent that the 1966
carbons which combine with
and 1968 devices have heen
nitrogen oxides to form ozone
almost total failures.
or photo-chemical smog, the
T hird , I think It is not
dirty stuff we see in the sir
necessarily
reasonable to
and the stuff which Is so
accept the projections you
damaging to our plants.
make about a ir pollution that
Can we really stand a
are based on 1) projected
decade of breathing our cur
vehicle miles in Portland,
rent a ir, particularly If It
2) age of vehicles, 3) failure
worsens for the next couple of
of devices to deteriorate and
years as It Is bound to do.
4)
the success of the new
Ths public Is not willing to
1972 devices.
AU of these
take that risk. That Is why
are very chancy things.
we must proceed Immediately
Particu larly in question are
with a successful implemen
the projected vehicle miles.
tation plan.
Those are quite dependent on
A second reason we must
how much cement Is laid down
take action to reduce s ir pol
In this city, how many free
lution Is that one cannot he at
ways are built. The car use
all confident of your consul
expands to fill the roed space.
tants’ predictions about the
Vehicle age is dependent on
«iccess of s ir pollution de
new car sales and the local
vices produced by D etroit. In
economy. The success of new
the firs t place, these devices
devices has not been consis
often require autos to burn up
tent In the past.
to 10$ more gasoline, offset
The conclusion, the. Is that
ting sny real gains. They do
we must take action. And that
reduce hydrocarbons and car
Is, thankfully, what you are
bon monoxide, but they In
recommending. The question
crease nitrogen oxides. You
Is, what action?
say we are going to Inspect lor
Several of your recommen
nitrogen oxides. But gentle
dations seem to me to be
men, that does no good it the
extremely sound.
How can
anyone. In this day and age.
devices increase thst parti
argue, with improved mass
cular pollutant which they do transit? And It seems to me
now. Then you note thst there to be very wise to explore
w ill be an Introduction of fully the establishment of a
parking tax or other incen
tives to Induce personsenter-
nitrogen oxides controls on
Ing the central business dis
1973 cars and that " p re
tric t to use mass transit or
sumably, an inspection-main
car pools.
tenance program w ill result In
emission reductions of nit
Your plan does not mention
rogen oxides." | would only
several other programs which
like to say that that Is quite
1 feel could reduceemisslons -
a presumption given the past
- deregulation of taxicabs and
record of D etroit's pollution
encouragement of Jitney sys-
tmes In Portland, for instance.
Both of these measures would
reduce the need for private
automobiles and reduce the
number of private cars on the
street. 1 believe that enabling
buses to control traffic lights.
Improving bicycle access to
downtown Portland across our
bridges and toll systems dur
ing peak hours on our major
freeways are also worth ser
ious consideration.
Finally, I believe in several
Instances the plan's logic Is
wrong.
|t w ill not improve
the quality of our a ir to make
It easier for automobiles to
move about. You suggest that
by making traffic circulation
Improvements,
by
taking
parking
off
of downtown.
streets and by close-in peri
pheral parking lots, we can
improve the quality of our a ir.
A ll three of those actions
encourage people to drive,
speed up the use of the auto,
make It tougher for transit to
compete. This business about
allowing cars to move faster
without stopping and starting,
making the cars move with
less a ir pollution, seems
faulty.
W hen you speed
up traffic by traffic signal
Improvements and by In
creasing the number of lanes
by taking parking off the
street, you encourage people
to use th eir cars. That means
more pollution In our a ir te -
cause there w ill be more car
use.
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