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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (June 8, 1972)
/(b s e rv e r UL director says Black’s are expendable Hy D r. Benjamin F.. Maya We need to le caieful how we laugh at politicians who do udd things, often these odd things ate what the people want. George Wallace stand ing In tlie door In an attempt to keep blacks fio tn enrolling In the U niversity of Alabama helped Wallace p o litica lly. Lestei Maddox using the ax handle ami waving a pistol to keep blacks out of hla res taurant did much to get Mad dox elected Gove m oi of Geo i - «1«. When o rv llle f-'auhus defied the Federal court outers to keep nine blacks out of a L it tle Rock High School, it (wip ed him p o litica lly . It helps especially if tlw persons In volved ate blacks o r an un de nlog. It helped H itle r wlien Iw turned on tlw Jews in G er many, To state It another way, a white man's attitude toward blacks seldom prevents hla rise to political power. Tlw black man Is expendable. F o r many decades, racism was an asset to gain political office. Woodrow Wilson is acclaimed by many as a great man. But while Iw was preaching Demo cracy fo r tlw world, he was segiegating blacks in federal Ixilldlngs in Washington, D.C. Wallace more than any otlw r, except rnaytar president Nixon, marie husing a nation al campaign issue. He made some othercandldatesdeclare themselves against busing. Senator Jackson, a great I lit eral, was as much opposed to luslng as Wallace. Senator Humphrey equivocated a bit wlwn President Nixon made Ids declaration against bus- big. The luslng Issue has, ce r tainly for tlw moment, pushed the Vietnam War Into the back- grtMItld. 1 he busing Ins taken on national proportion so much so (hat after much debuting a moratorium on Ixising is pan anil parcel of the $ IS billion b ill fo r education. To tack It on to tlw most Important piece of legislation ever proposed to Iwlp Illg lair education is signi ficant indeed. As long as segregation was a it s ail over I Southern problem, tlw North could be self i Ighteous and point the finger of scorn at the South. Now tire North is also deeply involved in school desegregation, the two sec tions walk hand In hand to oppose Ixising. How strange! School children have teen bused In thlscountry, Iw re anil there, fo r 100 years o r more. Even now 43 per cent of school children are bused each and evory day and only 3 percent lias to do with racial balance. Anri yet we have made a moun tain out of an ant h ill in tlw Ixising situation. Whenthego- Ing gets hard. North ami South luck down If tlw black man is involved. It happened in 1877. I Miring tlw Post Reconstruc tion years tlw 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to tlw I 'n lt- od States Constitution were ernusculated in toto In many sections of this nation. What w ill happen to the Ed ucation B ill now before Con gress is not certain. The President Is on tils way toward dominating both Con gress ami the Federal courts. the executive d ire c to r ol die National Urban I.eague fears that "b la c k people are going out of style*' and white Americans, weary o l the rectal struggle, w ill let die movement w ittie r as w hite1 did a fte r the C iv il War. Ihe Reconstruction Period was a decade of "bold social experiment amJ Innovation" during which blacks made many gains in die firs t year- altei the abolition of slavery ami con>|uest of the confeder- 1 y. said Vernon Joidan. White supremacists regain ed die u p i«i hand in die South d ie i die federal government's initial fxii st ol enthusiasm for black rights waned. "Unce again, the North leems weary of the struggle,” Joidan told the board of tru st ee . of the league. He warned d t the gains of the activists I the 1960s may le eroded in tlie 1970s. "Once again, the i ighteous ause of black people seems relegated to National neglect. C iting statistics that show one-quarter o l a ll American over age 65 live in poverty, form er Senator W ayne Morse urged Increases in Social Se cu rity lieriefits ami medtci care. " I oday, more than 4.7 m il lion individuals 65 and over fall [«low the poverty line, . " \ : „ 1 we could abolish poverty among tie elderly fo r what it costs to run tlie war in Southeast Asia fo r just three months. We ixild broaden medical cover age to include out-of-bospital By Bryant Rollins side, C a lif.; Ann A rbor, Mich.; ami Boston, Maas. D r. A rm o r conducted stan dardized academic tests on Black students from (he six cities. in all instances, " tlw Black children showed no significant improvement* In the inte grated settings. In tlw Boston study, in fact, elementary school pupils kept in tlw predominantly Black neighborhood schools per formed slightly better than those bused to middle-class suburban schools. The notion that Black c h il dren learn test In an Inte grated school setting is, I be lieve, a fundamentally racial notion. In sim pler term s. It says tliat anything that Is all-B lack, such as a school o r school system. Is by nature In fe rio r. It says that anything that Is all-w hite or mostly while is, by Its nature le tte r, o r super ior. In other words, to say that Black children w ill learn best In an integrated school is an other way of saying "W hite is 'IghC Black stay back." With a ll die rhetoric about Black Is Beautiful and soforth, !t*s surprising that we haven't overcome such basic negative feelings about ourselves ami our people. D r. A rm o r's studydld, how ever, make an interesting point In favor of integrated ed ucat ion. He found that Black students in Integi ated schools are more likely to be channeled intocol- leges and universities than those in all or predominantly Black schools. This is nothing new to us. F o r years, we have known that guidance Counselors in Black schools tend to discour age rather than encourage our children from aggressively pursuing professional o r col lege careers. D r. A rm o r's study is Im portant to Black pa rents in that It arms those of us who feel that the present solution to urban educational problems is not through busing ami odier nwthods of integration, but through a massive two pronged attack to bring quality mine a lion to the innei cities. F irs t: We must create suc cessful alternative schools in Black communities; schools (vised on sound ami progres sive educational concepts; schools that experiment with new curricula ami teaching techniques; schools that con vey to our children that pecu lia rly Black culture ami s p irit combined with solid academ ic standards. Second: We must gain poli tical ami economic control of dw public schools In Black communities and begin to transfer (be lessons learned in alternative schools into the public schools w tere the masses of Black children re- ma In. I! we use it properly, the Information in D r. A rm o r’ .tudy can represent a sig n ifi cant step in both of these directions. t >ne of the m ajor blocks in tlie development of alterna tive all-B la ck schools and the snuggle fo r quality education in innei city public schools has teen the way in which Black in leadership positions, aril ordinary m iddle-class Blacks as w ell, have assumed that they had to move out in ordei foi their children to learn w e ll. This has had the effect of fra ctu iin g and dividing our energ les. While many Black parent may s till want to send then children to integrated schools fo r personal, non-educatn nal reasons. It is n o l ngerneces- sary fo r any Black parents to (eel that he must do so in or der to obtain a le tte r education for his child. This puts the Ixising issue Into Its p ro je r perspective. Busing should be maintained as an option fo r those parents who, fo r personal reasons, want th e ir children to attend schools with white children. I believe that the num lers alone, however, require that we turn our energies and at tention to tlie schools in Black communities. Most Black bildren aie captives of tliese schools. Parents, teachers and stu dents must begin to join to gether in a massive effort to levelop alternative se m i-p ri- vale schools; and to gain ful ummunity control of the pub lic schools. th is is not the time to aban- lon the unsuccessful attempt to decentralize control of tie schools. Now is tie time to move from decentralization to full community control. Integration has not worked. Whites controlling predom inantly Black schools has not worked. There is no o tte r reason able option. Representative John Con yers, J r., | lernocrat from Michigan, is preparing a reso lution calling for the impeach ment of President Nixon fo r "exceeding his Constitutional authority to w age w a r.” A m ajority vote is required In the House to bring thePres- xlent before the l .S. Senate fo r tria l. A conviction which would force his removal from office requires a tw o -th ird s vote in the Senate, only President Antirew Johnson has faced im peachment, in 1868, and that e ffo rt failed. Postal Academy to close Hie Postal Academy P ro gram, loc.it«) In six cities across tlie country, involving approximately 1500 staff and students at an annual budget o l 4 m illio n d ollars has been evaluated by the I >epa rtment of Labor as an “ asset to their c itie s ." Ih e evaluators took time to document die " a ir of exuberance" In these store front schools accommodating young high school dropouts looking forward to th e ir High School Equivalency Diplomas a.xl a chance fo r a college experience. Despite proven success and die crying need to restore the victim s of our Inner city schools, the Postal Academy Program Is being closed down! The Postal Academy P ro gram has Its roots In the decade long experience of the New York Urban I.eague Street Academy Program . ■ here, a handful of men dally fac«l the desperation on the faces an) In the hearts of urban youth and slowly evolv«l the concepts and practices which became Street Acade- n iW t and Harlem Prep. Late In 1969, a few of the leailers In New York brought thelrvast experience and successful motel to Washington and con vinced the Post Office Depart ment, Labor and O.E.O. to inaugurate a (« to ta lly funded program m arrying the con cepts ami experience of the street academies with the re - sou ic e s of the Postal Service. The academy staff was select«! p rim a rily from quallftod postal employees in terest«! In dealing with youth, who were then detail«! to the prugiam fu lltim e . Academy students received part-tim e Jobs In the Post Office In the evenings. In addition, tfe Post Office provided such services as educational m aterials from their dead le tte ro fflce , trans portation and administrative support. More important than tlie structure mid services to the success ol tlie Postal Academy Program is the attitude which the staff has toward high school drop-outs. It Ixdieves that students In the academies have as high o r higher poten tia ls then those who remain in school. It feels they dropped out fo r a variety of reasons that often had nothing to do with academics- need fo r a job, re te ll ion against the public school society, trouble with the law, fam ily d iffic u ltie s , pregnancy. Therefore, It feels that if an atmosphere of learning and development different from the public school which they left can 1« cre a t« l in the aca demy, there Is no reason that the students could not achieve For thia reasot^ II emphasizes motivation, self concept, ami academics rather than Job training. F o r this reason, too, it encourages the stu dents to aspire high - beyond the CED to further «lucation or to a Challenging career. The program emphasizes three points which It believes are important in its ability to reach dropouts. F irs t, It telleves that academics must te set in the student's life context ami that his everyday needs must be met as well as his academic needs. Thus, tie academies have unique staff m enders called street workers, who establish close relationships with students, counsel them, and meet th e ir housing, job, health, legal, ami other personal needs wlenever required— regard less of tim e o r day. It Is trying to correct a fa ilu re of tie public schools ami most social service agencies which only deal with a part of youth's life ami to come to term s with his total life. Secondly, tie Postal Aca demy Program believes that tie establishment of friendly, trusting relationships among staff and students Is a pre requisite fo r motivation ami learning to take place. Thus, in tie selection of staff, the D ire cto r of an Academy places greater emphasis on tie ability of the staff member to convey genuine concern, respect, ami appreciation to the students than on his aca demic o r professional creden tials. T h i r d l y , the program, through Its academic and re lated a ctivities, attempts to help the student to place all knowl«lge, skills, ami con cepts in a context of a la rger search fo r adequate values ami life style fo r a |»rson of tlie future. It Iielleves that know ledge is worthless unless a student places It In a context of what he thinks is important " T o be blunt, it appears that black people are going out of style, that our aspirations and ideals are being shunted aside as the Nation's energies are diverted to other Issues in what appears to be a faddist, escapist rush from the de cisions and basic changes needed to resolve tlie tru ly crucial issues of ou so cie ty." * SHOP Once again, a period of Na tional reconstruction and re form seems doomed to be un- flnislie<l ami uncompleted." FO R #> BRANDS you Icnov VARIETIES you Uki SIZES you w a n t The Friendliest Stores In Town| Since 1908 • I a d ,...... . 1 ^ . o .’ T . i T a x . • MEMBfR OF UNITED GROCERS Morse asks aid for eldely A myth of integration At last, someone has crane forth with hard data that de stroys tlw myth that Black children learn to read, w rite and count Iwttei w lw ntlw yare sitting in ra cia lly integrated classrooms than in all-B lack classes. P rof. David J. A rm o r, a white sociologist from Har- vaid U niversity, has Just re leased results of a study con ducted in six cities which shows (h it Black children, in fact, do not learn le tte r In In tegrated schools than In a ll- Black schools. Not only that, but according to (he study, racial integr at ion in echoola terxls to heighten racial awareness and to in crease die desire among Blacks fo r separation from whites. 3 Ida study, (to le published in fu ll) in tlw Summer Issue of "T h e Public Interest*' Is Im portant reading lo r all parents concerned about the education of th e ir children. T h is report destroys two myths: 1. Our child rendo not neces sarily learn le tte r in Inte grated schools. 2. The fact of Integration, Black and white side by stile, does not Improve race rela tions, It worsens race rela tions. The study was conducted In White Plains, N.Y.; New Haven ami H artford, Conn.; R iver I bursday, J 11 to him and what lie wants to do with his life . In May 1970, the Postal Academy Program firs t opened its doors to an initial group of 250 students in sites in five c itle s -A tla n ta .C h i a- go, I >etroit, San Francisc md Washington, D.C. located in a variety of renovated com munity buildings in the ui San centers. Each of the aca demies recruited an initial group of fifty high school dr p- outs, aged 16-22, under the direction of a local community oriented D ire cto r. In the two years since then, tlie PAP ad.led two new aca demies in the existing cities and opened a new academy in Newark. The enrollment has grown to 1,275 and the academies are showing the firs t fru its of success. As of January 1972, scarcely one and one-half years after open ing, the Postal Academy Pro gram has recorded 58 students who are Incollege, 95 students who have received their high school equivalency diploma, 103 students who entered full time employment, 16 students who entered the armed set- vices, ami 57 students who returned to public schools. In November 1971, the Depart ment of Labor conducted an extensive evaluation ami had high praise fo r the quality of die staff ami of the educational program andofthcenthusiastn of the students. In its firs t year of operation, the Postal Academy Prugiam was fInane«) by the Depart- inent ot Labor ami the Office of Econumtciipportunity while the Post office Department contributed ten percent of the total 4 m illio n budget. As now, no formal funding a r rangements were established ami the money was allocated through informal arrange ments between the Secretaries of Labor and OEO ami then Postmaster General Winton Blount. prescription drugsforw hatw e now spend on a single a irc ra ft c a r r ie r ." Morse made these rem arks in giving tfie keynote address to the annual meeting of the Oregon State Council on senior C itizens. Reminding the audience that he was a sponsor of one of the firs t Medicare b ills , Morse noted, "M edicare now cov ers only 43 percent of th e ir health care expenditures. And that coverage is being fu rth e r eroded with the proposed cut backs and rising medical care costs." "T h e sad truth is that se ri ous illness strikes with much greater frequency and sever ity at a time of life when in- :omes are most lim ite d ," Morse continued, “ Older Americans have health b ills averaging $800 a y e a r.” Turning to Social Security, he said he has always sup ported cost of living increases in benefits, m t added, "S ocial security benefits m u s tfirs tb e raised to a more re a listic lev el ie fo re employing this esca lator mechanism." Morse said the problem of aging reaches down into the 40's and 50's, as men are be ing forced out of th e ir jobs be cause of age discrim ination, despite laws against such practices. "W e cannot afford to take a productive man out of a productive job simply on the basis of age." He added, "W e must ex amine alternatives to the "all o r nothing’ principle by which one must either work o r re tire , to prov ide fo r such alter natives as phased retirem ent, sabbaticals, and p a rt-tim e permanent employment.” Our country cannot allow compartmentallz«! bureau cracy to destroy the hopes of thousands of young dropouts attempting to make it within the system. > Stainless Steel Blades Guaranteed to Stay Sharp For 30 YEARS ' < 7 » ♦ *' | , Y es, you g e t a ll 17 s u p e r-s h a rp k n iv e s fo r o n ly $ 9 .9 5 ! D e lu xe se t in c lu d e s a ll the k n iv e s you need fo r food p re p a ra tio n , c a rv in g and s e rv in g - sh ip p ed d ire c t to you from the m a n u fa ctu re r in S o lin g e n , W e st G e rm a n y! You w o u ld n o rm a lly e x p e c t to pay S2 each fo r kn ive s o f th is q u a lity and handsom e d e s ig n . This b ig 1 7 -p ie c e s e t of im p o rte d C u tle ry is a c tu a lly g u a ra n te e d n o t to need sh a rp e n in g fo r 30 years from d ate o f p u r c h a s e ! O rder TODAY. S u p p lie s lim ite d . M A IL O R D E R M A R T . D ept Chuck Stone, resigning from his position as m inority af fa irs d ire cto r fo r the Educa tional Testing Service, said the company’ s college en trance exams that a re given to hundreds of thousands of gra duating high schoo students across the country, are dis crim in a to ry. He said the tests do not measure creativity and that the E.T.S. tests reinforce racism. 2701 S terlington R d M onroe. Louisiana Please send me the 1 7 piece 16 Suite 132 71201 m ported knife set com pletely satisfied, I w ill rttu r n refu nd it If I am not w ith in 10 davs for a full Nam® , Adórni City __ S ta te . Z'P_ OPEN SATURDAY MORNINGS MODERN LIFELIKE Who w ill suffer? Those with careers w ill continue. Those in the Postal Academy Program with credentials w ill choose new jobs. Again, only the students in the academy w ill suffer, only they w ill come to a dead end, maybe the final deadend. The Postal Academy Pro gram must not be allow«) to shut downl Pressure must be brought on the offices of the Postmaster General, the Sec retary of Labor and tlie Sec retary of Health, Education and Welfare to face up to their obligation to plrce the pro gram in a suitable home to see that it is refunded. The Office of Management and Budget has attempt«! to resolve this dilemma but to no avail. Now Congress must demand that action te taken by the adminis tration to preserve the only successful alternative to the inner-city dropout c ris is . 17-Piece Deluxe > Cutlery i I . Set for TOOTH EXTR A C TIO N S . YOU CAN W EAR YOUR NEW DENTURE W HEN YO U W AKE. 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