I
Mrs rra n c'? » Scnoen- ew spaper ro e n
U n iv e r s it y o f Oregon L ib r a r y
PORTLAND
OBSERl/ER
Voi. 6 No. 32
Portland, Oregon
Thuraday, June 24, 1976
lOr per copy
insults Blacks
I)r. Arthur Shenfield, a distinguished
British economist and attorney, insulted
Black Americans in an economics ir.sti
tute being held at the University of Port
land, according to Tom Vickers, a student
in the institute.
In discussing an unexpected occurance
on that just slipped up- Shenfield liken
ed it to an "African in a silicone forest",
the British intellectual version of "a nig
ger in a woodpile".
After the session ended, Vickers told
Dr. Shenfeld that he had been insulted
and angered by the remark. Shenfeld of
fered an apology, but Vickers refused it,
saying that he must apologize to the class
since he had said it to the clr.ss. Shenfield
walked away without replying.
Vickers said Dr. Finster. who is coor
dinating the institute lor the Oregon Col
lege of Education, told him that OCE is
not responsible ior the statements of a
professor and that it was beyond his
perogative to require an apology.
Shenfeld has been the Director of the
International Institute for Economic Re
search, Economic Director of the Feder
ation of British Industries, Visiting Lec
turer at the London Graduate School of
Business, and Exai linor in Economics at
the University of Iondon. He practiced
(Please turn to page 2. col. 1)
SENATOR GEORGE FLEMING
Washington Senator speaks
W ashington State Senator, George
Fleming, will be featured speaker « . th»
Bicentennial Banquet at the Prince Hall
Grand lod ge of Oregon.
Fleming, elected state representative
in 196H, has made an outstanding iegisla
tive record. He was voted outstanding
freshman legislator of the 1969 season by
the Committee for Good Government.
He was elected State Senator in 1970
and re elected in 1974. Fleming was
elected Majority Caucus Vice Chairman
for the 1973 and 1975 sessions. He served
as chairman of the Ixx-al Government
Committee and as a member of the Ways
and Means and Judiciary Committees.
Fleming is a graduate of the University
of Washington, where he earned a BA in
Business Administration. He was a mem
her of the 1960 61 Washington Rose Bowl
Team and was voted “Outstanding Play
er." He played professional ball for the
Oakland Raiders and the Winnipeg Blue
Bombers.
Fleming is an economic development
manager for Pacific Northwest Bell.
Senator Bill McCoy will introduce the
banquet speaker. Grand Master Tom
Vickers invites the public to the Bicen
tennial Banquet, which will be held at
Town Hall, 3425 N. Montana. Monday at
7:00 p.m. The banquet is part of the
Annual Communication of the P'ince Hall
Grand Lodge and Prince Hall Grand
Chapter of Oregon and its Jurisdiction.
Gates gains national office
Mr. Osly J. Gates of Portland was
elected this week as one of the national
vice presidents of the National Council on
the Aging. Incorporate« at its National
Executive Board meeting which conven
ed at the Sheraton Park Hotel in Wash
ington, D.C. Mr. Gates, the Executive
Director of the City-County Commission
on Aging in Portland, was elected to the
National Board of Directors of the NCOA
a year ago. He will now serve as chair
man of the Urban Elderly Committee for
NCOA and also on the National Execu
tive Committee. The National Council on
the Aging, Incorporated has prepared a
public policy statement on the elderly for
presentation to the 1976 Democratic and
Republican Platform Committees.
Mr. Gates was recently honored by
(Please turn to page 2, col. 4)
A view from the Goodyear blimp.
Jefferson High School in center right.
Local runners support
Dick Gregory effort
Ixtcal participants will join the Dick
Gregory Bicentennial Food Run this
weekend, running, walking and cycling
from Colegio Cesar Chavez in Mt. Angel
to laurelhurst Park in Portland on June
27th.
Dick Gregory is running from Los
Angeles to New York to dramatize the
issue of hunger in the United States end
abroad. He runs fifty miles a day, six
days a week to alert Americans to the
need for another Bill of Rights - The
Right To Eat.
Announcing his run in January of this
year, Gregory said, "The fact that 10
mniion human beings starved to death
during 1975 -- while America continued
to glut itself, to suffer massive cardiac
arrests from overeating, and to virtually
ignore its hungry, aged, and poor who
were driven to steal food from the
supermarket shelves - is a moral issue
which simply must be made a critical
political issue during the 1976 Presi
dential campaign. This single issue will
be the central theme of my 1976 Run
Against Hunger.
“On my Run, I will start among the
Black community and move out to all
America to elicit recognition of the basic
right of all human beings to be free
from hunger.
"Both the hungry poor in America,
and the starving poor throughout the
world, have the right to have this issue
to be addressed by America on the
eve of its beginning of its third cen
tury. More particularly, the hungry Na
tive Americans and the minority com
munities in the United States, and the
"Most Seriously Affected" nations of the
world designated by the United Nations
World Food Conference, have a right to
have their condition understood by the
American people during this American
’birthday’ celebration."
Gregory has asked that each Ameri
can who is able to donate a penny or
more for each mile he runs, setting a
goal of $6 million to be distributed to
combat hunger and to stimulate agricul
ture development. Among the organiza
tions designated to receive funds are:
NAACP, SCLC, American Friends Ser
vice Committee, Jesuit National Office
of Social Ministry. YMCA International
Division: Binder-Schweitzer Foundation,
United Church Board of Homeland Mini
stries, Oxfam American, Save the Child
ren Federation, Youth Project. Missouri
Delta Ecumenical M inistry, United
Farmworkers Service Center.
Oregonians who are running in sup
port of Dick Gregory will leave Colegio
Cesar Chavez at 7:00 a.m. Bikers will
leave at 11:00 a.m. All will gather at
W estm oreland Park at 3:00 p.m. in
order to go together to Laurelhurst
Park, where a celebration will be held
at 4:30 p.m.
Racial bedlam in South Africa
by Jon Stewart and Patrick Lufkin
(PNS) The white minority regime of
South Africa facing mounting pressure
against its racial policies from Black Afri
ca is battling to prevent disclosures of
a new scandal involving one of the harsh
est applications of apartheid: the treat
ment of Black mental patients.
In reaction to newspaper allegations
that thousands of Black mental patients
are confined in evacuated mining com
pounds and hired out as cheap labor, the
government has passed legislation pro
viding penalties for unauthorized publi
ration of photos or "false information"
about the institutions or patients.
The labour and Progressive Reform
parties joined many major South African
newspapers in condemning the ruling
Nationalist Party for escalating the racial
tensions and for its "mania for secrecy".
Under South Africa's apartheid philo
sophy Black and "colored" (racially mixed
persons are theoretically to be treated as
separate but equal in relation to whites.
In practice, the equality is often over
looked.
When overcrowding in the state owned
mental institutions led the state to trans
fer more than two-fifths of the mentally
ill population to privately owned institu
tions fashioned out of former mining
compounds, almost all the victims were
Blacks.
Squalid conditions
The new censorship bill was introduced
in February following publication of
newspaper articles and photographs re
vealing the squalid conditions in the
private asylums, all owned by a con
sortium railed Smith Mitchell and Com
pany.
The articles documented reports that
the firm had taken control of much of
South Africa's mental health program.
Among other allegations:
• Sm ith Mitchell operates thirteen
evacuated mining compounds housing
11.500 Black and 760 white mental pa
tients.
• The Black patients are hired out by
the company to local industries as cheap
labor. Patients are rewarded with allo
cations of randy and tobacco, and wages
go toward im provem ent of company
owned facilities. An undisclosed amount
is said to be invested in African trust
funds set up for Blacks.
• The hospital staffs - hired and paid
by the government include no full time
psychiatrists. White supervisors and five
to ten nurses and aides rare for up to
1.000 patients In some institutions.
• The compounds are similar to "con
centration camps," featuring high walls,
mesh wire windows and cold, overcrowd
ed dormitories. Patients sleep on thin
mats made of straw, on a concrete floor.
• Little or no medical or psychiatric
care is offered patients. Most hospitals
are visited once a week by a private
psychiatrist. In instances when electro
shock therapy has been administered,
only white patients are given an anes
thetic.
While 70 percent of the nation's 23
million population is Black or colored, all
of South Africa's 157 registered psychi
atrists and psychologists are white.
Health Ministry officials and officers
of Smith Mitchell have flatly denied all
allegations, including a Johannesburg
Sunday Times report that Smith Mitch
ell was making "millions out of mad
ness."
Acting Secretary of Health Dr. J.
Gilliland told the Durban Sunday Tri
bune. “The state doesn't make a bean
out of it. neither do (those w»<o control
Smith Mitchell.) There's certainly no
profit motive involved. They're lucky if
they break even on the deal."
But a spokesperson for the firm,
David Tabatznik, had already acknow
(edged that "We are there to make a
profit, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing
it."
He maintained, however, that without
the private institutions thousands of
Black mental patients would receive no
care whatsoever.
Gilliland claimed it was necessary to
refer the patients - whom he described
as “burnt-out cases" -- to the private
(Please turn to page 4, col. 1)
The view from Bedlam, in South Africa
♦
Photo by Dan Long