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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 5, 1976)
I August 6th. 1970 Democratic National Convention W? see the world by Yvane Copley News Service through Black eyes I No panic in China • * « « » » * » { * ' i l M I M I »»»♦««< M I «09999««999« f» 8 « I M I 9009009991 - The reaction of the Chinese people in the wake of x the disosterous earthquake that killed tens of thou- = sands of people and distroyed some of the nation's E most important cities can be compared to the reac- = tion of Americans in times of crisis. EL According to the reports of foreigners who were in — China during the quake, the people responded with- EEs out panic and aided each other. The people moved quicky and quietly to reach safety and to help others reach safety. Following the disaster, calm has reign ed. In the United States, we have not only witnessed panic, but every disaster seems to be followed by looting. It is every man for himself, even at the expense of others. Some observers have explained that the Chinese are used to regimentation and submerge their own needs to those of the group, whereas Americans are taught to ba individualists. There must be a way to teach individualism and practice democracy without losing all concern for other individuals or for the common good. Perhaps one factor in the Chinese response is planning. Their government has expected an earth quake and prepared for it. We have no plans in the event of disaster — in fact, most families do not even take the time to formalize a plan with their children in case of a fire in their home. But the overriding difference seems to be a differ ence in attitude — the attitude we see practiced every day in business and in every aspect of our lives - that of looking out for ourselves at the expense of the other guy. Perhaps the Chinese have found that “commun ity” Barbara Jordan was talking about. Deaatioialize games Every four years there is renewed concern about the politicization of the Olympic games and talk about how the Olympics are supposed to be contests between individuals. Yet each time there Is the inevitable counting of each country's medals. This year there were the boycotts by African nations, the rejection of Taiwan, the threats of the United States and the Soviet Union to withdraw. Perhaps the answer would be to eliminate nation ality altogether — let each athlete compete for himself and forget national desigration, flag waving and the national anthems. Then the Olympics could again be “for the ath letes." ¿■other Potat of View With all deliberate spaed by Benjamin L Hooks FCC Commissioner Last month, CBS held a preview showing of a dramatic documentary. With All Diliberate Speed. The title was taken from the Supreme Court ruling a year after the historic school desegregation decision of 1954. The film stirred poignant memories and vividly underlined why the struggle for equal educa tional opportunity, through busing, or whatever means, must not be deterred by bigots who would turn back the clock or fhe “ Sunshine soldiers" who duck for cover at the slightest hint of an opposing rain. It was, indeed, a painful recounting of two men, one Black — Rev. Albert J. DeLaine, played brilliantly by Paul Winfield, and the other white - Federal District Judge J. Waities Waring, staunchly portrayed by John Randolph - who struggled and plotted to end segregation in Clarendon County (South Caro lina) schools in the 1940's. The case was lost, with Judge Waring issuing the lone dissent in a three-Judge court decision. Never theless, the case, Briggs vs. Elliot, became one of five consolidated in the famous landmark Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansos, decision which ripped forever from the American fabric like a gangrenous sore, the separate but equal dictum that had been canon law since 1895. To many of us it was a slice of real life racing across that silver screen. The story was told in the sensitive faces of those Black, saintly children as they steed forlornly while white kids boarding the fami liar (now embattled) yellow school bus stuck out their tongues, cruelly as children will, and taunted, “You can't ride this bus." It was a blatant statement of fact. Black children could ride no school buses. They had none. They trudged miles to school, past confer - table white well-equipped schools to ill-equipped one-room shacks that barely masqueraded as school rooms. There, huddled together in freezing ill-heat ed rooms, or sweltering torrid temperatures, they scratched for the dribs and drabs of a wretched and woefully inadequate education they managed dur ing a shortened school term. Is there any wonder that many see the truth in what the wry old Black observer once soid, "White folks sho' know that us Black folks is superior. 'Cause it takes 10 times as much money to educate them as it do us." We who lived in the south saw much of this. Not so much in the larger urban areas, but in the rural and the poorer backwoods areas of the south, where those of us who worked with Dr. King and Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the NAACP confronted it head on. How many Clarendon County, South Carolines were there? Too many. They stretched like an infinity of mirrors in a mad house of unending reflections. Although one would have been too many, they were everywhere in the south, the midwest, the far west indeed in many areas in the north. Judge Waiting died in the '60's in New York, an exile from his home where he was born to privilege and comfort. The Reverend DeLaine died in the 1970's in North Carolina, also an exile, driven like Waring, by the cretinous white bigots of that day. After desegregation. Clarendon County schools, today have become all Black. Nevertheless, these schools are a far greater improvement over those wretched wrecks Black children earlier attended. And, it seems to me, there are three hopeful lessons to be learned from the devastating experi ence: (1) that there are whites who are ready even now to lay their all on the line for decency, justice, equality, humanity, and indeed, are doing it; (2) young Blacks, so impatient for change, who see the revolution as having begun sometime in the early 1970's, must see from this film how much enduring time, effort, and suffering went into just this wee vignette of human struggle for school desegregation, the denouncement of which is still out there some where in a distant time warp; and (3) the long, historic leadership role of the Black minister and the Black church in the struggle for human dignity, freedom, and the keeping alive of a sense of com munity, personhood, and spirituality among our people. A curious twist to this, also, is the fact that hun dreds of thousands of Black victims of this shamefully inadequate education system made their way north to the auto plants of Detroit, the tractor works of Moline, Illinois, etc., and with their third-grade learning, worked to make a better life for their children. These are the present-day generation, many of whom look with disdain at historic Black sacrifice and scorn all past civil rights struggles as "irrele vant." What will life be like for their children? Who would have bsltovsd that the . Democratic National Convention would end w ith M artin L uther King Sr. giving the benediction to a cheering audience, clasped in harmony w ith the Democratic nominee who accepted pledges of support from California Governor Je rry Brown and form er Alabama Governor Georgs Wallace? The U n ity party, as the Democratic Party has now become known, appears to have accomplished a nearly incompre hensible fe a t I t has coalesced behind Jimmy C arter, a stranger from Georgia. W h at exactly is the C a rte r mystique? I ’ve heard some say it is his ability to be all things to all people, largely by saying nothing. Though thia fallacy grew during the campaign, it is not based upon fact. As a member of the Democratic Platform Committee, I can verify that there are 45 position papers in the C a rte r campaign covering each issue in detail. These posi tions cover everything from the elvsl of defense spending, nuclear proliferation, welfare reform to agriculture. During his acceptance speech, C a rts r reviewed these positions in detail. But this year the positions on issues are not the paramount consideration. The American people are looking for leader ship. A t the last tw o Democratic conven tions. issues were paramount. Significant social change was in progress. The turm oil and acrimony, though frightening, is an extension of free and open expression of opinion, so cherished in our democracy. Those w ith divergent views must never be excluded from the processes of the Democratic P arty. But the price of division on issues is high. The political reality is that the great body of Americans who vote the middle of the road, who retain a healthy skepti cism of politics and politicians, aren't go ing to vote for a party embroiled In controversy. These mainstream A m eri cans back off from politicians who haven't resolved their differences. Since these are the voters who determ ine elections, the nation has smarted under eight years at united, but tragic. Republican leader ship. T h ia i : year, 1978, is the year for Demo crats to unite and assume leadership. Jimmy C arter is the rig ht man a t the rig ht time. He w ent to the people. Democrats fin ally noticed a man who won in the p ri maries, following a truly democratic pro cess. They saw a man who gains his extraordinary strength from a funda mentalist adherence to basic values and who is surrounded by supporters who are devoted, not to an ideology or economic theory or goad, but to a person in whom they have tremendous confidence. I have been naked again and again, how can Blacks accept a Southern w hite can didate? The answer has been very clear. Blacks that worked w ith C a rte r in a difficult political environment knew him to be uncompromising on the very basic quali ties such as justice and equality. He is known for giving people a fair break. Jimm y C arter is a man who, on the basis of pai t performance, can be expect ed to offer equity, justice and equal op portunity to Blacks. Given the treatm ent they have received in the past, this is a rare man indeed. * i ^ Jimmy C a rts r wl In 1979 I had I presiding a t the Io i most tumultuous, cratic convention i was a real pleasui sional colleagu Barbara Jordan i note speech and L frst woman to chi vention. 1 was honored b of Governor J e rr but many have i decision to remaii candidate was di' I am sure Gov reviewed the imp in light of his own as its impact on There were man; sidered and weigh to be nominated « the magnitude of I ed in the few shori in spite of a pre« Governor Brow enthusiasm in you diverse status. 7 some conclusion t Je rry Brown has i and 1 also know support the Demo I f there was any fear in my mind that Carter subscribed to that biblical phrase. “Vengeance ia Mine, sayeth the Lord." they w ere dispelled when I was asked to second the nomination for vice president for Senator W alter Mondale, a person I greatly adm ire and respect M y hope is that the unity theme can spread from the Madison Square Garden out over the whole United State«. Pullman porters win (Continued from p. 1 col. 8) awarded. Basically, the court found that had there not been discrimination on the p art of Pullman against its porters, those por ters would have been promoted to con ductor jobs and received higher pay- In February, six years a fter the suit was originally filed and a fte r appeals to both the 10th U.S. Circuit Court o f Ap peals in Denver and the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge A rra j ruled th a t Pullman had discriminated against the former employes. T w e lv e Blacks w ere promoted to the position of conductor in 1987, but the suit claimed that they had to give up all the seniority they had accumulated as por tera and were placed on the bottom line of the conductor's list, behind junior con ductors. Although railroad retirem ent benefits w ere included in the suit, the court stated that the Railroad Retirem ent Board is the appropriate body to consider and resolve this question. W hile the special master now compiles his list of the eligible porters, the court ordered him to request the Equal E m ployment Opportunity Commission to d raft a form of notice to all members of the class action. His report is due back to the court as Phase H I in the ease by February 9th, 1977. Only Pullman porters who actually worked as porter in charge on or a t any tim e a fter October 25th, 1985 are eligible for the back pay awards as ruled by the circuit court. This eliminates Pullman at tendanta. For further information contact W illie L. Leftwich. Hudson. Leftw ich A Davenport, 1101 Fifteenth Street N orthw est, Suite 808. Washington, D.C. 20006. Telephone: (202) 452 1566. p 'j. n 't a . ï t ■'q* »KT .07-^ Carter foreign policy (Continued from p. 1 col. 8) pute the amount of back pay relief to be on detente w ith the Soviet Union to a strengthening of ties w ith our allies and with N A T O . Having rejected both the Schlesinger and Kissinger strategies. C arter may be more w illing to compromise in the S A L T (Strategic Arm s Lim itation) talkea than President Ford. H e says he is committed “to reach an agreement w ith the Soviet Union on definitive and substantial re ductions, carefully balanced if possible, la actual total nuclear capability." C a rte r says his ultim ate goal to "nuc lear disarmament" - reduction of world nuclear arms to saro. H e also rejects the need for exact equality w ith the Soviets in the numbers and sise of every weapon s system. He says calculations of slight advantages for either side are not a “ma for consideration”. C arter’s expectations of S A L T easily exceed those of the present administra tion, wihe has sought only to lim it the number of nuclear weapons deployed by On the question of nuclear non-prolif eration, C arter has also gone beyond the administration's position "by linking the issue with nuclear arms reductions by the U.S. and Soveiet Union. “T he longer effective arms reduction is postponed," says C arter, "the more likely it to that other nations will be encouraged to develop their own nuclear capability." He added, "W e have little rig h t ot ask others to deny themselves such weapons for the indefinite future unless we dem onstrate meaningful progress toward the goal of control, then reduction, and ulti mately elimination of nuclear arsenals." In other areas of defense policy. Car ter's positions are closer to Ford's. He says be would reduce sales of conven tional arms to the Third World, and pled ged to “work w ith our allies, some of whom are also selling arms, and also seek to work w ith the Soviets, to increase the emphasis on peace and to reduce the commerce in weapons of w ar." Defense spending would probably con tinue to rise under Carter, though a t a lower rate than under a Republican Pres ident. C arter calls for a modest »5 - 7 billion cut from this year's record »119 billion defense requst, which would still provide for growth over last year's bud «•*- In the end. Carter's statements on the maintainence of a strong conventional defense while limiting U .8 . incursions in to internal foreign wars are positions virtually any of the candidates could a- bide by. But his apparent disavowal of the Schlesinger counterforce strategy makes inevitable a lively debate over the question of w hat rival strategy he w ill substitute for bargaining w ith the U.S.'s chief rival, the Soviet Union. 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