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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (July 28, 1977)
Thursday. July 28. 1977 W? see the world through Black eyes I School Board offers 'trick bag’ The people spoke — but the Board of Education did not hear. It is simply amazing to observe these intelligent, educated people — attorneys, social workers, etc. — hear organization after organization, individual after individual give the same simple message and not understand what is being said. After four hours of public testimony. Board member Frank McNamara actually said that the community is only concerned about the elements of the Newman plan that would hove barred students from king and Boise from attending Jefferson. This after repeated testimony requesting a study of the entire desegregation program and the establishment of a committee to recommend a new desegregation program, complaints about treatment of students, questions about the quality of education. It is just further evidence that the Board has not the slightest intention of allowing citizens and parents any voice in their operation. The “third Newman plan" was read and approved at the beginning of the meeting - with copies passed out to the public after it was passed. Although this plan was written on July 20, it was not presented to the public or the press prior to the Board meeting. Although stripped of some of its more negative aspects, it is still a "Newman plan" and does not speak to the issues raised by the public. No, the Board has not heard the message. The arrogance of the Board was demonstrated as it said, in effect, “You won't accept our plan so make your own. If we don't like it, we will pass our own next January." Not only did the Board dump the problem in the lap of the Black community, but it was set up to fail. Where is the technical assistance, the information and the communication our taxes purchase. These were not offered. We doubt that any such move has been mode by any responsible public body. It con only be seen as a petty reaction to those organizations who refused to support the Newman plans. in anger and frustration. This anger and frustration must now be directed toward positive action. We predict that the MHRC, the Urban League and the NAACP will get together with all other concerned organizations and individuals and will appoint a broad-based committee that will carry out the functions requested by the people — to make an in-depth study of the twelve years of desegregation in Portland, including the related areas of achieve ment, curriculum, discipline, social adjustment, staffing, etc., and to prepare a comprehensive long-range desegregation/integration plan. This activity of course will require the cooperation of the school district in supplying data — something the district has been reluctant to do. Because this type of study will take longer than the December 12th deadline set by the Board, the Board must hold any action until the study is completed. If it decides to go ahead with this or any other Newman plan, the battle lines will be drawn. Another threat that was made Monday night was the elimination of Boise school. Many parents predicted that if a stand was taken against the school district, the retaliation would be made against Boise. Boise is still a “ racially isolated" school, but we have seen no positive activity on the part of the Board to bring white students into Boise. The responsibility for this should not rest soley with the Boise staff but should be shared with the district administration and, if necessary, with the Board. It can be considered a slap in the face of the voters that Monday's meeting was also the meeting at which a two-year extension was added to Dr. Blanchard's contract — a contract that would not have expired until 1979 anyway. With growing concern and discontent across the district, this move was irresponsible at best. Where tis the concern and responsibility of the Bord — to the superintendent or to the students and the people who elect them. JatíM lo tke, Edito, More on prison Justice To the Editor: Thank you for printing my letter. "Justice a Game or Chance". There to no simple solution to the complex problems of prisons. But the first step toward any answer, I believe, to to look at both sides of what to happening in here, as you are doing. What to the staff of the Oregon Penitentiary trying to hide? Recently, the staff said they had been told by "confidential reliable informant«" that I hit a roan over the head with a piece of steel in the weightlifting room. I was taken before the disciplinary com mittee (three staff members); they read the charge and asked if I had anything to say. Listed as one of the rights of an accused prisoner in the prison "Rules of Procedure" to: "An inmate has a right to submit questions to be posed by the Disciplinary Committee to any person." So I asked for an investigation of this charge brought on by whomever it to that the staff puts its confidence in and feels is reliable. I told the disciplinary committee that there were several witnesses who would testify on my behalf. After several minutes of arguments they granted me an investigation. The Disciplinary Committee's investi gator, Mr. Stone, was given a list of fourteen witnesses and a list of specific questions to ask them. The questions are ¿A simple, my handwriting to legible, and I felt confident that it the investigator would read the questions to the witnesses and record the answers, the informants would be proved wrong. I felt confident of this until I found out how M r. Stone to conducting the investigation. Joe Bishop, one of my n ¡tussent, recently came to the Segregation and Isolation Building where I am being held. Mr. Stone had already seen him in regards to my case. I asked Joe if he had been asked the questions I submitted. In my case the time element to crucial to establish where I was on the prison yard. My questions to the witnesses bring out the fact that I aras at the opposite end of the yard when the man got hit. Mr. Stone to asking his own questions, questions designed apparently to put me anywhere else on the prison yard at that time. In a few days I will appear before the Disciplinary Committee again. The questions I submitted will be read into the record and the answers of the witnesses will be read into the record. No mention will be made that the answers are not answers to the questions I submitted, but rather answers to questions of M r. Stone. Much has been made about a prisoner's right to appeal the decision of the Disciplinary Committee to the Court of Appeals. Several newspapers have had articles on the fairness of this procedure. A t first glance it does seem fair. But the only facts the Public Defender or any lawyer has to work with on appeal, are the ones recorded by the Disciplinary Committee. I f these records are not accurate, there is little chance that the Disciplinary Committee's decision will be overturned. I feel that what the Disciplinary Committee to doing would not be con sidered ethical in a public trial. I have asked the staff to take the case downtown and try me in a criminal trial. I f they have the facts, evidence, and informants to accuse me of a felony, then let's do it. I have nothing to hide, my witnesses have nothing to hide, and if the staff has nothing to hide, there should be no objection. The Penitentiary has never been reluctant to prosecute in cases of physical assault before. Recently I accused two staff members of criminal conspiracy. I wrote to the District Attorney and asked to appear before the Grand Jury. I wrote to the State Police. Friends have called both the District Attorney and State Police. I accuse them of a felony, they accuse me of a felony. There's a difference, though, between what they do and I do: I want the farts in the open. Sincerely, Donald Danford 1st Place ^onua unity Servi ONPA 1973 Portland O bserver Published every Thursday by Exie Publishing Company. 2201 North RiHingsworth, Portland, Oregon 97217. Mailing address. P.O. Box 3137, Portland. Oregon 97208. Telephone 283 2486 Subscriptions: 97.60 per year in the Tri-County area. 98.00 per year outside Portland. Secemi Clase Postage Paid at Portland. Oregon A L F R E D L. HENDERSON Editor/PsMisher °beervers official position to expressed only in its Publisher's column (We See The World Through Black Eyes). Any other material throughout the paper to the opinion of the individual writer or submitter and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Portland Observer. Oregon Newspaper I Publishers Association Stk Place Best Editorial N NPA 1973 I Award Rangel condemns blackout m edia coverage ©■ N .Y .) condemned the media coverage of U m looting which resulted $ft$r the a tour on Saturday, July 19th, stated that “while the press dsaifnatod funeral areas where looting took place by boroughs, in my Congres- sxioal District they went out of their way to designate the areas of Harlem and East Harlem. I believe that this was done solely to identify the racial and ethnic composition of some areas and not others, sines it in common knowledge Jiat Cen tral Harlem is Black and East Harlem is Spanish spanking. I am outraged because n»y surveillance of the areas after the crisis indicates that this arsa had Isas Idwikhhgr a n d arm ■admit—w »Km it ggy area in the City." In praising the citizens of his district, Rangel stated, the truth to that through out the City of New York most citizens concerned themselves with the welfare of their neighborhoods." In Harlem and East Harlem citizens wars even directing traffic and assisting the elderly who where trapped in their apartments with out elevator service. Community leaders throughout Har lem and East Harlem congratulated the cooperative efforts shown by the resi dents during an hour of crisis. The percentage of news reports in no way the true reactions of the people within my Congressional District which has been visited by a Congressional Delegation as well as the Deputy Mayor, officials from the Small Business Admin istration and Federal Disaster Adminis tration. Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton was in the streets throughout the entire blackout encouraging the people to remain on their stoops in avoiding contact with the looters. He was a primary force during a moment of fear and panic. Governor Hugh Carey to to he congratu lated for his decision not to call in the National Guard and thereby further exposing our community to outsiders armed to do combat. In explaining the reasons for his concern Rangel stated, "thia misrepre by the pram had caused a letback in the economic development of our community which had just begun to take a step forward in spite of the indifferences shown toward urban communities and inner cities. Developers who were interested in investing in the East Harlem and Harlem communities are now hesitant to consider joining endeavors and programs to rebuild be cause they sense additional problems. Nevertheless. Rangel went on. "The merchants that I met with are « munittod to stay within the community and hopeful that the assistance received from the Federal government will allow them to rebuild, recover and move forward. The fact to that politicians find it so easy to refer to the blackout as a night of terror and although Harlem and East Harlem residents were singled out as being animals very little concern has been placed on the fact that it was Consoli dated Edison and not the people that brought this crisis upon us." When asked about his response to the media's use á the ward “animals" to describe a the eonstituenU. M r. Rangel by Joel (PNS)--The scene of citizens gone wild in the New York blackout of 1977 has recalled the long hot summers of the 1960's, with looters carting off their plunder against a background of arson. But there were key differences: the looters of 1977 were much younger than the rioters of 1967; and there were no Malcolm Xs or Martin Luther Kings walking the streets to cool things down. While the New York blackout brought out thousands of opportunists who went back to obeying the law 28 hours later, thousands more belong to a lost gener ation of inner-city youth whose turn at lawlessness did not begin or end with the latest blackout. I t to ironic that this nation's worst outbreak of urban violence occurred exactly 10 years after President Johnson appointed his National Advisory Commis sion on Civil Disorders, the group of prominent Americans who warned that the country was "moving toward two sodeties-ooe Black, one white - separate and unequal." While many educated, middle-class Blacks have since been integrated into the American mainstream, a large num ber-perhaps a majority-did not substan tially benefit from the civil rights movement. They remained poor and continued to live in Harlem and Watts and Hunter's Point. Most of the indices of poverty, illegiti macy, unemployment and drug abuse that were a national scandal in the 1960's are even worse now? And what has made the situation even more explosive to youth; half the Black population in this country to under 24 years old. Young Blacks are at the core of the greatest concern of city dwellers today: crime. According to the F B I, half of those arrested for violent crimes are under 18. Nearly 80 percent of these juveniles are Black. While the population of New York City has declined since 1960, the number of youths under 16 arrested to nearly 10 times what it was 25 years ago. But the racial aspect of this problem makes it a tickilish public issue for social scientists and politicians. Recently, a number of national magazines have published stories on juvenile crime, but without confronting the implications of race. Some are not so reticent, however. Francis Ward, writing in First World, a Black intellectual magazine, calls young Blacks "an endangered species." He warns that an entire generation of Black youths in the inner cities may be lost to lawlessness, violence, and unemploy ment. And he points out that both Black and white victims of juvenile crime are calling for more repressive measures. Already, a number of states have passed laws lowering the age for treating juven lie criminals as adults. One economist estimates that a million young Blacks in 25 major cities form an underclass that simply has no future in America. Most of those who commit faceless, lawless and violent crimes, robberies and muggings There is little national outcry about the and most of those who were out looting huge increase in drug use since the 1960's during the blackout come from that about the fart that murder to the greatest underclass. cause of death among young Black men. The prediction made by the Presiden about the fart that four of 10 Blacks in tial Commission a decade ago has nearly ghetto high schools will never have a job, come true. W e have two societies-but will never earn a living or support a neither to completely Black or completely family. Even most of those who do get white. A sizeable portion of the Black jobs will lose ground as the income gap population has moved into the main between Black and white continues to stream, but an equally large number has widen. joined the class of expendables. A decade ago, most white Americans Young ghetto toughs in New York, understood the violence of the riots Detroit and Chicago may never have because the political message was dear. heard of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, but Blacks would no longer accept second- the principal architect of benign neglect class status. But after a doaan years of now represents Harlem, Bedford Stuy- trying to understand each other, we vesant and the rest of New York in the experience lawlessness on a broad scale, U .8. Senate. Moynihan and other social without political content, without anger, revisionists have successfully sold the without purpose other than personal concept that large segments of the gratification. Blacks and the poor in this country are Having been stamped as outsiders, irretrievable. those young Blacks and Puerto Ricans The young people in these blighted have done little more than behave like communities may not be able to read outsiders. They have formed their own magazines of social commentary, but they sodeities, gangs, dubs and packs, with are aware of the new attitude. They see their own values and standards of be it in schools that no longer pretend to havior. Their dreams are still the dreams teach them, in law enforcement whose of America: the good life, money, the big only concern to containment and in the car and nice clothes. admission by their government that four There to a small miracle in the fart that of 10 young Blacks in their communities so few are willing to steal and kill for the will never enter the labor market simply things they will get no other way. because there to no room for them. But there is also tragedy for those who Ten years ago, the President’s Com only wait and watch. They have no one mission on Civil Disorders urged inte who will listen to them and no one to tell gration as a solution to many of America's them to stop. There was only a mayor problems. The irony now is that inte expressing his "outrage” at actions that gration has done much to destroy the should have created no surprise. Black communities and institutions of our To see a group of people art against all large cities. conventions of law and decency to fright The Black middle class, which gave ening. But there should be greater fear those communities stability and provided for a society tht has created a group of role models for the young, has moved to people that listens to no one, follows no better jobs and better neighborhoods. one and respects no one. It should tell us Those who remain are the poor, the that the degree of lawlessness in this losers, the underclass-and what happens country goes far deeper than stolen to them to not of concern to the majority. television sets and burned-out store Andrew Young and Jesse Jackson now fronts. make headlines; but crime in Harlem or Bedford-Stuyvesant to largely ignored j o e i u r e y iv M , lo n M r iy a Man reporter unless the victim to white. We hear covering urban affairs far the Washing glowing reports on the revitalization of ton Post, New York Post and Asoedatod cities, but little on the human cost of Press, to a m trn k ir of PNS’s«— u n displacing the poor. The residents of funded city project. He has aloe written Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant are still for Black Enterprise, New York Times Sunday Magazine, i Subscribe to The Portland Observer N N A 1973 Tri-County area $ 7 .5 0 Noma Address memmr ER "those that find it so easy to i ‘animal* in describing the reaction of certain people to the blackout should have the decency and honesty to evaluate what to expect from people who find themselves living in tenements where the streets become their only vaeationland or health spa and the only hops from the rat and roach infested apartments, t h ese streets swarming with residents who are 80% unemployed, full of energy yet without work, unable to participate in and enjoy its benefits now find the City's lights turned out. As a lawyer and former Federal prosecutor I can find no justification for violating the laws, laws that are made to protect those people who live under these conditions, but 1st no politician feel secure or no government feel relaxed that they can economically ignore the plight of large numbers of poor people who live in economically suppres sed areas. Whether it be ignited by some conduct of policemen, a misunderstand ing between people influenced by alcohol, a rumor that sonic Black or Hispanic was wrongfully struck, this tinder box of anger and suppressed frustration holds no threat to those that have no fear of violating the law and feel the anger or revenge to strike back. No one justifies this anti-social behavior but no one can ignore it. Any phenomenon, whether the assassination of a prominent leader or a citywide blackout exposes *11 of us to this anger. We can get on with the recovery and the rebuilding of our image but until we deal with those factors that create such a climate all of us live in fear of it or when we might be subjected to another retaliation. A lost generation of American youth "Nothing is particularly hard if you divide h into small lobs " Henry Ford New York MEMBER 1st Pince Best Ad Resulti ONPA 1973 3 “ The most useful virtue is petienos. John Dswsy other area« $ 5 .0 0
