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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (July 9, 1981)
Page 2 Portland Obaarvar July 9. 1961 EDITORIAL/OPINION Racism as usual The Portland School Board continues its usual pattern of discrimination against Black children, their parents and their community and shows strong signs that it will return to its former policy of scattering Black children throughout the district to satisfy its own lip- service to liberal causes. The board has now extended its territory of discrimination, including those neighborhoods that are naturally integrated. Adams was placed in a com munity destined to be in tegrated in what is considered by most liberals to be the "rig h t w ay" - through housing. But the school in the naturally integrated neighborhood was placed under constant pressure - its students inticed and forced to go elsewhere - until finally an excuse was found to close it. The people Black and white - who chose to live in an integrated neighborhood were punished first by the destruction of their neighborhood elementary schools and then the removal of their high school. While the School Board was talking sancti moniously about school desegregation and staying one jump ahead of the Justice Depart ment by shipping Black kids here and there, it rewarded the principals of "receiving school" - those who cooperated by taking larger numbers of Black students, protected the staff and programs of their own schools. One of the most successful was Jackson, which not only eventually received many of the students pushed out of the Humboldt area to Marquam middle school and then Jackson, but which recruited a fair number of students from Boise. But the students and parents of Jackson who participated in the largest administrative transfer program, the program promoted and favored by the School Board as its path to desegregation also were punished. They lost their school, too. Why? To dilute the possibility of a suit over the closure of Adams. What is the message? To Blacks the message should be clear: there is not and has never been any interest or intent on the part of the Portland School District to educate Black children. Black children have been used like pawns - their bodies sent where they were Organization of African Unity By Fungai Kumbula needed to fu lfill quotas. The money designated by the federal and state govern ments for their education has been used to in- tice white parents to use baby sitting services to skew statistics and deceive federal auditors. Integrated housing? The district's lip service to development of integrated neighborhoods is a fraud. Integrated neighborhoods and naturally integrated schools would defeat their purpose - to keep Black children confined in inferior schools and to offer as their only esc ape being used to satisfy numerical require ments elsewhere. Two remedies are open to Black parents: filing a law suit that will find the district guilty of a long pattern of racial discrimination and will place the district under the jurisdiction of the federal courts; bringing all students back to their neighborhood schools and requiring the district to provide schools for them. The School Board has demonstrated its in tent; its' intentions toward the Black com munity are clear. Leaving the education of our children in its hands would be genocide. The good side is that no single A frica n Head o f State becomes permanent C hairm an. Secondly, every A frican country has the op p o rtu n ity to host all o f A fric a 's leaders except for those still under colonial dom ination like South A fric a and N am ibia as well as Western Sahara. Those countries are always represented by the African liberation movements until such a time as a truly representative government is elected as was the case w ith Zim babw e, Angola, A united front Letters to the Editor The NAACP National Convention was an example of an effort toward unity the leaders of many of the major Blacl< and civil rights organizations were major participants: Jesse Jackson, Mrs. Coretta King, Vernon Jordan, Leon Sullivan. The idea was to go beyond sec tarian concerns and petty jealousies and demonstrate a united force to the Reagan Adminstration. Locally there is an air of great discourage ment. A fter years of hard work, even the minor gains are gone. Problems w ith the school district, the police and growing racism cause frustrations and resentment. Loss of jobs and income make the difficulties seem almost insurmountable. It seems we can have little impact on local policies, let alone on the national government and global systems. It is not a time to give up; it is a time to prepare for a new struggle. And it is time for the com m unity's organizations to get together, make some plans, and throw up political, social and economic barricades beyond which there can be no retreat Inside/outside: Just the same The O rganization o f A fric a n Unity, the OAU, concluded another Sum it this past week. Since its foundation in 1963, A frica ’ s Heads o f State have met annually and in a d iffe re n t country each year. The host becomes the OAU Chairman fo r the upcom ing year. This o b viously is a very prestigious honour and all Heads ol stale seem to vie to host the O AU . There is a lot to be said for this both good and bad. Dear Editor: From reading your column “ Cell Ialk I feel that more opinions and evaluations are necessary to inform the general public o f the conditions, etc., of the Bilalians (Blacks) here at OSP. F irst o f a ll, my chosen spokesman is m yself and this because I have met no one here bet ter qualified to do so. Therefore, I would appreciate it i f you would print what I have to say. There are no more racial problems here at OSP than there are on the outside, and an unbiased, ob jective view o f the situation here will reveal this. The problems are in the minds o f the people here. Most want something for nothing and expect to receive it, and when they don’ t they complain. The m a jo rity o f the Bilalians (Blacks) here w ill spend an entire day playing dominoes or play acting pimping, and this goes on day after day. There are approximately five Bilalians in Vocational Training School. Why? Some w ill say that it takes six months to one year to get in, but it doesn’t. Some will.say that they’ re being discriminated against. Maybe, but it doesn’t stop a person from getting in. I got into VT School in less than three weeks here. I was informed by the VT supervisor that they wanted more Bilalians in VT and that I should send any friends interested in learing a trade to him. Upon inform ing different people about the opportunities in the VT program , some typical responses were: “ I already have a trade’ ’ , “ I do n ’ t w ork, what do I need with a trade!’ ’ ,“ I ’ m going to wait until I see the Board (Parole Board)” , “ My mind isn’ t right now” , or something similar. The principal Bilalian organiza tion here is the UHURU Club. The economic growth, unemployment, malnourishmcnt of various o f their peoples, poor health and social amenities and the like and yet for a whole week the leaders basked in ut terly sinful opulence. One wonders how many jobs that $100 m illio n would have created. What a shot in the arm it would have been for Sierra I.cone’s ailing economy. Maybe it’ s about time there was a permanent site for the OAU. Maybe i t ’ s about time the splendour and prestige, ostentatious opulence were downplayed so more o f A fric a ’s more fundamental problems would be addressed. Maybe the time is not yet ripe for our Heads o f State to be housed in 5-star palatial hotels that will be vacant (usually amidst pover ty) once the conference is over. Maybe i t ’ s time to give up the limousines and return to the VW bugs. The OAU was created to provide leadership; it can do so in more ways than one. attendance o f this club is very low, unless there is entertainment from the outside or a party is near at hand. The participation o f Bilalians in other clubs and organizations is the same as for UHURU. I f we were to organize and align ourselves with our fellow inmates regardless o f ethnic background, and work toward alleviating the demoralizing conditions here, we would be successful. However, this is not the desire o f certain Bilalians here. These certain people talk as if we were in Alabama in the 1960’ s (incidently, I was there), instead of OSP in the 1980’ s. They seem determined to incite a racial riot, which is foolish as well as un necessary. What ulterior motives lie behind this, I cannot say, but what I can say is that we need to unite and become productive. Le A rtis C. Moore War waged on Black children To the Editor: ^ rth U B N D ! Mozambique and Guinea Bissau in recent years. The host country as well as its people also get a lot of at tention focused on them as all A frica and the world watch to see what progress w ill be made. The Heads o f State and their entourages also get to visit all these countries year after year and thus acquaint themselves with that co u n try’ s people and problems. On the negative side is the expense involved. For some reason, in recent years particularly, the expenses o f hosting an OAU conference has become ridiculous. Sierra Leone which played host last year spent in excess o f $100 m illion for that one week alone. That is an unholy sum for such a small country especially when one looks at her shaky economy. It was rather ironic that at this p a rticu la r conference, the dom inant force was A fric a ’ s per sistent economic woes. The African leaders were discussing ways to stop the vicious cycle o f negative The May issue o f Black E nter prise magazine published by Earl Grave' was devoted to “ The War On Black Children.” This study was the results o f publicity given to the abduction and murders o f over a score o f Black children in Atlanta. The list is s till grow ing. This in cident has chilled the hearts o f Black parents throughout the nation. The needless killin g o f Black children has drawn national and in te r national attention, and has brought to the public a much broader recognition to “ The War On Black Children.” According to the article; “ I ifelong poverty, unemployment, im prisonm ent, even death by hom icide are the enemies.” H om icide is the greatest k ille r o f young Black men in the U nited States. O f Black families with ear ned income, one in four earns less than $5000 per year. That has brought children living in poverty total ages three to seventeen, white 11.4%, Black 41.6%, total average 16.0%. Infant m o rtia lity p ro p o r tionate decline in twenty-eight years from 1950 to 1978, white 59.9%, Black 54.4%, total 57.0%. Nearly 78 percent o f poor Black children under 18 live in homes headed by women. In the broader spectrum it is im possible to exclude lack o f education and miseducation that have been problems in Portland, highlighted by forced busing over the past ten years. The coalition’ s report several years ago pointed specifically to the e ffo rts o f the Black U nited Front which gave voice to the community to demon strate against the problems o f education. The closure o f Adams and W ashington/Monroe amounts to an additional obstacle placed in the fu tu re o f Black children, another problem in the continuous struggles for “ Quality Education.” These two schools have the second and third highest Black and ethnic student population in the district, forty-one percent and th irty -fiv e percent respectively. In addition to these disadvantages the future o f Black children demands that they be trained to labor in industry. Black children by in large cannot afford the luxury o f education, which is expressed in the English evaluation o f education. There is no practical purpose fo r the future o f Black children to be educated to lift their cultural standing. The Black child percentage wise in America must be educated to fill a job. Adams and W ashington/M onroe and some others already have existing in dustrial machines for this purpose. When Adams and W ashington/ Monroe are closed this equipment will be moved to schools outside the Albina area. And thus Caucasians w ill reap the benefits o f our lost. Portland’s Board o f Education in its short site and racist attitude w ill use so call economic problems to add fresh fuel to the war on Black children. The cycle of war on Black children w ill continue to be a cycle o f events. In the words o f the im mortal Bard a “ plague on all your houses.” Rev. John H. Jackson Mt. Olivet Baptist Church No press coverage of nuclear weapons statement Portland Observer The Portland Observer IUSPS 969 600) n published every Thurs day by E«,e Publishing Company, Inc , 2201 North Killingsworth Portland. Oregon 97217, Post Office Eox 3137, Portland' Oregon 97208 Second class postage paid at Portland, Oregon Subscriptions $10.00 per year in Tri County area P ostm aster Send address changes to the Portland Observer, P O Box 3137 Portland, Oregon 97208 The Portland Observer was founded in October of 1970 by Alfred Lee Henderson The Portland Observer is a champion of |ustice. equality and liberation, an alert guard against social evils, a thorough analyst and critic of discriminatory practices and policies; a sentmal to warn of impending and existing racist trends and practices, and a defender against persecution and oppression Bruce Broussard Editor/Publisher The real probloms of the minority population will be viewed and presented from the perspective of their causality unrestrained ana chronoically en trenched racism N ational and in ternation al MfMMft ■i - n— ‘ «” ■ NewsPaper M i Publishers ^ ■ ■ ‘■'A ssociation ■ 1 « arrangements that prolong and increase the oppression of Third World peoples shall be considered in the context of their ex ploitation and manipulation by the colonial nations, including the United States, and their relationship to this nation's historical treatment of its Black population 283 2486 MEMBER N *Mocle N A PER Oon ■ Found'd IN S N ational A dvartising R epresentativa A m a lg a m a te d Publishers, Inc N ew York 1st Place Community Service ONPA 1973 1st Place Best Ad Result ONPA 1973 5th Place Best Editorial ONPA 1973 Honorable Mention Herrick Editorial Award NNA 1973 2nd Place Best Editorial 3rd Place Community Leadership ONPA 1975 3rd Place Community Leadership ONPA 1978 3rd Place In depth coverage ONPA 1979 > ,,o* ainoan M WS»âa»B To the Editor: I would like to express my disap pointment at the press blackout on Senate Joint M em orial 5, the legislature’ s recent statement calling for a bilateral freeze on the produc tio n , deployment and testing o f nuclear weapons. SJM 5 passed the Senate unanimously in April and the House on June 25. It marks the first time a state has taken an o fficia l position on the suicidal buildup o f nuclear weapons by the US and the USSR, though similar action is pending in the legislatures o f Illin o is , New Y ork, O hio, and Massachusettes. Appreciates apology To the Editor: Cheers to the Portland Observer for acknowledging their poor judge ment in allowing a stereotyping and prejudiced quote regarding Jews in a by-lined music column. Obviously a legitimate press, par ticularly one with a masthead which describes its e lf a “ cham pion o f justice, equality and liberties . . . defender against persecution and oppression” , should not tolerate name calling; it only encourages others to replicate gestures which lead to worse deeds. Non Jews should be aware there is NO acceptable use o f the word Jew with a small “ j ” : Jew means a per son of the Jewish faith; a small “ j ” denotes a derogatory intention. I am pleased that I was delayed (by illness) from w ritin g when I noted the “ unacceptable reference” and that this letter can now carry a different message. Good Luck in you continued ef fo rt to assist both the Black com munity and those interested in un derstanding the current and local issues which are priorities within the Black community. Shalam (Hebrew Peace) Berta Delman The P ortland Observer was rwot alone in fa ilin g to report this historic development. I saw no coverage o f it at all, although Rep. Dick Springer tells me his office prepared a press release. I am hoping by writing this letter to give your readers a chance to learn o f this rem arkable policy statement by O regon’ s elected leaders. I th in k it is deeply significant that at leas, here in Oregon the legislature has had the vision to point to the nuclear weapons race as a c ritic a l danger confronting all Oregonians. It was g ra tifyin g to me that the House rejected the argument that nuclear weapons, and by extension nuclear war, are no, concerns appropriate to the state legislature fo r it seemed, and seems, to me that nothing touches all o f us more closely than the threat o f planetary annihilation which these weapons pose. Sincere regards, Wally Priestley D-Portland, District No. 16 ■ *
