Cell Talk
by Asmar Abdul SetfuUah
aka Joe West »40404
Governor Vic Atiyeh visits St. Vincent de Paul Rehabilitation Cen
ter with Doug White, president of the Union Avenue Business Boos
ters. For the Governor s response to his visit to Albina this week see
next w eek’s Observer.
(Photo: Richard J. Brown)
by Nabeeh Mustqfa »43299
Maybe I could have title d this
synopsis "Growing up in The Ghet
to,” and you would have more read
ily recognized that the subject to be
dealt with concerned Black life —
growing up in the Black neighbor
hood, typically the slums. But Port
land, Oregon, has no ghetto or
slums that Blacks have traditionally
been confined to (at least not
physically), and th a t’ s one o f the
virtues that makes Portland, OR,
Number One in livability in the na
tion (they say), conferring great rec
ognition on Oregon's largest and one
o f its few cities. The so-called "c o r
rectional systems” o f Oregon and
Washington also share the dubious
d istin ction o f having the greatest
number o f minorities incarcerated
per capita o f any states in the na
tion. They have traditionally buried
Blacks, Chicanos and Indians deep
er here in this Northwest corner
than the three ruffians in mystic lore
buried Hiram A b \ff—and that was
deep.
What was it like growing up
here? Over all, it really wasn’ t too
bad u ntil I started to have contact
with the law enforcement authori
ties at the age o f eleven. This was
two years before my mother had the
last o f eight children; mostly w ith
out the aid o f a man in the home. I
always thought my mother was a ra
ther attractive brown-skinned Black
woman, and heard men make com
ments to that effect during my child-
hood, so I really thought that she
must have been loo smart or strong-
willed to submit to any o f the men
who tried to "ca tch ” her. Looking
back. I ’ m not so sure. According to
Ebony magazine, fifty-one per cent
o f the homes in the Black neighbor
hood are headed by women. I know
that in the first stages o f my adoles-
cense, I was very shy, particularly
around girls and women, and I'm
sure that it was due to the lack o f a
strong male image to pattern myself
upon in the home. Yes, I had grown
uncles and cousins, but the tra d i
tional Black extended fam ily has
nearly died as a reality in the Bilali-
an community. One o f the ways that
youth like me compensated for the
lack o f family direction was to be
come part o f gangs or cliques. I
hung around with a notorious group
o f ghetto boys who called them
selves "T h e C ousins." I think i t ’ s
normal for young adolescent boys
to engage in the so-called "m acho”
behavior to "p ro v e " manhood, but
the ghetto youth from a one-parent
home and living below the poverty
level takes "m acho” a step further.
He sees the m iddle and upper-
middle-class white boys and girls on
T.V. shows and commercials eating
wha, they want when they want,
while he’ s having hunger pains. He
sees them riding their bicycles and
go-carts and has enough sense to
realize that his fam ily's likely re
sponse to a request for a non-essen
tial item can only be negative based
on simple economics. But the streets
and street life o ffe r a solution,
where the rules o f the game are not
set by the society o f your parents.
Street life beckons early to youth in
the A lb in a neighborhood, as in
most all Bilalian (Black) neighbor
hoods and ghettoes. Commingling
with others o f your male and female
peers at parties and neighborhood
"hang-outs,” any atmosphere not
controlled by parents or societal au
thorities, you discover a common
perception o f non-acceptance o f so
cietal lim its—not morals, but limits
—a rb itra rily imposed on someone
who had no say-so or stake in the
status quo. This type thinking is not
contradicted by any acceptable con-
cep^ or ideas imparted at school.
Yes, they say that George could not
tell a lie; he chopped down the
cherry tree, but we know that
George and his brother had slaves.
They say,"Freedom , Justice, and
E quality,” but we know it doesn’ t
include us. So our standards are re
lated to results, however attained.
Though it might entail censure and
even worse, life is a gamble anyway,
so we accept it. We obtain our man
hood. our human worth in spite o f
the limits, or we go to ja il, juvenile
homes, or the graveyard, in some
cases. At that age many o f us didn’t
think death could overtake us. We
took our bicycles; we obtained
grown-up status by stealing cars,
drinking alcohol and smoking cigar-
attes. Images that we wrongly a t
tached to adulthood and maturity.
Our juvenile and young adult incar
cerations, for truancy, theft, disor
derly conduct, or curfew violations,
contrary to abating our errant beha
vior, these lock-ups served to broad
en our repertoire o f mischief and
crime. I challenge anyone to assert
that as far as juveniles are con
cerned this situation has changed to
the present time.
It wasn’t a big step for me in pro
gressing from this type o f selfish be
havior to the view that I and all my
people had been done an unpardon
able injustice and that a blow struck
against the enemy in any fashion
was oniy payback fo r the wrong
committed against my people. This
society even boasted about what
they had done to my people and the
Indians and other minorities. Now
in my mind, I could justify whatever
I did as long as it was directed
against members o f the m a jo rity
community, particularly the busi
ness com m unity. I am just now
growing out o f this type of thinking,
largely as a result o f my religious be
liefs, and a concurrent growth in so
cial consciousness, largely through
my own efforts. The youth today
could benefit from ethical and mor
al teachings, taught in a way they
can relate to, as opposed to the
highly allegorical and "fa iry tale"
manner in which it is presently
taught by the church. The educa
tional system doesn’ t teach morals
or ethics in any way..
Speaking o f Schools
(Continued from page 1 column 6)
can ask yourself, why aren’ t those
people involved? They are generally
not involved because fo r the most
par, they really have some distrust
for the system and when they come
some o f them, who by virtu re o f
their lack o f having dealt with this
impossible bureaucracy that we
have structured in Am erica, are
somehow overwhelmed by legal pro
cess and parliamentary procedures.
. . . I f you really talk about racial
fairness there are many people who
have form ed the impression that
once you begin to talk about people
from m inority groups you begin to
talk about people who are from low
socio-economic classes and some
how that translated in to talkin g
about m in o rity people and that is
not at all tru e ... We will find just as
many people in m in o rity groups
who are capable o f perform ing as
"gifted and talented” as anyone else
___I think I have an obligation to
see that the excellence that is in the
Black com m unity, the excellence
that is in Southeast Asians and
otners, that the potentiality for full
development o f these p a rticu la r
youngsters, across the board, is
given proper attention.
I feel that racial balance plays no
role in assuring quality education,
but when you define education you
need to elaborate on that. I think
education is the to ta lity o f efforts
made both in the cognitive and the
affective domain. I don’ t think it
makes any difference whatsoever if
you state you want your kid to learn
to read, w rite, speak, listen, to
reason. Those five things can take
place in any environment whether it
is all Black, all white, all Vietnam
ese, all anything, or any mixture o f
99 to 1.
But to me education consists
more o f things than sim ply basic
cognitive skills. I f a person, in my
opinion, is fully educated there has
to be an affective component to his
education which to me necessitates
an experience o f dealing with and
knowing that other people are out
there. We as a school system have to
make some decisions as to when is it
more appropriate that the students
o f the district be exposed to the fact
that there are other kinds o f people
with whom we may agree, disagree,
like, dislike, appreciate or not ap
preciate. It is my opinion that that
should occur as early in life as possi
ble.
.
I think the citizens o f this district
need to come to grips with the basic
policy issue. I don’t think you really
ever have. When you talk about ed
ucation. are you talking about the
cognitive skills? I f that is what you
are talking about there is no need
for any desegregation.
If, in fact, you're talking about
exposing young people to the reali
ties o f lif e . .. I would question how
you’ re going to do that.
Student achievement: Research
has shown that the five factors that
most affect achievement in schools
are: The building principals—if you
do not have a person there who has
the confidence o f the community,
the students, or the teachers, and
some idea o f the learning process,
you’ re going to get nowhere. In each
building there should be a very
clearly defined, delineated set o f ob
jectives that are very easily ex
plained to parents and that parents
need to understand. You need ways
to measure this. You need effective
teachers— and this is, beyond a
doubt, the most im p o rta n t. They
are the most im p o rta nt cog in the
link o f educational effectiveness.
Parental interest, parental involve
ment, participation in the process.
.. .Y ou ’ ve got to believe that every
student can le a rn .. . . A lot o f us
don’ t believe that, you know, when
you really check out our values.
Educating ethnic children: First
you’ ve got to determine where you
stand on the issue. I f you feel educa
tion is cognitive only, no problem.
You go about their education doing
a needs assessment to find out where
they are, find out individual needs,
get an appropriate staff, get them
properly qualified and certified, and
you carry it out. I f you feel, how
ever, that the needs are beyond the
cognitive and you want to get into
the affective domain that calls on a
different set o f dimensions. So the
first thing, I ’ ll say, is for the Port
land Board o f Education and the
Superintendent o f Schools to de
clare a position as to what they con
sider education to be. And if they do
define it. to say this is how we in
tend to do it.
Fiscal accountability: The Board
o f Education has to sit down and
ask itself what are the principle pri
orities we are going to address this
year. And this p a rticu la r budget
plan ought not to be a one year
plan. I think a budget plan, very
minimally, ought to be a three-year
budget plan.
You ask yourself, that whatever
we do to spend a single dollar in this
school system shows that the expen
diture o f that dollar relates to a goal
that the board has set for itself. You
do not plan in isolation.
Curriculum and program evalua
tion: There need to be meaningful
program guides in the school system
to cover all the m ajor program
areas: math, English, language, art.
science, social studies, music, physi
cal education, health, plus now, sex
education. There also need to be
proper instruments for evaluation.
Two kinds o f tests should be
given: One to evaluate how the sys
tem is doing with respect to attain
ing those goals it establishes for it
self. The system also should mea
sure itself on the basis o f some na
tionally known test.
Personnel: One should attempt to
have present in a given school sys
tem representation o f people from
across the national structure, or cer
tainly the community structure. You
do need people who are positive
peer examples. . . .
The selection o f teachers should
be given great care that it be ade
quately representative o f popula
tions—
Evaluation o f the teacher ought
to consist minimally o f five compo
nents: self-evaluation, peer evalua
tion, supervisor evaluation, student
evaluation and parent evalua-
tio n .. . .
dering what’ s going to happen to
that kind. There will be total confi
The reason for an evaluation sys
morrow, next week. Any school sys d e n tia lity. And we have brought
tem is to improve performance. It
tem has to do its best to say here is a about a marked improvement.
should be done in a highly construc
five-year plan, here's precisely what
Dropout needs to be handled be
tive way and every o p p o rtu n ity
will happen.
fore it happens. It is very difficult to
ought to be given. You use it to try to
Suspensions, expulsions, drop try to get kids back in once they arc
prescribe a certain set o f behavior or
outs:
In all districts m in o rity stu out.
standards or goals that that in d i
It can be dealt with through alter
vidual is going to aspire to over a dents are suspended at higher rates.
native programs. It can be dealt with
We
have
attempted
to
deal
with
the
certain period o f time and grow in
issue by utilizing the services o f the through the development o f com
that process.. . .
prehensive guidance and counselling
1 think parents can be involved in U niversity o f M ichigan Equal
programs; you deal with trying to
re cru itin g, in giving advice and O pportunity Program with a staff get away from the desk and talking
o
f
attorneys
to
help
us
go
into
our
o pinio n . The superintendent o f
to parents and going to the people
schools must hold the principal re buildings and work with (hat issue.
o
f the system who really know
Why do some students get sus
sponsible. The principal has got to
what's
going on. Just ge, yourself
listen to parents, bu, the principal pended fo r something that other
out
there
and learn by talkin g to
must be the person making that de students do not. Why do some
people.
teachers perceive some kids d iffe r
cision.
Parent involvem ent: There is
ently than others?...
nothing
citizens should not be in
One
o
f
the
things
I
will
never
do
in
Planning: Planning should in
volved in. This is your school dis
any
process...
is
to
embarrass
a
staff
volve program improvement, fiscal
trict.
integrity and survivial, equal educa member or have them be fearful o f
Next week: Dr. James P. Skam-
tion opportunities; s ta ff develop the kind o f treatment they’ ll get
when the participate in a process o f
mon and Dr. Manford Byrd.
ment, general management. . . .
Planning is the cornerstone on
which you can really see where you
arc going. One o f the problems I see
here is that people seem to be won-
PORTLAND CLEANING
WORKS
Dry Cleaner
Fall rain brings drain problem
Alteration* and repair extra charge • Minor repair No charge
Drainage problems around the
home can be greatly aggravated by
the arrival o f fall rains, especially in
western Oregon.
"M o st landscape drainage prob
lems can be solved through the use
o f small diversion ditches or subsur
face drains,” says Ray McNeilan,
Oregon State University Extension
home gardening agent.
Subsurface drains at least four
inches in diameter and surrounded
with six to 12 inches o f gravel can be
placed along the outside o f house
foundations to divert water that
may accumulate there.
Small diversion ditches will chan
nel excess surface water o ff the lawn
or driveway.
Yards should be graded so surface
water drains away from the house.
A minimum grade o f one foot in 100
feet is usually su ffic ie n t, said
McNeilan.
The installation o f downspouts to
control roof water will help prevent
water from ponding in low areas of
the yard. Downspouts can empty
into subsurface drains or drywells
that will carry the water away from
the house.
Some homesites may have dense
layers o f clay soil that restrict the
flow o f water and create puddles or
ponds. I f this dense layer is near the
soil surface, a small trench can be
dug through the layer and filled with
sand, gravel or other coarse
material. This will improve drainage
in low-lying wet spots.
In large poorly drained areas,
construction o f subsurface drains
four to six inches in diameter at a
depth of two to five feet may be ne
cessary. Hack the drain trench with
6 to 12 inches o f gravel, nd if possi
ble use sand gravel to b a ckfill the
irench to w ith in a foot o f the
ground surface.
Heavy foot tra ffic during rainy
periods w ill compact even well-
drained soil, says McNeilan. L im
iting foot traffic in a wet yard helps
prevent soil compaction and poor
drainage.
Drainage problems in the garden
can also be improved with the use of
small diversionary ditches. I f the
problem is sever, drainage tile may
be needed. Two ways to avoid con
struction o f garden drainage
systems is either to move the garden
site or plant on raised beds.
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