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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 3, 1982)
Pape 4 Portland Observer, November 3, 1982 The full employment option EDITORIAL/OPINION Organize now for 1984 Ed Leek has been elected to the House o f Representatives from District 18—the district that was created to give the black community the maximum potential to elect a candidate o f its choice—black or white—to the House. Leek won a smashing v ic to ry — greatly outdistancing all o f his competitors. But this victory does not demonstrate that he is repre sentative o f the community or that he is accep ted by the community. This fact was evidenced by the outcry after his Primary win; we do not know o f a single predominately black organi zation that supported his candidacy. It is also demonstrated by the num ber o f black candidates who ran against him and the efforts of various groups to find a suitable candidate. A third signal is that Leek won with less than 50 per cent o f the vote, a smaller number than those who voted against him and this does not include those who boycotted this race. We expect Leek’s voting record in the House to be very good; he represents the liberal wing o f the Democratic Party. He is knowledgeable; his votes w ill be progressive. The opposition is based on perceived arrogance, egotism and pa rternalism . Leek managed to allienate nearly every black group he addressed. Some of his other efforts have been self-serving, for example his w ife ’ s attem p t to bar Charles Staudam ire fro m the D em ocratic C entral Committee, because he was reported to have supported Kent F o rd , at a tim e when Democrats should be encouraging black participation. This does not reflect well on a man who is elected to represent the black community. The reason Leek could be elected is that the leadership o f the black com m unity did not select and unite behind one candidate. The BUF attem pted to meet w ith p o te n tia l candidates to begin the process, but most o f the p o te n tia l candidates denied they were candidates. The Front then added its candidate to the pool. The other leadership groups— the m inisters, the o rgan ization s, the social clubs—remained silent. None o f those who fin a lly surfaced in the p rim a ry were w illin g to w ith d ra w in the interest o f unity and the same thing happened in the General. We have only ourselves to blame. The door was open but this community did not have the p o litic a l know how to go throug h it. This p o litic a l knowledge must be developed and developed q u ic k ly i f black people are ever going to have an opportun ity to participate. Factionalism must be left behind; the political system must be understood and used. In other com m unities eight, ten or more candidates can run for office and may the best candidate win. The black community does not have that luxury. A t least fo r now, it w ill be d iffic u lt fo r any black candidate to get the votes to win. Cut those available votes four or five ways and it is impossible. In P ortland. Oregon the way for a black candidate to win is to be the candidate. I f that is to be, some persons w ill have to put their own personal ambitions and desires aside in the interest o f the community. Not all can lead; not all can be elected. The decision o f who w ill be the candidate in 1984 must be made by the com m un ity and it must be made soon. I f the com m unity can get together and select a candidate— rather than a llo w in g the candidates to select themselves—the results can be different next time. The work and organization needed must begin soon. The question that now must be answered is whether Leek w ill learn to represent the com m unity. It is incumbent on h im —as the elected o ffic ia l— to bu ild bridges, to insure that he communicates with the community, to invo lve the com m un ity in the legislative processes. He might find out what it is that so allienates many o f his constituents and make amends. He could, perhaps, even gain some re lu cta n t support or at least a w o rk in g relationship. This is a tw o way street. Leek w ill be in Salem; he has a vote and w ill have influence. The com m unity leadership must insure that Leek receives the input that w ill guarantee that he represents District 18. I f this communication is not achieved, both will be isolated. Leek w ill be in Salem without the support o f his constituents and this community w ill still be without representation. Hill, Leek join Legislature (Continued from page 1 column 6) publican challenger Thomas Phelan 3 to 1; Les AuCoin handily defeated B ill Moshofsky, form er Georgia- Pacific executive; Jim Weaver re tained his 4th District seat. Denny Smith narrowly defeated Democrat Ruth McFarland in D istrict 5. Re- Gains, losses (Continued from page I col. 6) with a 53.9 percent favorable vote. Included in this initiative is a consti tution that, if adopted, would be the most progressive in the nation. Among the stipulations o f this con stitution is the right o f every resi dent to a job or an income. The vote is only advisory, since only Congress and the states can create a new state. Walter Fauntroy was elected to another term in Congress, where he represents Washington, D.C. resi dents without a vote. The Observer welcomes "Let ters to the E ditor” . Letters should be brief and must contain the w riter's name and address although addresses are not printed. The Observer retains the right to edit for length. publican Robert Smith becomes Oregon’s fifth Congressman. Jim H ill o f Salem has won elec tion to the House o f Representatives from District 31 in Salem. A lawyer, H ill served as a hear ings officer in the State Department o f Revenue for three years, hearing citizens’ appeals o f property and in come tax assessments. As an Oregon Assistant Attorney General he spe cialized in public utility regulations, crim inal law, anti-trust enforce ments and workm en’ s compensa tion. H ill, a Democrat, defeated Re publican Diana Evans with 60.71 percent o f the vote. Oregonians defeated all ballot measures except the nuclear freeze. O f special concern was Ballot Mea sure 3, the I 'A percent property tax limitation which would have greatly restricted funds available to state and local governments. State Superintendent o f School* Verne Duncan won a third term, handily defeating challenger B ill Kendrick, Superintendent o f the Sa lem School District. Labor Commis sioner Wendy Roberts retained her position. Dennis Buchanan defeated con servative Gordon Shadburne for Multnom ah County Executive. Commissioners Gladys McCoy and Earl Blumenauer easily prevailed. Police issue undecided (Continued fro m page I column 2) of the measure. Stan Peters, president o f the po lice union, is in the same position as Commissioner Jordan— w ith the election results hanging at nearly 50- 50. "T h e re was a fast swing from being 1,000 votes ahead to being 500 behind,’ ’ he said Wednesday. " I w ouldn’ t like to lose by 500 and neither would Commissioner Jo r dan. I t ’ s not good to lose by a nar row m argin—but i t ’ s not good to win that way either. You always pre fer a decisive win.” Peters said that regardless o f how the vote goes it indicated that people have an interest in a review board and they should have one. He w ill not oppose a citizen review board w ithout politicians on it, he said. The disadvantage o f the measure passing is " th a t we would have a disciplinary board with politicians on it. That won’t work—it never has and it never w ill.” Peters said that if Measure 51 fails to pass he will not oppose the creation o f a citizen re view board. “ A review board would serve both our interests—the peo ple’ s and the police’ s.” 6 v Norman H ill A Philip Randolph Institute The monthly recitation o f Labor Department unemployment figures lately has taken on the characteris tics o f a dirge. W ith each m onth’ s inexorable increase in the human misery brought about by the reces sion come the inevitable grim-faced e dito ria lists w ith the ir televised commentaries lam enting the A d m in istra tio n ’ s inaction. From the Administration come the obligatory expressions o f concern and the empty promises o f prosperity around the corner. When such equivocations were first advanced, they at least had the force o f novelty behind them. Today even the novel ty has worn thin and the unemploy ment statistics only emphasize the bankruptcy o f the Administration's economic program. Each month o f Reaganomics brings with it more o f the same bad news. The tragedy o f 11.3 m illion out o f work, and o f millions more working part-time or dropping out o f the jo b market, has been ritu a l ized. This record o f continued failure must test the lim its o f the public’ s tolerance. And October’s news that the unemployment rate stands at I0.1 per cent indicates where the limits of tolerance lie. Yet, disastrous as it is, for black Americans 10.1 per cent unemploy ment, would be regarded as a heav en-sent improvement. For, today, black unemployment stands as 20.2 per cent, more than double the rate for white workers. For the last two decades, through ups and downs, under Republicans and Democrats, black unemploy ment has consistently stood at twice that o f other workers. The reasons for this phenomenon are complex and numerous. Blacks are d isp rop o rtio na te ly located in such industries as steel and auto, which have been hardest hit by the recession. The black w orkforce is younger in age and has less seniority than the white workforce. A large proportion o f black workers arc un skilled and so are most vulnerable to layoffs. Yet despite such elegant and so phisticated explanations, the fact re mains that today black unemploy ment stands nearly at the same level as national unemployment during the Great Depression. It constitutes a national failure and disgrace. The full extents of the catastrophe have yet to be guaged. But we all know what losing a jo b can do to family stability, to a person’s sense o f self-worth, to a worker’s sense of motivation. This recession is tearing at the scams o f the social fabric o f the black community. What the unemployment statistics would seem to call for is a jobs pro gram that deals w ith the require ments o f all those who are out o f w ork, whether they be black or white, while recognizing the specific needs o f blacks. Yet according to the October 7th Washington Post, Reagan Adminis tra tio n o ffic ia ls in the Education Department have recommended ma jo r personnel cuts in education pro grams that primarily benefit minor ity and disadvantaged children. The focus o f the recommended cutbacks is Title I. a program that provides states with funds to help disadvan taged children improve their math and reading skills. Such skills are absolutely essential for any worker's succesful entry into the job market. There is, o f course, a humane, workable and rational alternative to such inhumane proposals. It is to be found in the anti recessionary pro gram developed by the A FL-C IO . The program calls for a massive re industrialization and remoderniza tion e ffort centered around a gov ernment-supported Reconstruction Finance Corporation which would target loans; loan guarantees, inter est rates, subsidies and tax benefits to stim ulate economic growth in high unemployment areas. The pro gram also calls fo r tem porary re strictions on imports which result in the loss o f American jobs, fo r the training and re-training o f workers, and for the providing o f funds for new lo w -a n d -m id d le -in c o m e housing. The disastrously high unemploy ment rate is only the latest signal that Reaganomics has failed. Yet even if the President and the Repub lican Party arc repudiated on Election Day, November 2nd, the momentum o f this repudiation will soon dissipate if it is not channeled into support for a constructive na tional economic agenda that recog nizes the special needs of blacks and other unemployed workers. Only by linking the politics o f protest to such a program for economic growth will our contry find itself on the road to economic recovery. Crisis on the Black Campus by Manning Marable A ll educational institutions m ir ror the racial and class dynamics o f the larger society. Black higher edu cation was designed neither to pro mote the intellectual development of black youth, nor to advance the ma terial prospects fo r black working class and poor people. Education for blacks, as first advanced by the white majority, was to maintain the structures o f inequality within both the political economy and the cul ture and society as a whole. Thus, black students and faculty who attended and taught at m ajor ity black colleges have always faced a very different set o f problems than those which confront progressive minded whites at predom inantly white schools. From their beginning after the Civil War and Reconstruc tion periods, these colleges were d i rectly the products o f racial segrega tio n. Black scholars like W .E .B. DuBois, who graduated from Har vard with honors in 1895, were not hired to permanent posts in white universities simply on the basis o f race. The historically black college is largely the direct product o f racial segregation. Ninety one o f the 107 black colleges were established be fore 1910. Generally underfinanced »nd inadequatley staffed, black higher education was permitted to exist only in skeletal form during the long night o f White Supremacy. As late as 1946, only four black colleges —Howard University, Fisk Univer sity, Taladega College and North Carolina State—were accredited by the Association o f American U n i versities. In the school year 1945-46, black undergraduate enrollment was 43,878 in the black colleges. Less than eighteen hundred attended black professional schools; only 116 were then training to become law yers. Even after the passage o f ex panded educational legislation, the number o f Afro-Americans who were financially able to attend uni versities was p itifu lly small. By 1950, 41,000 "m in o r ity ” men and 42,000 “ m inority” women (blacks, Asians, etc.) between ages 18-24 at tended colleges, about 4.5 per cent o f their tota l age grouping. That same year, by way o f contrast, 1,025,(XX) white males between 18- 24 years old attended college, 15 per cent ol (he total white age group. rigid constraints of race/class tyran The function o f the black college ny, and often suffered under benign was, at least from the view of while -to malignant adm inistrations im society, to train the Negro to accept posed by white trustees and state a "separate and unequal” position governments. But despite these and within American life. other contradictions, the black uni Despite these in stitutio n al bar versities have on the balance been riers to quality education, the black much more open to progressive and schools did a remarkable job in pre liberal faculty—particularly during paring black youth for productive the period o f the Cold War o f the careers in the natural and social sci 1940s and 1950s. They created the ences, in the trades and humanities. intellectual and social space neces A brief review o f one black college, sary for the development of militant Fisk University, provides an illustra political reformers, dedicated public tion. Fisk was the home for a major school teachers, physicians, and number o f black intellectuals during other skilled professionals withing the era o f segregation: DuBois, his the black community. Without such torian John Hope Franklin; sociolo institutions, the nightmare o f Jim gist E. Franklin Frazier; artists/no- Crow might still exist, and the ma velists James Weldon Johnson, terial conditins o f the black ghetto Arna Bontemps, Sterling Brown, and w orking class would unques N ik k i G iovanni, John O liver K il- tionably be worse. lens, and Frank Yerby. A number of The Civil Rights and Black Power Fisk alumni joined the ranks o f the Movements, combined with a poli black elite in the twentieth century tical shift o f the U.S. government as decisive leaders in public policy, under the Johnson Adm inistration representing a variety o f p olitical toward implementation o f some a f tendencies; U.S. Representative firm ative action guidelines w ithin William L. Dawson; Marion Berry, while civil society accelerated this mayor o f Washington, D.C.; Wade educational process. By 1970, H. McCrec, U.S. Solicitor General 192,000 black men and 225.000 during the Carter A dm inistration; black women between ages 18-24 at U.S. district judge Constance Baker tended college. The overall percent M otley; C ivil Rights activist John age o f black youth enrolled in col Lewis; Texas State Representative W ilhelm ina Delco; Federal judge lege, 15.5 per cent, contrasted with James Kimbrough. Other Fisk grad white attendance figures o f 34 per cent for males and 21 per cent for uates moved into the private sector females. Five years later, 294,000 to establish an economic program for black development along capi black men and 372,000 black wom talist lines, such as A. Maceo Walk en between ages 18-24 were in col er, president o f Universal Life In lege, respectively 20 and 21 per cent surance Company. One out o f every of their age groups. The most recent six black physicians, lawyers and available statistics, fo r the years dentists in the United States today 1976 and 1977, reveal a slight de cline in black college enrollment— a arc Fisk graduates. A similar profile could be obtained from A tlanta testament to the p olitical assaults University, Morehouse College o f against black educational opportuit- A tla n ta , Spelman College o f A t ity of the 1970s. The total numbers lanta, Tougaloo College o f Missis o f black college youth slipped froqi sippi, Tuskegee Institute o f Alaba 749,000 to 721,000, and the per}- ma, Howard University o f Wash ventage o f black men who were col- ington, D.C., and other black insti leg« students w ithin the 18 24 age tutions o f higher learning. My point group declined from 22.0 to 20.2 per here is not that these schools ever cent. Despite the desegregation df developed a clear pedagogy for white universities, tra d itio n a lly black liberation, nor that they were black institutions continue to served organically linked to the daily strug majority of blacks seeking college dr gles o f the black masses. The con professional training. 25 per cent til servatism o f many black college ad all blacks in higher education attend ministrators, as represented by Tus the 35 state-supported black c o l kegee’ s Booker T. Washington, is leges. 62 per cent o f all black M Djs almost legend among people. and 73 per cent o f all black Ph.Djs These schools operated under the arc products of black institutions. 4 ill Oregon Newspaper I Publishers Association MEMBER NÊWAêM to to c tilo a - Founded 1995 Receive your Observer by mail — Subscribe todayl Only $10°° per year. Portland Observer The P o rtland Observer (USPS 969 6801 is published every Thursday by Erne Publishing Company, Inc , 2201 North Killings worth, Portland, Oregon 97217, Post Office Box 3137, Portland, Oregon 97206 Second class postage paid at Portland, Oregon Mail to: Portland Observer Box 3137 Portland, Oregon 97208 Subscriptions 110 00 per year in the Tri County area Post m aster: Send address changes to the Portland Observer, P .0. Box 3137, Portland, Oregon 97206 A l McC liberty, Editor/Publisher A l Williams, Advertising Manager National Advertising Representative A m algam ated Publishers. 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