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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 2, 1983)
Page 4 Portland Observer, November 2,1963 Struggle fo r equality ju st beginning EDITORIAL/OPINION by D r. M anning M arable Does it make a difference? The press is upset that it was not included in the invasion o f Grenada. The press is correct in that the American people have the right to first hand information on its military aggression. There are also serious constitutional questions about press censorship. But the American people might ask: “ Does it make a difference?” Theoretically, the answer is “ Yes.” But in reality, on-site media coverage has not been significantly different than the bul letins issued by the Pentagon. The lies and half-truths are being repeated- first by Pentagon officials and now by reporters standing on the beaches of Grenada. The inva sion is still being depicted as a battle against Cubans and the Cuban construction workers, doctors, teachers, etc., are referred to as “ troops.” The cache of small arms that was in tended to arm Grenadian civilians against the impending invasion are still being described as a “ Cuban, Soviet military build-up" and militia training sites as “ guerilla training camps.” The presence of technicians and diplomats from so cialist nations are given as proof of a planned “ Cuban, Soviet takeover." The U.S. press has not discussed the govern ment of Grenada; the economic and social gains made in the past 4*/i years; the development of democratic processes; the reasons why help from the socialist nations has been essential. It has said very little about the people of Grenada who, after having only 4 '/i years of self-government, are again an occupied nation. It has not told how their efforts at economic de velopment have been left in the ruins of U.S. bombs and shells, or about those who have been injured or killed. The U.S. press has helped build the atmo sphere that allows such an invasion to occur and the majority o f U.S. citizens to approve. The U.S. press bandies around such terms as “ com munist," “ Marxist,” “ leftist,” “ regime," “ strong m an," etc., in an effort to confuse the issues and to hide the truth when discussing any government or group the U.S. does not support — i.e., Nicaragua, Libya, the P .L .O . and the va rious liberation movements around the world. The struggles o f the people to better their lives, the accomplishments o f their governments, everyday life in the Third World nations are ig nored. They report only on wars, disaster and crime. When the people attempt to improve their lives they are depicted as threatening "the American way of life." The U.S. press has consistently provided one sided, negative reports about Grenada, as it has about Cuba and Nicaragua. The American people know very little about these countries that are targets for our military power. The press has come more and more to be con trolled by a few corporations and is more con cerned with profit than with truth. The televi sion networks arc in a continuous competition ofr ratings and, rather than search out the truth, rely on personalities and formats to grab their share of the listeheu. Yes, the press had a right to be there. But it probably didn’t make that much difference that it wasn't. The debate around a Black presi dential candidate for 1984 has split the Black community largely but not exclusively on class lines Poor peo ple, blue collar and low- to middle- income workers overwhelmingly en dorse a Black revolt within the Dem ocratic Party. Most Black middle class leaders o f the N A A C P and U r ban League, on the other hand, have denounced the idea as a “ hoax" and a " fra u d .” The m ajor ity of Black elected officials and particularly the mayors of major cities have already jumped aboard Mondale's bandwagon, along with the A F L -C IO bureaucracy. Even Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, one of Jesse's closest friends, states that "Blacks ought to be in any cam paign where the candidate is likely to be elected president." The immediate cause for debate revolves around Jesse Jackson's strengths and weaknesses as a candi date. But the more fundamental is sue— which no one is discussing—is the fact that the Black community is nowhere nearly as culturally, eco nomically, or socially cohesive as it was during the period o f Jim Crow thirty years ago. A handful of Blacks view the Civil Rights Move ment as having accomplished most if not all o f its major goals; but for the Black m ajority, the struggle for equality has barely begun. One viewpoint on our recent his tory is that Blacks have achieved a tremendous degree of success. U n deniably, massive changes in race relations have occurred. In Birming ham, Alabam a, only twenty years ago, police chief " B u ll" Connor un leased dogs and levied clubs and firehoses against passive Black pro testors. loday the mayor o f Bir mingham is a Black progressive, Richard Arrington In September, 1968. Andrew Young was arrested for blocking sanitation trucks dur ing a strike ol Black garbage work- eis. Four years later he was elected to Congress, and today he is the mayor o f Atlanta. Less than a dec process, initiated in 1979 with the overthrow of the U.S.-backed dict-.- toi Ir ic Gairy? Because unemploy ment has been reduced from 49 per cent io 14.2 percent. Because health care is now free as is education. Be cause illiteracy has been reduced to 2 percent. All in four short years. la s t year Grenada's economy giess 5,5 percent while her C arib bean neighbors were in economic chaos 1 he rest of the Caribbean has tremendous unemployment and in creasingly repressive governments, sui'poi led by the U.S. I lie positive example o f G ren ada’s levolution terrifies U.S. rulers and ilieir Caribbean cohorts. But the social unrest in the Caribbean cannot he quashed by U.S. Marines, oi by a Grenadian "caretaker" gov ernment (Reagan's euphemism for U.S controlled), or by the troops of Barbados, Antigua, Jamaica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent. We. who remember the Vietnam war, call on Americans to join the grossing movement to get the U .S. out! Signers: Jamie Partridge, S. Rachel M o or, Paulette W ittwer. Leo A Kirkpatrick, Kathan Zerzan, Becky Ellis, Lois Poole, Anne Cook. Robert Shimabukuro, Janet M M ihara, Cathie Shimabukuro, S. Lynn Parkinson, Carol Sholin, Terry Sorelle, Barry Barth, Douglas R Seaton, James F. M iller, Nancy Sanders, Gary W . Bills. The Observer welcomes Letters to the Editor. Letters should he short, and must contain the writer's name and address (addresses are not print ed). The Observer reserves the right to edit f o r length. Portland Observer Mt MR! ► o<7 The P o rtla n d O bserver IU S P S 959 6801 >• published eveiv Thuisdsv bv f • « Publishing Company Inc 2201 North Killing» worth Portland. Oregon 97217 Po»t Orties Bos 3137 Portland Oregon 97208 Second class pottage paid at Portland Oregon The Portland Observer wee eetabliehed ir»1970 Subscription» »15 00 per veer at the Tri County area Po»t m eeter: Send address chengoe to the Portland Observer P 0 MEMBER Aaeocrehon • founded IM S I I I I I i « " ■ ■ ™ ™ ™ " k ™ ™ ™ T-owneTnewspaper. M •«***'* k s : 6 by Noss Danielson District IS Democratic Leader 283 2486 N a tio n a l A dvertising R ep resentative A m a lg a m a te d Publishers Inc N e w York Subscribe today! PORTLAND OBSERVER News fo r and about you. I I Yea, I w o u ld like a s u b s c rip tio n ! to the Portland Observer, I h iu s e n r lo u c t m u rh w e k n r I ! PLEASE PRINT Mail to Portland Obeervet Boa 3137 Portland Oregon 97208 N rtIT IP _________ _ A d d res s ____ C ity________ State Z i p _______ In a balmier time in the world of international relations, the use of the military by superpowers was the accepted way to assert power. Re volts, revolutions and threats to the power o f a major state were met with the blunt tool of military force. In our much more complex world, where a ll military confronta tions present the specter of possible escalatiuon to nuclear war, we can ill-afford to establish a policy of diplomacy by arms. Yet, that is the direction we have been steadily heading Now we find ourselves on the shores o f Grenada; an island nation not-so-long ago known only as a major spice producer. The next thing anybody knew, Grenada had become the home of hundreds of Cubans and the site of a new airport which President Reagan claimed was being built for military pur poses. Then, after a bloody coup led to the assassination of the Prime M in ister, President Reagan ordered in the Marines with the expressed pur pose o f evacuating some 1,000 A m erican medical students and " to as sist in the restoration o f conditions of law and order o f governmental institutions on the island o f G re nada where a brutal group o f leftist thugs violently seized pow er." In the afterm ath, I find it incom prehensible that the problem merited a strictly m ilitary response. As I write, some 6,000 American fighting men are encamped on Grenada. Sixteen have been killed. W hat troubles me is that there seemed to be little evidence that the American students were in im m i nent danger, as the President con tends, and that there seemed to be little exploration of alternative means o f evacuating the students. I am not convinced that the use o f our military, with resulting deaths of American soldiers and diplomatic isolation from our closest allies, was the last resort. The invasion o f Grenada seems to be proof that our foreign policy has traded the tools o f negotiation for the tools o f force and confronta tion. In the short run, this will cost the lives o f young Americans asked to die for unclear goals in distant lands. In the long term, it will cost our treasury billions and billions of dollars as Congressional hawks seek to fund a military that can play the role o f a "global policeman.” W e must learn to resist the lure of military tools. This nation cannot remake the world in its image with the force o f guns and planes. Rather, we must seek peaceful solu tions and exhaust them before we hit the beach. District 1 Viewpoint ,si " I » 1 . Bos 3137, Portland, Oregon 97208 A lfre d L. Henderson. E ditor/I'ublisher A l Williams, Advertising Manager I I I I I I I I I billion in 1982. The essential problem with this "H o ra tio Alger” saga o f Black sue cess is that these isolated examples do not comprise the general rule. O f the quarter-million Black-owned businesses in the U .S ., for instance, only 1,060 have a workforce o f 20 or more employees. Four-fifths of all Black businesses do not have a single paid employee. A ffirm ative action has supposedly created a new, dynamic Black middle class— but recent census data does not vali date its existence. About 9.4 million white family heads earn at least $35,000 annually, while only 375.000 Black families earn that figure out of a Black population of 28 million. Only three-fourths of one percent of all Black households earn over $50,000 annually. As of three years ago, 548,000 white males reported personal incomes in excess ol $75,000. Only 4,000 Black men and fewer than 500 Black women earned this figure— mostly profes sional athletes, celebrities, physi cians and a few token administra tors. The number of Blacks who are being currently trained in the pro fessions is still pitifully small. A profile o f the 1981-82 recipients of doctorates in the U .S illustrates the problem. Only 1,133 of the 31,048 Americans receiving doctorates were Black, about 3.6 percent o f the total The vast m ajority of them, 850 or 75 percent, were concen trated in two fields, education and social sciences. Only 29 o f the 3,348 doctorates in the physical sciences were Afro-Americans. In advanced mathematics, 6 out o f 720; engineer ing, 20 o f 2,644; and in the growing field o f computer sciences, only one out o f 220 doctorates. Thus, despite Blacks' advances, there is still no vi able Black middle class— only an elite of individuals with illusions about their wealth and the nature of the larger society. bv Congressman Nun H'vden Grenada invasion likened to Vietnam We are outraged at the brutal in vasion of Grenada by 1,900 U .S. troops. The U.S. has no right to in terfere in the internal affairs o f this tiny, impoverished nation of 110,000. The "protection of A m eri can lives," is just a cynical pretext for the U.S. to attack a popular left ist revolution. Reagan's lie about "restoration o f democracy" would be laughable except for the tragic loss of lives now and to come. Despite U.S. claims to have "n eu tralized" Grenadian forces, the tens o f thousands o f popular m ilitia con tinue to defend their revolution. As a Grenadian leader recently prophe sized, the Marines will find it "eas ier to land than to leave.” Why do the vast majority o f G re nadians support the revolutionary gross receipts o f Black-owned and operated businesses exceeded $145 The lure o f military might _____ Letters to the Editor To the editor: ade ago How ard Fuller was leader o f the revoluttionary M alcolm X College in N orth Carolina. Late last year Fuller became a cabinet mem ber and top Black administrator to the governor o f Wisconsin. During the Cold W ar Coleman Young was the radical executive secretary of the Communist-dominated National Negro Labor Council. For almost a decade, he has been the mayor of Detroit, and has pursued a close and cordial relationship with local cor porate leaders and Henry Ford II. M arion Berry, currently mayor of Washington, D .C ., first became in volved in politics two decades ago as a militant leader o f the Student Non-violent Coordinating C o m mittee. The defiant youths o f the "Black Pow er" generation have now reached middle age, and many are ensconsed in higher education, government, and trade union lead ership. Superficially, the sheer numbers o f Blacks moving into positions of political and economic power seem to validate the myth of American cultural pluralism and democracy. I he number o f Black elected o ffi cials nationwide jumped from 103 in 1964 to 5,003 in 1980 The num ber ol Blacks in Congress increased from 5 in 1964 to 21 in 1983. A gen eration ago, the "Black bourgeois ie " consisted primarily o f school leathers, postal workers, and skilled workmen. There were only 4,706 Black physicians and 2,180 Black lawyers in the U .S. in I960. Most Black businesses consisted o f "m om and pop" grocery stores, barber shops, and funeral parlors. W ith the passage o f federal legislation pro moting affirm ative action and civil lights, opportunities for racial de velopment were created in both the public and private sector. By 1977, 21 percent of all Black I amities had incomes between $15,000 and $24,999, and another 9 percent earned $25,000 or more. Twenty- lo w Black owned banks were start ed between 1970 and 1975. The I J Caution and patience is recom mended to those who see the present plans for a District 18 Leadership Forum as the means to settle on a single Black candidate for District 18 I f the Forum seeks, in one public meeting, to endorse one candidate and to exclude all others, the Forum is trying to do too much too fast. For the planned forum is neither a sufficient opportunity for new can didates to present themselves nor a sufficient opportunity for the com munity to evaluate the present can didates. The limitations of the proposed event make it unattractive for any candidate except a single front-run ner who may have every advantage and risk very little. Presently it ap pears that only two Democratic can didates are choosing to participate, and both candidates deserve credit for being willing to formulate cam paign positions and present them selves before the public at this early date. But it would be a grave mistake to take any "b allo tin g " too seriously at this point. And if an endorsement is given to one candidate, it should not be used punitively against others. The shaping o f District 18 as a "Black district" was largely accom plished by reapportionment in the 1981 legislature, and many no doubt see "one Black candidate" as possib ly providing a finishing touch for the new district. But trying to en force an endorsement o f the Leader ship Forum at this early stage of next year’s campaign is like trying to drive in the finishing nail with a sledge hammer. I f the sledge hammer is discarded, the Leadership Forum may turn out to be a constructive contribution to the larger political process. This is intended as a column enti tled "Dem ocratic IS View point." tVhen signed the opinions are those o f the author. H h t unsigned, this I column represents the viewpoint o f the officers o f District IS Dem o crats. Address comments to Noss Danielson, District IS Democratic Leader, c /o the Portland Observer. Cuba (Continued fro m page I column 6) country. They can be traced to the 19th century wars o f independence and to themes o f resistance and hon or that have fed the fires and emo tions as well as ideals of genera tions. Cuban "internationalists” in Grenada or elsewhere remain repos itories o f that political culture. And as evidenced in the last few days, they are willing to die for it. And relatives in Cuba, just like relatives o f U .S . soldiers recently killed in Lebanon, feel sorrow as well as pride because their children have stood firm and died for what they believed in. C P A C IF IC N E W S S E R V IC E . 1 98J
