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
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by Noss Danielson
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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
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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
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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