Page 4, Portland Observer. January 9, 1985
EDITORIAL/OPINION
Taxation without representation
As Mayor Bud Clark lakes office, he is accept
ing an inequalily — no A fro-A m ericans on his
siaff and no staff member with an intricate or inti
mate knowledge o f Northeast Portland.
Hie racially unbalanced composition o f Mayor
C la rk ’s transition sta ff paves a foundation on
shaky ground. For a candidate who benefited
from the surge in voter registration his actions do
not measure up to the reality o f what he has
brought to City Hall.
Americans. She coasted into office on name fa
miliarity and is practicing taxation without repre
sentation.
K afoury has taken A ffirm a tiv e A ction back
twenty years by engaging in "w in d o w dressing"
— having a Black ou, front and none in the back.
Both Clark and Kafoury must remember the same
margin o f victory that put them in office can take
them out. Their hiring attitudes and actions b or
der on racism and reinforce the racism that exists
in government institutions.
Portland w ill be better served by City Hall and
Multnomah County administrations that operate
on the reality o f fairness and not the illusion o f
inclusion.
Certainly, Clark is aware o f the C ity’s A ffirm a
tive Action hypocrisy and Kafoury can see that the
County’s A ffirm a tive Action applies everywhere
but in administration. The racial composition o f
these two elected officials can only produce p o li
cies that w ill make the Grand Wizard o f the Ku
Klux Kian proud.
I he inauguration is over and low-income com
munities and those o f color are faced with a sym
phony o f inequalities from national, slate and
local policies. The only way for the powerless and
voiceless to survive in 1985 is to challenge the
status quo that Mayor Clark has replaced.
County Commissioner Gretchen Kafoury, who
benefited from Gladys M cC oy’s political miscal
culation (she resigned to lose in the City Commis
sioner’s race), is practicing this same type o f hiring
hypocrisy as she retained M cCoy’s secretary but
hired no staff o f color or any with a reputation o f
working in District 2.
We challenge C lark to implement policies o f
Affirm ative Action within his own staff, and Ka
foury to practice wha, she preaches in terms o f
believing in Black self-determination. Challenge
them to bring Portland out o f the dark ages o f
inequality to the enlightened decade o f fairness in
hiring practices. A fte r all, people o f color pay
taxes, too.
During the campaign, Kafoury told our editor
ial s ta ff and (he R ainbow C o a litio n that she
agreed with the premis that Black political power
could be expressed by Blacks in politically respon
sible positions. However, she exploited the com
m u n ity by ignoring a pool o f q u a lifie d A fro -
Letters to the Editor
us, he has never been involved in any
Black activist moves in this in s titu
tion.
It is w ith great d iffic u lty that we
combat the racism in the Oregon Slate
Penitentiary and elsewhere, but it is
with an even greater difficulty that we
must combat the ignorant enemy with
in. (Because he is our color, does not
always mean he is our kind.)
A ll allegations are totally prepos
terous and conjured up in a wild imag
ination, or possibly of another small
mind that influences him.
I he Observer welcomes letters to
the editor. Letters should be typed
or neatly printed and signed with the
author's name and address fad
dresses are not published). We re
serve the nghi to edit fo r length. Mail
Io: Portland Observer, P. O. Box
3137, Portland. OB 972OH
Allegations
preposterous
HOMER D eV ILLE C LA Y.
A N T H O N Y LINK,
BONNIE KINSEY.
IA M O N T JOHNSON,
WA YNE HOW ARD.
To the Editor,
Our first response io this article (No
More Tom s, was one of physical vio
lence. but after careful consideration
the source of our aggressions are calm
and we intend Io show (he m enial
growth Uhuru professes.
U h u ru as well as every o rg an iza
tion in this institution has the oppor
tunity to submit inmates to the Classi
fication Committee for trips with staff.
It is norm al fo r each organization
(1 akota, J ay tees. La Raza Running
C lu b , A th letic C lu b , A . A ., etc.) to
have two inmates on trip status, but
this is not always true, in Uhuru's case
because we have been very active in
such projects as the festival we pul on
this summer at Delta Park and the Pri
soners Forum that we sponsored to in
form the public o f the genocidal pro
portions o f Blacks that are being
lucked up nation-wide. We have been
allowed to have as many as six (6, Bro
thers with escorted trip status.
There is notably a certain amount of
envy that exists. Sometimes, this envy
shows in the form of malicious slander
such as shown by M r. Boyd who has
had four years to address us about any
issues he is dissatisfied w ith . That
would have been the manly thing to
do. Not only has he not approached
•l
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Danny Boyd
is right
To the Editor,
This is being written in response to
" N o Uncle T o m " that was printed in
the December 19th ed itio n by M r.
Danny K. Boyd as well as " U n c le
Tom Sour Grapes” and "U ncle Tom
Rebuttal," printed in the January 3rd
edition.
I am an inmate here at the Oregon
State Penitentiary as well as a member
o f Uhuru Sa Sa.
This is not being written to throw
mud but to try to put things in an
objective view and shed insight.
On January 4th, I personally spoke
w ith the tw o top members o f our
leadership in U h u ru Sa Sa. It was
agreed by ourselves and other mem
bers who were present that M r. Ron
nie M artin has not been as effective as
he could be in his job capacity here at
O SP. There are several reasons o f
fered for this being so. I , M r. Ronnie
M artin has much apprehension for his
job because o f lack o f minority em
ployees w ith in (he O S P to support
him ; 2 , M r.' R onnie M a rtin is the
only minority on the Executive level
and is overworked; and 3) the minor
ity inmates here at O SP are not seri
ous minded in the proper areas and
do not give M r Ronnie M a rtin the
means or incentives necessary to ap
proach the a d m in is tra tio n and re
ceive serious consideration.
A dditionally, what was not m en
tioned in the December 19th or the
January 3rd editions is that M r. Ron
nie M a r lin is also the A ffirm a tiv e
Action O fficer here at O SP Whose
responsibility is it to recruit m in o r
ities w ith in the O S P em ploym ent
ranks?
I personally think that Danny K.
Boyd is right: the community and so
ciety should keep a closer watch on
this institu tion and Departm ent o f
C orrections because the Danny K.
Boyds o f this institution w ill be re
leased one day, back into the com
m unity and society, w ith a lot o f
hatred built up due to the actions o f
the w h o le c o m m u n ity , whites in
cluded, corrections department em
ployees, all the way from the Execu
tive level down to the CSOs.
Along ihe Color Line by Dr. Manning Marable
The recent anti-apartheid demon
strations across the nation represent,
in the short run, an attempt to revive
the old civil rights coalition of Blacks,
liberals. Latinos, Jews, and labor. De
spite the refusal of some Orthodox and
Conservative Jewish groups to take
part in the protests — because o f
Israel’s extensive economic and po
litical links w ith the South A frican
regime — many Jewish rabbis and po-
litical activists have endorsed the ac
tions. William Lucy, secretary-treasur
er o f the Am erican Federation o f
State, C ounty and M u n icip al E m
ployees, was among those arrested at
the South African embassy in Wash
ington. In San Francisco, members of
the Intern ation al Longshorem en’s
and W arehousem en’ s U n ion have
refused to unload cargo from South
A fric a , and over 500 dockw orkers
and community leaders have demon
strated on their behalf. As M Car I
H o lm an , executive director o f the
National Urban C oalitio n observes,
these "sit-ins have been u sefu l" in
bringing together all liberal, labor and
m inority forces around a clear-cut
issue o f moral and political im m edi
acy. “ This kind of action will probably
result in a spurt o f action in other
areas."
Viewed historically, however, the
anti-apartheid campaign represents a
renaissance o f Black solidarity and
identity with A fric a. A nd in many
respects, this connection of culture and
politics has very deep roots among
A fro-A m erican s. In the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, for example,
Black Americans were acutely aware
of their African kinship, and sought
to express their connectedness in num
erous ways. Free Blacks in the north
ern states in the years before emanci
pation frequently named their f r a
ternal societies and educational in
stitutions after their ancestral home.
The first Black school in New York
City, founded in 1787, was called the
" A fric a n Free S ch o ol.’ ’ Boston’s
Black community founded the "Sons
of the A frican S o ciety" in 1798, to
provide financial assistance to the
poor. W hen A fro -A m eric an s were
prohibited from worshiping in many
whites’ churches, they started their
own denom ination in 1816 — the
African Methodist Episcopal Church.
M any nineteenth century Black
leaders, disillusioned with the failure
o f Am erican democracy to embrace
Black freedom, proposed a mass emi
gration back to A frica. In 1887, the
Kansas African Em igration Associa
tion advocated the creation of a “ Unit
ed States o f A frica, for the elevation
of the African and for the perpetuity
of our race." Black abolitionist leader
Dr. Martin Dclany went to Nigeria and
successfully negotiated w ith local
chiefs for a tract of land suitable for
Black American emigrants.
In the twentieth century, a m ajor
shift in Afro-American social thought
occurred, produced by the nse of racial
segregation. Blacks were denied the
right to vote, were refused em ploy
ment or service in public establish
ments, and were fo rcib ly removed
from white neighborhoods. Over five
thousand Black Am ericans were
lynched between 1882 and 1927, and
many publicly burned, the new racial
codes segregated all sports facilities,
restaurants, buses and trains. Birming
ham, Alabama even outlawed Blacks
and whites from playing checkers or
dominoes together in 1930. Facing
the reaction against racial equality,
most Black Am erican leaders now
advocated a political philosophy of
civil rights and integration. Blacks
were "fu lly Am erican,” and as such,
should be extended basic civil liberties
and rights shared by whites. Any con
nection with A frica was deliberately
ignored or forgotten. G rad u ally, by
the 1950s, most Black Am ericans
knew little about Africa’s history or its
people.
Yet the links between A fric a and
A fro-A m erican s did not disappear
entirely during these years. W .E .B .
DuBois, noted civil rights leader, spon
sored an important series of political
conferences which brought together
West Indians, Black Americans and
Africans between l9(X)and 1945. In in
by L s n ita D u k e a n d R ic h a rd B r o w n
creasing numbers, African intellectuals
came to the U .S . and took part in
desegregation campaigns. N ham di
Ankiwe of Nigeria and Kwanie Nkru
mah of G ham both attended all Black
Lincoln University in Pennsylvania
Their respective nse to power in the
1950s was covered extensively in Black
Am erican newspapers, and the
achievement of African independence
captured the im aginations o f U .S .
Blacks. Congressman Adam Clayton
Powell o f Harlem attended the initial
conference o f Third W orld and non-
aligned nations in Bandung, Indonesia
in 1955. After independence, connec
tions across the Atlantic deepened in
both symbolic and concrete ways. In
both dow ntow n Dar-es-Salaam and
Nairobi, major streets were named in
honor of Du Bois, the “ father of Pan
Africanism.” In South Africa, young
Black leaders such as the late Steve
Biko developed their "B la c k C o n
sciousness” movement against apart
heid by drawing upon the rhetoric and
tactics o f the "Black Pow er" move
ment in the 1960s. Black Am erican
students and tourists in increasing
numbers began to make pilgnmages to
their "homeland"; U.S. Black cultural
fashions and hairstyles began to con
sciously imitate African patterns.
Iro n ica lly , it was only w ith the
achievement o f desegregation and the
granting of democratic political rights
in (he 1960s that Black Am ericans
could fully revive their political and
cultural relations with A frica. Black
mayors and elected officials began to
use their offices to develop closer eco
nomic and civic ties with their African
counterparts. Black Congressmen
lobbied for increased U.S. aid to sup
port A fric a’s development, and pres
sured administrations to halt economic
and political support for apartheid.
The recent demonstrations are a return
to a rich historical tradition of support
and identity with Africa — sharjiened
by the realization that no genuine
democracy can exist for Black Ameri
cans so long as others in the African
diaspora remain under racial rule and
economic exploitation.
The recent shooting in a New York
subway prom pted the Street Beat
team to ask, “ Should the authorities
prosecute the subway rider, who shot
four youths who tried to rob him, as
a criminal or hail him as a hero?”
Asmar Haheeb-ullah Saleem
CLA RENCE EU G EN E JONES
United Way
To the Editor,
O n behall o f U n ited W ay o f the
Columbia-Willamette, I would like to
express by gratitude to Portland-
Observer readers for your outstanding
support o f the recently concluded
United W ay C am paign.
ROBERT H. SHORT
Volunteer ( umpatgn ( hairman
Portland Observer
M t" •
African and Black American connections
j
...
Dexter Morrison
Terminal Operator
Toni Harris
Service Representative
" I d on ’ t think he should be
treated like a criminal. He was de
fending him self. H e was just
doing what is right.”
“ They should prosecute him as
a criminal. His motive was wrong
because his intent was to kill. It
aggravates tensions between
Blacks and whites. Should every
body carry a gun with an intent
to kill?”
Johnny Johnson
Cool'R
"T h e y should treat him like a
criminal, there was no reason for
him to shoot those youths like he
did. Even though the youths were
wrong, they should treat him like
everyone else."
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" T h e y should hail him as a
hero. He was just protecting him
self. You would do the same."
A*,
Street
c ir v
Jeffery Jones
Security Officer
Apt
state
ZIP
< z >} r i
ci r X
5 *
50 ö
" I d o n ’ t think he should be
prosecuted as a c rim in a l. They
should lake into consideration the
crime rate in New Y o rk, assault
on the elderly, etc."
Tryger Bey
Molder
" I d o n ’t think they should do
either. They have not prosecuted
the guys who tried to rob him ."