Page 2, Portland Observer, September 24, 1986
EDITORIAL/OPINION
The selection of Cleveland "C leve" Williams
as Superintendent of the Portland Park Bureau
by Commission Mike Lmberg was an excellent
choice.
didates who applied for the position during
a national search for a replacement for William
V. Owens, who formerly headed the Bureau.
In addition, Mr. Williams is one of the few
public servants who is willing to listen to the
legitimate concerns of the public, be a repre
sentative of the community, and has the vision
to prepare the Park Bureau for the changes
in the future. Overall, Mr. Williams will be a
valuable asset to both the Black community
and the City of Portland.
The former Senior Executive Recreation Po
licy Administrator for the city of Oakland,
California, is well qualified to run the Park
Bureau.
Mr. Williams' extensive background in the
area of parks and recreation management is
the reason he was chosen over 50 other can
"Que Sos Nicaragua?" Speakers, Exhibit
comes to Portland
The Nicaragua Mobile Education Project, a photo exhibit and speaking
tour sponsored by the national, intertaith organization Witness tor Peace,
will be coming to Portland, October 2 4, 1986
The bilingual exhibit of poems, testimony and 70 photographs is an effort
to bring the faces and words of Nicaraguans directly to the people of North
America The exhibit will be accompanied by three former Oregonians who
lived and worked in Nicaragua as long term staff members of Witness of
Peace
Dorothy Granada. Charles Gray and Bruce Bondurant will speak at
7:30 p.m , Thursday, October 2 at the University of Portland. 5000 N Willa
mette at the Buckley Center Auditorium where the exhibit will be displayed
The exhibit will be open to the public from 7 10 p m . October 2; 10 a m
10 p.m , October 3: and 10 a m 2 p.m , October 4 Admission is free
Granada. Gray and Bondurant will speak on their experiences in Nicara
gua Granada worked for a number of years as a public health nurse with
Charles Gray
Multnomah County Gray is a former professor at the University of Oregon
and co founded the social change funding foundation, McKenzie River
Gathering
Bruce Bondurant is presently a student at the University of
Oregon.
Granata, 55, Gray, 61, and Bondurant recently returned from a one year
stay in Nicaragua where they accompanied delegations of U S and Cana
dian citizens into conflict zones to document contra attacks against civil
tans Granada and Gray also worked in a resettlement camp as a nurse
and carpenter.
The Portland program is sponsored by the University of Portland Cultural
Programs office. Catholic Peace Ministry, Portland Central American
Solidarity Committee, Portland Corinto Sister City Association, Oregon
Fellowship of Reconciliation, Metanoia Peace Community, Council for
Human Rights in Latin America, and Portland Clergy and Laity Concerned.
Following the Oregon tour, which will include Eugene, Salem an<$
Astoria, the Nicaragua Mobile Education Project will be shown in Moscow
Idaho.
D orothy Granada
Along the Color Line
Or
by Dr Manning Marable
Manning M arable « prolasso! ot socotogy and poetical scianca
st Puntos University
Along the Color Lata
newspapers mtarnationaey
appears m over 140
_ _ _ _ _
Reagan in 1988?"
President Reagan's recent speech on the
crisis of South Africa revealed more about the
factors behind his domestic policies and the
current state of American race relations than
it did about the tyranny of apartheid.
Predictably, Reagan urged the South A fri
can regime to hold fast against the tide of
Black liberation: "The South African Govern
ment is under no obligation to negotiate the
future of the country with any organization
that proclaims a goal of creating a Communist
state." This statement was a vulgar lie on two
levels. The mass democratic movement inside
of South Africa, led by the African National
Congress, is fully committed to a multiracial,
democratic society And the Botha regime in
Pretoria has no plans to "negotiate" anything
with anyone, so long as its faithful friend in
the White House protects and defends its die
tatorship. Dimly perhaps, even Reagan recog
nizes that his public statements don't square
with the actual political conditions in South
Africa. But the President's gut faith in white
supremacy and ani Communism blurs and dis
torts his comprehension of apartheid.
Equally predictable was the response of the
establishment's media to Reagan’s latest ver
bal assualt on common sense.
Columnist
James Reston continued to praise Reagan's
fierce opposition to economic sanctions, but
added:
"It was a typical Reagan perfor
mance — eloquent, hopeful and largely irrele
vant to the main problem ." Journalist An
thony Lewis was slightly more on the mark.
"M r. Reagan is on the side of P.W. Botha and
the National Party rulers of South A frica,"
Lewis confirmed. "That was the real message
of his speech. . . Reagan knows nothing of
realities on the ground in South Africa. He
sees South Africa as he sees all the world,
through the glass of ideology." But even
Lewis failed to understand why Reagan is so
reluctant to severe his connections with the
apartheid regime. Reagan and botha are ideo
logical and political twins. The major differ
ence between the two is that Reagan is lead
ing the fight to crush Blacks' rights in a white
majority country.
The political forces of economic oppression
and racial subordination see Reagan as their
best hope to check the political advances of
Blacks, Puerto Ricans, Chicanos, and working
people. So desperate are our political oppon
ents that some are even attempting to over
turn the Constitution in order to give Reagan
another four years in power.
Conservative Democrat William Keenan of
Portland, Oregon, has established a political
action committee, the "Third Term PAC",
which advocates the repeal of the 22nd
Amendment to the Constitution. The amend
ment, ratified in 1951, prohibits any person
from being elected to the U.S. presidency
more than two times. The gimmick has been
picked up by Republican Congressman Guy
Vander Jagt, who is also Chairman of the GOP
Congressional Campaign Committee. In a let
ter sent to 300,000 people, Vander Jagt
stated: Ronald Reagan is one of the greatest
American Presidents of all time, and I want to
keep him on the jo b ." The problems in this
hasty maneuver are immense. First, the De
mocrats control the House of Representatives
by a wide margin, and the Congress would
have to pass this new amendment by the re
quired two thirds vote. Second, it would be
virtually impossible to get 36 state legislatures
to pass a new constitutional amendment by
the 1988 presidential elections. Vander Jagt's
alternative scheme, however, is to push for
Reagan's election in early 1989 as Speaker of
the House of Representatives, a powerful post
which legally does not require House member
ship.
The consensus viewpoint from both Black
South Africa and Black America is, however,
quite clear: Reagan is no friend of ours. Two
terms for Reagan was too much.
Letters to the Editor
B y»-
4M
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Is It Open Season On The C o n s titu tio n ?
■
r
Concerning Open Season On Blacks?' BY Sister
Eva Kutas. Regional Vice President of The National
Lawyers Guild, Portland Chapter, it may be open
season on those who allow the letter ot the law to de
feat the purpose of the law I'm not a student of West
ern Jurisprudence, but I do believe the document claims
to represent the fruit of all basic political documents
governing the Western world. It is a fine instrument,
the Constitution. When the Constitution was drawn up
by its founding fathers. Blacks were here but the Con
stitution was not for us And. at the time that the Con
stitution was drawn up, Black (people were swallowed
up in Amerika and were called three fifths of a human
being Here the political document that Amerika bases
A fte r a speech w h e re the fo rm e r ch airw o m an of the U S
Equal O p p o rtu n ity C om m ission warned
of division created by the w o m en's m o v e m e n t, a fe w w o m e n w h o are progressing and a m ajority
w h o are not. Eleanor Holm es N orton m et w ith a group of w o m e n to discuss the out of hand problem of
teen pregnancy
H olm es w as in Portland last w e e k e n d for the W o m en in The Year 2000 conference
held at M t. H ood C o m m u n ity College
P hoto by Richard J Brown 1
PORTLAND OBSERVER
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her political life on and her system of law on classified
us as sub human Some will say, "Well, don't forget.
Brother Jamil, we added to that the amendments, you
know. And, we have amended our great document ."
So you have. Isn’t it easy to amend a document: but
you have not amended the work done by your fathers
in destroying a nation of people. How easy it is to write
words on a paper that they are now recognized as full
human beings, but not one step has Amerika taken to
amend the work of their fathers on our fathers What
work is that? The work of robbing our fathers totally:
the work of taking from us out names, our language,
our religion, our God. our basic human rights: all of
these were stripped from us and for 300 years the so
called Christian caucasoid people of this nation denied
us the human right to know When they decided that it
was all right to teach Black people, they taught us what
they wanted us to know about ourselves and about
them,
So we are over 100 years up from slavery, yet we are
in the same or worse condition today than when our
fathers were so called emancipated
Yes. my dear
Sister Eva, they amended the Constitution but they
have not amended or restored Black people to their own
mind, so that Black people can think, act and do as
other civilized human beings >n the planet When our
Black Brothers and Sisters from Afrika and the Third
World look at us, they see us as so pitiful. They wonder
what, if anything, could be done to restore us to sane
minds, to human intelligence, where we would act by
OhB another as any oppressed people should Anybody
else oppressed can find unity.
"Shooting Leaves Man Dead” by Jerry Garner I Port
i
« «
I
land Observer, 7 30 86): Here we are oppressed on all
sides, and we are battling each other as though we were
free with no enemy around us. while beautiful Sisters
stroll Union Ave We can and will revive those whorish
women and doped up men. They are only in a shallow
grave, waiting for the master word, waiting for the mas
ter grip We know what the Masons and Shriners are
referring to when they say that Hiram was hit on the
head and brought on a westerly course, and buried in
the north corner where there was no light, a little sprig
of Acacia coming out of Hiram's grave to show that
Hiram, though dead, had the power to live again if only
someone could apply the master grip
Even though Black People have been evily mistreated
in Amerika. you do not find Black people involved in
espionage or involved in treasonous behavior against
this country. With all we have suffered, Black people
remain loyal and faithful to Amerika And even though
Amenka's army is full of young Black men and women
willing right now to pour their life's blood out on foreign
battlefields for this country, Amerika still evilly mistreats
the people of those soldiers.
As you know. Sister Eva, neither Hitler nor any other
man could have murdered six million people without the
collaboration of many more or at least their shameless
passivity W e must begin to question the right of a
might which now murders in cold blood and wantonly
smashes out any spark of rebellion in a desperate effort
to erase those men/women of courage who dare to
struggle for their freedom We are taught in school to
honor the slave owner Patick Henry for saying "Give me
liberty or give me death", but we are simultaneously
mesmerized with materialism and taught to value just
about everything else above liberty
Those like Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., who dare to emulate Patick
Henry's ultimatum are gladly given death I believe you
will agree. Sister Eva, continuous réévaluation and re
assessment of all legal institutions, processes and prin
ciples are required if effective legal strategies are to be
employed against inequality, injustice, and racism
Since Slavery was nourished and sustained by racism
and violence, racism and violence have been institution
alized against Blacks, especially in the administration of
justice Some of the great provisions of the Constitu
tion still lay dormant for large numbers of poor people,
regardless of color Police Union leader Stan Peters and
some of Portland's police may force "Open A Veritable
Pandora's Box" by the House Judiciary Committee
Dr. Jamil Cherovee