Page 2, Portland Observar, March 11, 1987
EDITORIAL/OPINION
Black Studies Deserves
Better Treatment
Two weeks ago it was reported in the Observer that
the Portland State University Curriculum Committee de
med a request by the Black Studies Department to issue
a minor The Curriculum Committee said Black Studies
was denied a minor request because Black Studies was
a "certificate program and is so close to being a minor
that thero was no need to have a minor within it " The
Curriculum Committee made its decision to deny Black
Studies approval for a minor on the recommendation of
the University's Faculty Senate. The Faculty Senate is
a deliberature body that gives advice to the University's
President and the Curriculum Committee on cirriculum
and other policy matters
The Observer feels the manner which the Cirriculum
Committee and the Faculty Senate used in denying
the Black Studies request for a minor was insensitive
and down right disrespectful The Senate's refusal to
allow the Black Studies Department an opportunity to
present the merits of its minor proposal before recom
mending that the proposal be denied by the Cirriculum
Committee, while other departments were given the
chance to do so, is overtly discriminatory
Equally alarming is the fact that the Cirriculum Com
mittee acted on the Faculty Senate recommendation
knowing that Black Studies was systematically denied
these courtesies and communication considerations
that departments are given by both the Senate and the
Committee
Portland State University president, Natale Sicuro.
should take a leadership role by becoming actively in
volved in determining the reason the Black Studies De
partment was given negative treatment by the Faculty
Senate and the Curriculum Committee The Black Stu
dies Department and the Black community deserve to
know the answer to this question
High Profile — Low Visibility
crime preventiorj. vocalizing their expertise and exper
lence in dealing with such problems
They promise
to introduce legislation (if electedl which would wipe
out prostitution, drugs and unemployment, etc They
spend a great deal of time and energy making public
appearances trying to sway voters opinion in their favor
They can be seen everywhere during the campaign,
but, once elected, seem to fade into the splendours
of absenteeism
Promises made during a campaign are not kept be
cause mostly it is impossible to do so or they are |ust
plain forgotten
According Io one Multnomah County elections offi
cial, who asked to remain anonymous. "Some cam
paign promises attributed to candidates are not only
lacking validity but border on illegality They need to
be more aware of the facts before they make a public
statement "
Maybe what's needed is a mandatory candidates'
school for those aspiring to run for public office
It is always amusing to note promises made by can
didates during an election campaign
Ranging from
"udiculous" to "redundant", they somehow seem to
captivate voters who are willing to give candidates
Another chance to perform as they so diligently pro
mised during the campaign
Focusing on issues such as prostitution, drugs, police
brutality, unemployment, etc., election hopefuls have
discovered that "sensationalism " in the news not only
attracts readership but votes as well
For example, some of the issues mentioned above
were topics addressed by candidates during the last
election Concerned citizens, especially those in North
east Portland, responded more favorably to these
"community based" problems than they did to others
of equal importance due to a lack of "sensationalism"
Health, the budget, senior citizens and housing de
serve, and sometimes do get, equal "play", for it would
certainly appear that all are somewhat related
Candidates embark on a platform of social reform and
On The Constitution
BY Edwin L. Coleman II
To answer the question, is our constitution '< olor
blind,” one should define what is meant by color con
sciousness," for that has been a part of the American
experience since the very beginning The historical re
cord suggests that many of our founding fathers were
color conscious when they talker) about Blacks as three
fifths of a person With the adoption of the 13th, 14th.
and 15th amendments came the political ideological
contest between contending forces within American
society, a stuggle with many facets In many ways it is
at the heart of today's ideological philosophical con
frontation between progressive forces who want to
push our revolution forward and the so called "new
right" who want to stop it or push it back, if possible
Color consciousness is not the sole issue in American
politics that brings progressive and the new right into
conflict It is. nevertheless, one of the major issues in
defining the social political context It should also be
kept in mind that neo fascist movements have always
attempted to wrap themselves in religious and patriotic
garb of one kind or another. Their idea of an ideal socie
ty is one consisting of people who look like them and
think as they do on every single issue
In many ways our constitution mirrors political reality,
especially in the way it is interpreted Even a cursory
reading of Supreme Court rulings on the scope of the
14th and 15th amendments at different stages illustrates
the point dramatically, keeping in mind the broad range
of issues covered by the 14th Plessy v Ferguson re
fleets one kind of political reality for Black Americans
while Brown v Board of Education of Topeka reflected
a changing reality. These desicions did not take place
in a vacuum totally isolated from political pressures,
political conflict, and ideological manipulations
How the constitution is interpreted can be a life or
death proposition for many This is certainly the case
of Black Americans. The question is not so much in
the constitution color blind, but rather WHO is defining
color consciousness and in what kind of political con
text If the United States is to become a true "melting
pot," then ethnic and cultural differences must be ac
cepted, studied with some concern for an in depth
understanding, and the best taken from each to build on
a richer AMERICAN culture
Whether we have the
spiritual will to do this is an open question at this point
in our history.
"Our constitution is color blind, and neither
knows nor tolerates classes among citizens In
respect to civil rights, all citizens are equal be
fore the law The humblest is the peer of the
most powerful. The law regards man as man
and takes no account of its surroundings or of
his color when his civil rights as guaranteed
by the supreme law of the land are involved
Justice John M Harlan, 1896
An underlying issue to be explored, in the limited
scope of this article, is to what extent does the evolu
tion of our constitution as a frame of reference for our
political institutions represent a gradual or revolutionary
development? In one sense, and as many historians
have noted, our revolution protected a number of con
tradictory trends
The men who wrote the Declaration of Independence
and later played an important role in drafting the con
stitution, reflected the attitudes of their time to some
extent They were certainly ahead of their time in many
respects but they also depicted in published writings
as well as in their private letters the racial prejudices of
that era Historian Herbert Aptheker has made some
poignant comments about some of our founding fathers
which are still relevant for the 1980s
Writing about
the Declaration of Independence and our revolution,
in his 1980 book, "Unfolding Drama Studies in U S
History," Aptheker observed that "it affirmed in
achievement and in theory .
the right of national
self determination
It postulated the equality of all
men "
This concept was carried over to a limited extent in
the constitution However, it is important to recognize
that there is always a big gap between revolutionary
rhetoric and day to day practice; our revolution, as with
all revolutions before or since, was deficient Revolu
tions are often necessary and useful, but they are never
perfect, and they have yet to produce the utopian
society
Aptheker, in discussing ours, noted in his book that
"The revolution and the instruments of government
resulting from it expounded the concept of popular
sovereignty Again, with those who announced this,
its meaning was limited to the concept of people' in the
18th century male, white, propertied
In short, our revolutionary process reflects an on
going struggle, and the civil war of the 1860s, the re
construction period 1865 1877, and the civil rights cam
paigns of the 1960s each represent important stages in
that process Our constitution was borne out of con
flict. It did not simply evolve out of a genuine consen
sus
Coleman is a professor of English and Director of Ethnic
Studies at the University of Oregon
M ANAGEM ENT
A weekly column on personal finance distributed by
the ( >regon Society of Certified Public Accountants.
On Wedding Bells and Taxes: Filing Jointly or Separately
On St Valentine's Day. more marriage proposals are
made than on just about any other day of the year
And, when a man and a woman decide to get married,
they have many details to think about Usually, how
they decide to file their income tax is not one of them
But come tax time, says the Oregon Society of CPAs,
they have a decision to make
Most married couples file jointly because they reduce
their tax bill more than if they file separately The tax
rates for married couples are lower and there are many
tax benefits to filing jointly that may not be available to
separate filers
By filing a joint tax return, married couples are en
titled to the two earner deduction (which will be phased
out in 1987). IRA deduction for a non working spouse,
the credit for the elderly, the earned income credit or
the dependent care credit For the maximum deduc
tion, all totaled, these benefits could provide a sustan
tial tax savings
Still, couples may elect to file separately One reason
to file separately is if both husband and wife have sepa
rate incomes and one spouse has substantial medical
bills In this case, medical expenses that exceed five
percent of this spouse's adjusted gross income are tax
deductible in 1986 If the expenses are great enough,
they can reduce his or her tax bill considerably
Couples who choose to file jointly must be married.
Separated and divorced couples may still have to file
jointly depending on certain circumstances If you were
married December 31, 1986, consider yourself married
for the entire tax year If your spouse died during 1986,
you may still file a |Oint return.
Separated couples may file returns as though they are
not married as long as they did not live together at all
in 1986
In this situation, one spouse may file as a
head of household as long as the couple's dependent
child lived with him or her for more than six months out
of the year If you were divorced in 1986, you cannot
file a joint return unless you remarried within the same
year.
If you got married, separated, divorced or became
widowed in 1986, you will have to make a decision as to
the best way to file your income tax return. If you feel
you need more information to properly file your return,
contact a certified public accountant or the Internal
Revenue Service Both are good sources of information
when it comes time to sort through your finances.
CIVIL RIGHTS JOURNAL
A M W S 51 KV It I
Of THE UNITED CHURCH Of CHRIST
COMMISSION FOR RACIAL JUSTICE
Racist Violence on the Rise
One might have thought the statement by Bradford
Reynolds was the Reagan Administration's poor attempt
at a joke In the midst o, one of the greatest surges of
racism and racist violence in recent memory, Mr Rey
nolds, in charge of the Justice Department's Civil Rights
division, actually said there was no "Rising tide of
racism
In fact, he said. There has yet to be produced
any evidence to track up this bald assertion, and, indeed
all available evidence collected on such matters indicates
quite the opposite
I guess Mr Reynolds doesn't read his own depart
merit's reports For, the Community Relations Service of
his own Justice Department notes that in the 6 years be
tween 1980 and 1986 the number of reported incidents
leaped from 99 to 276
almost a three fold increase
And these are just tfie incidents reported to the Justice
Deparment
Then there are the figures recently revealed by the NY
Police Department's Bias Incident Investigating Unit
In New York City alone the number of confirmed inci
dents against Blacks
that is. assaults, threats made
with weapons and verbal confrontations
has steadily
risen since 1982 And in the month following the Howard
Beach, Queens incident, confirmed incidents of racial
bias in New York City rose a dramatic 150%
But enough of statistics Let's talk about actual peo
pie In December of last year a 15 year old Black youth
was so brutally beaten by a white police officer in a su
burb of Washington, D C that 11 witnesses, many of
them strangers, signed a complaint
A passenger in a
car that was driving by at the time said the officer hit
the young man with a night stick "at least 10 times and
then, when the youth, his head bloody, tried to get up,
the officer hit him between his legs According to the
Washington Post, the young man was stopped by the
cop after he dropped a candy wrapper on the ground
Then there was Jimmy Lee Bruce, 20 years old, who
got a little loud in a movie theater one night in upstate
New York Next thing he knew he was being held in a
chokehold by a white off duty policeman Friends say
the young man kept saying, "I give up, let me go," as
he gasped for breath. He was pronounced dead at 11:04
that evening.
It's not only the police, though At the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst, last October, approximately
3,000 white students gathered to watch a World Series
game
A Black student walked by and said he was a
Mets fan Soon the white student mob was attacking
any Black student in sight. The incident left 10 injured
and one Black student was beaten unconscious. A re­
cent report about the incident called it "predictable, pre
ventable and primarily racially motivated."
There have been other incidents at the University of
Chicago. Mt Holyoke in Massachusetts, and a number
of other colleges throughout the country.
In other
words, racism is not just a disease of the economically
deprived within the white community, as some have
suggested It is also a disease of the so called "best and
the brightest."
Similarly, in another mob action, a group of suburban
white high school students in a Boston suburb this
month attacked a busload of Black students who were
participating in a busing program The white students
were looking for three particular Black students. When
they couldn't find them, one white student shouted.
"Well, let's get them all," and the mob attacked the bus
with stones and a tire iron.
It is to be expected that anyone who would suggest
that a mob of 2 3,000 Klansmen throwing rocks and bot
ties in Forsyth County, Georgia were just "a small band
of bystanders whose childish prattle went almost com
pletely unnoticed," would also think these and other
such incidents were simply isolated occurrences They
are not Howard Beach is not an isolated incident Nor
is Louisville, Kentucky; Hutchinson, Kansas, or Easton.
Maryland, where other racial incidents have occurred in
recent weeks And the more this Administration tries to
sweep this endemic racism propelling these incidents
under the rug. the more they will increase Only is we,
as a nation, begin to speak out and aggressively con
front these racist forces, will we be able to halt this self
destructive course
Give Your Child
a Sense of Direction
Before
He Leaves Home
Portland Observer
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