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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 13, 1988)
Page 2, Portland Observer, January 13, 1988 EDITORIAL / voung Black pimp deserves an immediate examination History tells us that the Black prostitute and the Black pimp are fairly re_ cent creations in the evolution of the African-American personality in this country. Unfortunately, some young Blacks, male and female have come to admire the morbid glamour that is associated with the personality. There is a growing population of young Black males and females in Port- tone, whci believe in the doctrine of 'female inferiority and male domination. Ironically this is the social doctrine that placed women in American in a sub ordinate position. And, it is the same doctrine that caused American women to take to the streets and demand equality in the home, in marriage, on the iob and in their personal relationships with men. Young Black females who believe in the doctrine of male dominance, leave themselves open to a variety of seductive male stereotypes, miscalcu lations criminal sophistication and social disorders. , . Daily we are witness to dramas where young Black males display their belief in the doctrine of male dominance by slapping, beating, pushing, and verbally threatening young Black females who have come to beheve that these men are acting this way because they care and love them. There have been recent cases in this community where young Black fem^le' ^ re ^ ^ lv beaten to death because they believed the men cared, and, thus, allowe h S ’ o e“ a b £ h a pattern ol verbal threats and violence. We must never ,™ e t“ n?caee of Tiina H u n »., who. in 1982. was abducted from the cam- pus9 of Portland Community College and brutally murdered because she re* fused to work as a prostitute. Her battered body was found in a wooded area in Battleground, Washington. Her killer believed the d° ctr,neJ 0 ™ dominance. He felt that Trina was his property and that he had the right V *. - . •- •I *..• ». •*•*. , • . • ?7 4 1 fnrrp hpr to do whatever he wanted. The time has come for the Black community to give this problem some verv serious attention. We want our sons and daughters to grow up with healthy perceptions of each other. We want our sons and daughters to have resDect for each other. Thus, we must look within our own homes and be S s to seed we are contributing to the problem. Do we believe that men are supposed to dominate females? Is this the perception some of us give our ¿ n s and daughters in the home? Do some of us truly believe that wo- men are suppose to be submissive, docile, unintelligent, and subject to each and every whim of a man? Are these the types of relationships some of us are involved in as we go about raising our children? ctrnnn nositive The voung Black males of our community are in need of strong, positive programs that will help them reshape their thinking. We must teachJ h®^ t0 respect the minds and bodies of all women. We must reinforce these^teach, mgs with positive images of women in every aspect of our daily lives But more importantly, we must openly live and practice the very On the other hand, whenever we witness our young males engag'ng the abuse of our daughters, we must stop them immediately. We have the right and we must exercise that right. Whenever we see our young daugh ters standing on Union Avenue attempting to seduce Johns , we must re- m°v®n doing so, we must express our concern, our love, and our desire to help them evolve from a bad situation to a positive one. We must make clear that we are part of an extended family of Black people who are able and will ing to do all we can to save our children. No one will do it for us. Now is the time. 4. : • V.i? T*. •> ' PORTLfiWbÒBSERVER OREGON'S OLDEST AFRICAN AMERICAN PUBLICATION *»; . Established in 1970 >’i • '< ? •* 4 A lfre d L. Henderson Publisher Leon L. Harris PORTLAND OBSERVER Gen Mgr Controller is published weekly by Exie Publishing Company. Inc. 5011 N E. 26th Ave. Portland, Oregon 97211 P.O. Box 3137 Portland, Oregon 97208 Phone Number: 1503)288 0033 Ù * • >* Richard J Brown ?•???. Editor Gary Ann G arnett Business Manager Richard J. Brown Nyewusi Askari Writer Photographer M a ttie Ann Callier-Spears Leslie V. W hite Religion Editor A rt Director Vivian E. Richardson Kendel Bryan C ovington Sales Representative Entertainment Editor Rebecca Robinson Joyce W ashington Typesetter I Production Sales Representative Lonnie Wells A rnold Pitre Distribution Sales Representative Deadlines for all submitted materials Articles M o n d a y 5 p m T h . P oniard Observer welcomes freelance subm,»s,ons Ads Tue sda y 5 p m Manuscripts and photographs should be c, e a .lv labeled and will be relum ed d accompanied by a sell addressed stamped envelope Subscriptions 4.. ' The P O R T! V« . Â X *4 V-j ‘.v X - » 15 00 per vesi in the To County area ANO O B S E R V E * Oregon s oldest African American Publication is a member ol The National X ° ^ n \o u n d e d 7 n l « S The 0 -egon Newspapei P u b l i e , , Assoc,anon and The National Advertising Representative Amalgamated Publishers Inc New York K / / - ■■!' To start the Portland Observer coming every week $15 00 for one year $25 00 for tw o years PORTLAND OBSERVER >>’ i .'L> •’ ••L-'.-'tÿ <•> '§ Box 3137, Portland. OR 97208 Name _ Address City __ Zip State__ - .'2 < Drug Pushers for Tots Today psychiatrists are making drug addicts out of America s school children by placing them on drugs to correct bogus mental disorders invented by the psychiatric industry. Take a look at the bible of psychia try the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders . In it you will discover that psychiatry has REDEFINED normal childhood behavior as mental illness. I’m talking about behavior including everything from fid- qeting in a school chair, to shoving to be first in line. This ploy has dupe thousands of parents into having their children placed on Ritalin, an amphe tamine-type drug that has a host of disturbing side-effects. Dr. Herbert E. Rie, professor of pediatrics and psychology at Ohio State University points out that children on Ritalin "slow down dramatically and are out of people's hair, but when objective testing is done, they re not performing one bit better. In fact, what we're observing is that the youngsters on drugs are far less responsive and enthusiastic; and are far more apathetic, humorless and zombie-like. Anger from parents around the country is starting to swell on this issue. Just recently, on the second day of the Annual Convention of Child Psychiatrists here in Washington, D.C., a Maryland woman filed a $3 mil lion dollar suit against two psychiatrists who had prescribed Ritalin for her son She charged that her son is suffering from serious permanent learning disabilities as a result of the drug, and that the psychiatrists did not inform The Tragedy of Yvonne Smallwood Yvonne Smallwood was 28 years old and the mother of four children. The youngest is two. She worked full-time for the city of New York and then worked a second job as a dietician's aide for a Bronx hospital, just to bring in extra money for her family. On December 3rd she was ar rested for protesting the issuance of a summons to Austin Harper, her mate, who is a cab driver. On December 9th she was dead while still in police custody. What happened during those seven days clearly points to yet another case of unchecked police brutality in New York City. W it nesses, including Austin Harper and a bystander, a social work investi gator for New York City, both con firmed that Yvonne Smallwood was her of the drug's dangers. , L u . beaten by several white police offi Fortunately, there is a solution to salvage a child who has been put on cers. The investigator noted that a drug like Ritalin. The Los Angeles-based Foundation for Advancements police threw her to the ground and in Science and Education has done numerous scientific studies on the uri- kicked her. Mr. Austin stated that fication Program, and found it to be remarkably effective in flushing out during this first beating she was drugs and toxins which have lodged in the body. knocked unconscious. One day state and federal authorities will stop giving our tax dollars to Police then took her to the hospi the psychiatric industry. One day they will wake up to the fact that psy tal where she was treated and re chiatry is the biggest failure of the 20th century. One day they will realize leased back into police custody. that psychiatry is costing us billions of dollars in taxes for unworkable pro- According to Austin, the officers qrams which create crime, violence and drug abuse. wheeled her to the police car where And the terrible, dark secret is that without this massive government they beat her yet again: "The se subsidy the psychiatric industry would collapse overnight. Like a used car cond time, after they wheeled her dealer who consistently sells cars that break down within two miles of the out of the hospital, my brother and lot, psychiatry could never survive open competition in the American I watched as she fell out of the market place. ,-».r»i" wheelchair and the police didn't be So don't let them drug your child. Just say "NO. lieve she was hurt so they pushed her, picked her up, threw her into Alexander R Jones is the Director of M inority and Third W orld A ffairs for the Church of the police car and, when her legs Scientology (RI International ___________________ _____________________________________ _ stuck out the back seat, they beat and kicked them into the car." The police then took her to jail at Riker s Island. Mary Joseph, Mr. Harper's sister, by Nyewusi Askari who is a nurse at Riker's Island, saw Last week James O. Kelly, President of Rejuvenation House Parts Com Yvonne in the infirmary there and pany and the former employer of Joe Holcomb, wrote a letter to the editor confirmed, "She was crying and of The Portland Observer expressing his belief that Holcomb s murder crying, saying the police beat her was not racially motivated. Following on the heels of Kelly's letter was a over and over. Her leg was swollen, letter from Da> d Hupp. Hupp believes that my article, "The Other Story her ankles were bruised . . . I've (12/30/87), injected racism into Holcomb's murder. You cite some rumors seen beaten people in my line of about Joe Holcomb's murder as a means of raising some deeply disturbing work, and she was beaten." Small racial issues. You raise some journalistic issues as well, alleging that media accounts of what happened were inaccurate. An uninformed reader might conclude that this murder was racially motivated and that the media didn t do a good job. My own view is that Joe was murdered by a thug, that the murder was unprovoked, and that Joe chose to intervene and help prevent someone from being harassed. All the verifiable facts point to h.s conclu sion. Apparently you haven't checked those facts, or you wouldn't have spread the rumors, because they are ludicrous . . ." Hupp's letter said. As the writer of the article Hupp and Kelly are speaking about, I offer To Mr.'s Kelly & Hupp wood's court appointed attorney says that when he saw her at the arraignment, "Her wrists were very swollen and her leg was three times its normal size. She was in really bad shape, dragging her leg behind her." Ms. Smallwood, still in police custody, later died of a blood clot that moved from her swollen leg to her lungs. The Smallwood murder comes at a time when the African American community of New York has be come the target of increasing racial ly motivated violence. But, as a re sult, this community is also begin ning to unify around concrete stra tegies for changing the situation in New York. As I preached the eulogy at Yvonne Smallwood's funeral and looked down at her young body, draped with a red, black and green liberation flag, I reflected, "When we look upon your face, my sister, we see ourselves. For you are us. You in your death personify the essence of our struggle. They tried to club your spirit out of existence but it is here with us tonight." "Let us all make a commitment to her spirit, for the best memorial we can give to Yvonne is to resolve to have the kind of unity and action in our community that makes New York City a city without racism, a city without killer cops . . . Our commitment must be not to forget because too many of us have am nesia. Too many of us forget too quickly what has been done to us . . . We are in a life and death struggle but we must make it more a struggle for life than death. For we are tired of going to these kind of funerals." This must be our promise to Yvonne Smallwood — and to all the Yvonne Smallwoods throughout this nation. We must translate our remembrance of them into concrete action for change. If we do this, they will not have died in vain. Letters to the Editor the following response: The Portland Observer doesn't support the murder of any human being and our position on such matters is well-documented. However, as an historically Black newspaper, we subscribe to the proposition that there are two sides to every story. The "Other Story" article explained that there were "rumors circulating through the community about Holcomb’s death. That these rumors were infused with perspectives which were different than those that appeared in other print and broadcast media, is no fault of this writer or The Portland Observer That Hupp believes in the so-called "verifiable facts point to only one side of the coin. None of Hupp's so-called verifiable facts tell us why that young Black man pulled the trigger. To merely say he pulled the trigger because he is a thug is to take the easy way out. To take the easy way out is to ensure that similar situations will happen again. To probe into un charted, uneasy territory, in order to get to the root cause of why the trigger was pulled, is to make an effort to ensure that it won't happen again. Given the historical evolution of race relations in this country, it should come as no surprise to Hupp and Kelly that some members of the Black com munity saw Holcomb's death as race-related. To say the incident was race- related is not to say that Holcomb’s death was racially motivated. Race- related means, "the incident took place between persons who were racially different: a Black man and a White man." Those along North Mississippi Avenue who believe race played a part in Holcomb’s death have a right to believe what they perceive a truth. They have a right to believe in what they perceive as a truth. It s not my job to pass judgment on their beliefs by not giving them an opportunity to say what they believe and feel. Having experienced oppression, I would never take away anyone's right to free speech. Nor would I simply pass off their beliefs as unimportant. That Joe Holcomb was murdered is one set of facts. These facts will probably ensure the conviction of his killer. If Joe Holcomb was murdered because that young Black man merely saw him as a white man whose life carried no merit, then that's another ballgame altogether. ,S H » | r'C r . Beniamin F. Chavis Jr. by Alexander R Jones One distressing aspect of Union Avenue is the presence of Young Black prostitute. Looking like they belong to a freshman high school class, these women face an abundance of problems: drugs, AIDS, crime, unwan ed pregnancies, homelessness, and isolation. Equally distressing is the pre sence of young Black male youths who call themselves pimps. The presence of the Black pimp doesn't signify that they are they only group of men who are involved in the evolution of prostitution iri the city < o Portland The problem cuts across racial, cultural and ethnic boundaries* However, the emerging presence of the young Black prostitute and the *•»*. • * Civil Rights Journal Freedom & Social Justice EDITORIAL » • •’ * OPINION For Black parents of children who get caught up in the web of crime, violence and drugs. It's important to know the "why's" of such ill-fated, traqic incidents. It allows them to organize efforts to prevent similar inci dents from happening again. One of the most devastating experiences a Black parent can have is to find out that their son or daughter killed a Joe Holcomb because he was white. As far as Hupp and Kelly are concerned, I suggest that they continue to work for the conviction of Holcomb's killer. The Black community stands with and behind them on that issue. However, long after the issue has faded from the screens of television and from the pages of newspapers, the Black community will still be seeking answers to the question, "Why? Why? Because we don't want it to happen again. I am sure Kelly and Hupp will agree. .■«it Racial Incidents in Amerika are Being Discussed Overseas Concerning "Racial Incidents Dis cussed at Cleveland High School": While at the Kwame Nkrumah Cen ter in Accra, Ghana, a beautiful Black Sister Student asked "W hy were Black's called 'NIGGERs' in Amerika Isicl?" Minister Farrakhan Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, was asked the same ques tion in Ghana several months be fore I arrived. On behalf of myself and all sane- minded people, I would like to ad dress the issue of the term/word “ NIGGER." Since everyone has a term to show forth their best quali ties, I do believe that it is time for us to show forth a united common sense in regard to the disgusting term/word "NIGGER." Those In positions of authority in the educa tional system should stop pretend ing that institutional racism no long er exists. Let the term/word "NIG GER" be exposed for the "vicious sin" that it is. Surely you learned people know of the many and varied evils that arise out of the usage of such a filthy expression. That term/ word is without a doubt the most horrible, vicious, satanic, and dia bolical word ever used in the annals of man's existence to describe a person or people. The "evil power of the term/word "NIGGER" robs a whole people of respect. I am certain that we can work, unite, in an external campaign to help restore dignity to the people who have been so brutalized by this evil term/word. This matter re quires a singlemindedness, a united effort, a force of oneness. What a glorious blessing it will be to the me mory of the ex-slaves and their children to no longer be called by the filthy name "NIGGER Kill the NIGGER' now At the moment around this nation there are two fundamental ques tions which will plague the Black na tion in Amerika Isicl for the remain der of the 20th century. The first question is, will Black people sur vive genocide by so-called Christian caucasoid Amerika Isicl In the 80 s, 90 s and the year 2000? The second question is, who will win the battle for the collective Black mind? Are Black people capable and willing to change our slave mentality? Do we as Black people have the collective will to fight the enemies of our na tional interest? The battlefield of the 80's and 90's will be for the col lective mind. It is a war which we must w in . Whoever wins the collec tive mind and will of Black people will ultimately win the physical war againt the enemies of our race or destroy the race. Mentacide, according to the late, great Dr. Bobby E. Wright, is the systematic, deliberate destruction of an individual's or group's collec tive mind with the aim of group termination. Mentacide is the silent rape of a people's collective mind by the penetration and perpetuation of alien culture, values, belief sys tems, or ideas for the purpose of group destruction or for political use of the victims' group. Mentacide's method is to control the behavior of the victim through mind control. Mentacide systematically utilizes the institutions which project ima ges, values, beliefs and opinions. Mentacide creates an illusion which the victim believes to be real, until it's too late. And many of us run around wondering why we can't control our children. Letter to the E d ito r - C ontinued on Page 4 »