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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 27, 1988)
Page 4, Portland Observer, January 27, 1988 GANGS! Stop the war they don't want you to see. \lt\H W I H M ii/ l \K \ 'The contras are not part o f the solution, hut part o f the pr thlem." (President Arias. ABC News. 1O/8/S7). Since the signing of the Arias Peace Plan in August of 1987, the contras in Nicaragua have killed at least 96 civilians, wounded 143, kidnapped 135. In that time, the U.S. Congress has 3 times agreed to send more money to the contras, totaling more than $21 million. You can stop this war on February 3. the next contra aid vote. Call your Congressperson now, and tell them: NO CONTRA AID NO COMPROMISE Call them at (202) 224-3121. Bast Portland: Ron Wyden WeM Portland and North Coast: 1rs Auvoin F.uaenc: Peter DeFa/io Corvallis .uv! South Coast Demis Smith Fast. Central, and Southern Oregon: Bob Smith Social Security Updating Benefits sation from the Oregon Employ ment Division will have these bene fits automatically updated each month. This will be done by mat ching your Social Security number against the Oregon Employment Division record. Clients will no longer have to report changes to the local AFS office. By doing these updates, Adult and Family Services will try to see that each household is receiving the proper amount of benefits they are entitled to receive. In January, all Social Security Benefits and Supplemental Security Income increased by 4.2%. As this increase was not used to calculate the January food stamps effective January 31, 1988, all food stamp households receiving these benefits will have their benefits updated by matching them against the Social Security record. These SSB and SSI increases will reduce your Feb ruary food stamp allotment. Beginning February 25, 1988, all ADC and Food Stamp households receiving Unemployment Compen- A Woman of Vision • Con't from Page 1 I ¡*> more glimpse into Black culture. If someone reads my work or the work of Toni Morrison or Alice Walker or Toni Cade, then they have twice as much knowledge than if they rely on one person. My role is to make sure there is more than one voice to be heard." Looking out across time and space into the 21st century, Ms. McElroy said it is important for Afri can-Americans to remember, "that we are everywhere in the world. Not just in any one place. And, there is nothing that says this is your place. My father used to say to me, 'your place is wherever you are' «AS • \¿- ’?• M > V; .J? • a Vs S and when I go into a small village in Africa and I see a Black man there and talk to him, I realize that we have the same basic heritage. We must make ourselves universal be cause the politics of this country would have us believe we only exist in one portion of the state or some where on a farm down south. We exist everywhere and we are doing everything, and speaking every kind of language there is. That's what we've got to tell the chidlren. The future is how far you can take your self. This is our planet, the whole human family, and no one has the right to say 'this is your place, you can only move into this part of tow n.' Our children have to know that everything is possible. There Gang activity has been on the increase since May '87. Experts say there are as many as 200 adult gang members in the metro area with ties to LA gangs. At least 300 juveniles are active in local gangs. Another major problem is the "wanna be s ; they're juveniles who emulate gangs. Police say that "wanna be's" are just as dangerous as or ganized gang members. Some residents have been victims of gang violence. Others live in fear of attacks. How safe are our streets? Who "joins” gangs? Why? Have they penetrated our schools? How dangerous are gang members? Can gang activity be stopped? How can we protect ourselves? What do YOU think? Join Jack Faust and his guests for a look at street gangs. This pro gram will be taped on Thursday, February 4th from 8-9 PM. Guests should arrive at KATU (21st and NE Sandy Blvd.) at 7:15 PM. If you'd like to attend this discussion, please call Mary Fetsch, Frank Mungeam, Janice Richkoff or Lynn Felton at 231-4620 for seat reservations. This program will aid on Sunday, Feb ruary 7th, from 6-7 PM on Channel 2. The public is welcome. Once a big city problem, gangs now threaten our community. The big gangs from LA and NY have infiltrated Portland and other Ore gon cities. The motivation? Money! They commit robberies and assaults, extort money from businesses and have taken over most of the drug houses. They recruit kids to traffic drugs, intimi date neighbors, use violence and fight with other gangs. The fear is that if we don't stop this invasion, the local recruitment of our kids, our gang problem will turn into another LA! TOM , 'l $ RON MIKE STEENSON FONTANA SCHUM AN "The Eyes and Ears of the Community" 288-0033 is nothing that should be re stricted." Her eyes danced. Her lips smiled and I knew I had just experienced the magic of the Queen of the Ebony Isles. The magic lingered long after she had departed for the Portland Airport, and a few hours later after a frantic search, I found two of her books. Still overpowered by her vision and her warmness, I quickly opened "W inter Without Snow" and started to read on page 49. "One day, you stepped into my horoscope, bringing summer and a view of the mountains I had never known . . ." That's the power and magic of Colleen McElroy: A woman of vision. PortUuJ Community Colley fcfirudrij l'Zb, 1Û8Ô ATTORNEYS AT LAW • Civil Rights • Workers' Compensation • Small Business • Police Misconduct • Real Estate • Divorce 415 N.E. 18th AVENUE • PORTLAND, OREGON 97209 221-1792 Tlic Cixutitutàxiul Statuì af Ajra-4nifriimu into the 71* Century" f «ents ai «o«o*mg -ocafcons CASCAOf 70S N KtllINGSWORTH 283 2541 ROCK CREEK 1 7705 N W SPRINGVILLE RO 645 4461 SV I VANIA 12000 S W Mlh 244-6111 SOUTHEAST 2550 S E •2"«l 777-8020 Complete Brake Job PER AXLE MOST CARS Savon Auto Repair 4550 N.E. Alberta 223-0583 $5995 Clutch Service Wholesale Discount Rebuilt Transmissions MOST CARS/LIGHT TRUCKS Includes: pads/shoes, resurface rotor/drum s, check fluid level, road test. Additional parts extra. BARKER MUFFLER & BRAKE SERVICE 4525N.E. UNION HOURS. 8 5 Monday - Saturday Engine Rebuild $675-$775 Most Cars 36 month guarantee on all parts and labor 281 4010 by Nyewusi Askari When the Ben Linder Construc tion Brigade recently returned from a mission trip to Nicaragua, PC Peri, an African American, was one of the first to step off the plane. For Mr. Peri, the trip fulfilled a desire to help carry on the memory and the work of Ben Linder, and to gain a first-hand account of the Nicaragua conflict with the United States. Ben Linder is the Portlander who was killed in Nicaragua as he work ed to construct a dam for the Nica raguan people. Peri says Linder s death was the result of a Contra plot to discourage concerned Ame ricans from giving aid to the Nica raguans. The specific purpose of the Ben Linder Brigade was to provide con struction on a Nicaraguan hospital that was in need of serious repair. Peri says the Brigade was welcome with open arms. "The Nicaraguans were very open to our coming, and they understoodd the need for soli darity between countries inter nationally. So they understood our purpose for coming was not simply to do some repairs on the hospital but to extend solidarity between Americans and Nicaraguans and to carry communication back from the situation in Nicaragua to the peo ple in the United States," Peri ex plained. Peri said the trip gave him more of a balanced view of the conflict from within Nicaragua. "It's good for all Americans to get outside of the United States, at least once. It doesn't really matter where you go. The reason you need to get out of the country once is so you can go see something that is being talked about and see how it is being talked about here in the states. Then you can compare what had happened with how it's being talked about. It gives you an ability later on to get : f 'V •• '• going off in the middle of a shower or the lights going off at the begin ning of surgery. These kinds of in cidents show up in too regular of a manner to be part of a normal way of running a country." Peri noted that the war is being fought by Nicaraguan children, by old men in the Militia, and by young men in the regular army. He said that the Contras' method of con ducting the war is not to go out and find the Sandinistas' soldiers. "Their method is to attack and rape and, in any manner, discourage the existence of further economic assi stance to the cities, and then re treat as fast as they can." "When you look on the faces of the Nicaraguan children, they are not sad, they are not destitute; they are bright-eyed, and they have a lot of hope in their eyes. If we saw that much hope on the faces of the children in the Bronx, in Queens, and in Portland, we'd have some thing to keep us hopeful," Peri con cluded. Open 9am to 5pm February 10,1988 Perspectives by Professor McKinley Burt Economics: Rise and Fall of the Albina Corportion Last week I described my partici pation in a successful Los Angeles company that had a 90% minority work force. Here we have a brief review of the fortunes of Portland's 'The Albina Corporation' which, for a while (1968-1971), was the largest minority-owned (?) and operated manufacturing company in Ame rica. Using this enterprise as a model in the business class I taught at Port land State University, I cited it as the creation of a white San Fran cisco attorney, Frank Kelso, who projected the concept of a nation wide chain of ghetto factories to be jointly owned by an 'employee stock trust' (Black) and the public sector ("The Kelso Two-Factor Theory"). The idea was to simultaneously achieve a number of objectives de signed to place Blacks in the main stream of the nation's economy: train the 'disadvantaged' in the skills and crafts needed to produce goods; reduce the rolls of welfare and other public assistance; intro duce Blacks to the concepts of cor porate management (promote Al bina residents from the work force); assure community involvement by appointing the board of directors from the community. A composite (helter-skelter) financing was employed to start this company: several quarter-million dollar grants from government and private sectors, including a church group, Small Business Administra tion loans, and huge 'advances from the Defense Department customers in anticipation of pro ducts not yet manufactured. In addition, scores of machines were loaned or donated by the U.S. General Services Administration. Initial employees' salaries were paid by the U.S. Department of Labor through training contracts — not out of 'earned income'. An 'income L, 'Z-îâ1 * * •'* ' ’ LfiSjLÄ^. •j-’ ' . ■ • ' • the news in the paper and see how to interpret it." While in Nicaragua, Peri lived with a Nicaraguan family. "It was a good situation," Peri said. "The family was not a supporter of the Sandinista government, so I wasn't listening to a party line. They were not Contra. They were in exactly the same situation that many of us face here in the United States of being frustrated and confused with the state of economic affairs and not knowing what to do about it. They could point out inequities but no solutions. So I got a good sense of the frustration, and it led me to understand the many per spectives of what it's like to be in Nicaragua in the middle of a war.' Peri was impressed by the spirit of the Nicaraguans. "The Nicara guans were very relaxed. Life goes on. But it's punctuated by funerals and crosses on the side of the roads and other sites where people have been shot. It's punctuated by the long lines for gasoline that go on for blocks. It's punctuated by the lights Look for our African American Special Xt* ' Peri — impressed by the spirit of the Nicaraguans. Photo by Richard J. Brown PORTLAND OBSERVER IN JUR Y & A CCIDENT •îr ' Mission Accomplished tax deferral plan' was put in place by a special act of Congress and an agreement with the Internal Reve nue Service. The Albina Corporation got off to a gala, well-publicized start with the executive suite filled by a Black Portland attorney as president, and two Black engineers as vice presi dent and treasurer, respectively, from the Space Program and from the Atomic Energy Commission. Also, there were any number of whites on loan from industry as ad visors. With perhaps two excep tions, there was no point-to-point correspondence between exper ience and the tasks to be per formed. Over a three-year period the pro duct line ranged from tent frames for the Army and fiberglass boats for the Coast Guard, to ammunition boxes for the Army's Frankfort Ar senal. Also, there were some mo tions toward obtaining private sec tor contracts to utilize the equip ment when idle. Now, I ask, you, what could go wrong — other than using up most of the loans and advances in a learn ing phase, almost before the first product was made? For one thing, if you refer to last week's article about the Globeware Corp., you will see that they matched lim ite d skills with lim ite d am bitions. The result was only a 5% rejection rate (on simple pots and pans), and that after only a six-week training cycle. The Albina Corporation, steeped in social rhetoric and altruism — and a labor force of whom 90% had never worked with a machine nor seen a time clock — tried to produce an ammunition box to a 1 /10,000 of an inch tolerance. The result, of course, was disasterous, with an ini tial 90% rejection rate, while the overhead and debt mounted daily I became part of this scenario in 1971 when I was called in as chief accountant to perform an audit for the U.S. General Accounting Of fice, and to expedite the termination of the whole ill-fated affair. My first introduction to the euphemistic "poverty programs" was mind- boggling. My audit and recapitula tion of the millions of dollars that had passed through the company revealed that contrary to popular opinion, there was no evidence of "widespread theft and embezzle ment". Rather, everything that those of us experienced in industry and spent half-a-lifetime in learning had simply been thrown out the window in an emotional social binge. Unbelieveably, the inexper ienced community board of direc tors had not been given the most basic advice or training for their role, and could not possibly have in fluenced the fate of the corporation What worries me today, almost twenty years later, is that many con temporary Black economic pro grams would seem to incorporate the same weak elements when it comes to the background and rele vant experience of the key players. I wondered then — and I wonder now — why those with a track re cord are not called in at the incep tion and planning stage, rather than a fter the fact? Is there an egocentric messiah complex in the Black promoters of the Dream’ which causes them to reject any realistic input into their projects? During the height of the poverty program era, would it not have made sense to draw on the many successful Black businessmen of the South for 'on-loan' execu tives to design and operate the Minority Business Programs? Have community of governmental atti tudes changed any today?