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
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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'
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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
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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
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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
:
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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
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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?