Page 2 Portland Observer SEPTEMBER 21,1989
EDITORIAL “ 7 OPINION
COMMUNITIES CAN STOP DRUGS
Vantage point
by John E. Jacob
H o n D aniels
Educate* *
OriMnizei *
Leader
REV. GEORGE STALLINGS:
TREADING IN THE FOOTSTEPS
OF RICHARD ALLEN
In 1787 Richard Allen, an African-American preacher in the pre
dominantly white Methodist Church, moved to organize Black parishioners
to establish their own church in Philadelphia, Pa. The creation of what was
initially an semi-autonomous black church was precipitated by racism in the
Methodist Church and an insensitivity to the particular needs of the sons and
daughters of Africa in America. The larger church wanted Africans to
convert to the faith, but the price which Blacks were often asked to pay was
an unequal and inferior status w ithin the church and a lack of respect for the
history, culture and traditions of the African converts. Indeed in the climatic
incident which occasioned the Black break from the church, white worship
ers, actually pulled Richard Allen and other Black worshipers from their
knees as they prayed at the alter at Su Georges Methodist Church.
Enough was enough. Richard Allen, joined by an Episcopal pastor
named Absalom Jones organized the Free African Society, which was
dedicated to building a new church. By 1794 Richard Allen and his African-
American followers were able to dedicate the Bethel African Methodist
Episcopal Church. Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church became the foundation
for the first organized African-American denomination in America, the
African Methodist Episcopal Church.
The tension between the needs and requirements of institutions within
the majority Euro-centric white society in America and the needs and
requirements of people of African descent who have been the victims of
white racism and Euro-centric cultural aggression have been at odds every
since our forced arrival in America. The conflict between the demands or
conditions laid down by the larger society for our “ acceptance” and
demands of African people for equality, dignity, respect and self-determi
nation has been a constant dimension of the African struggle for liberation
in America.
In response to this conflict, Richard Allen was forced to create a new
church, a parallel institution to the white church, in order to meet the needs
of African-Americans. The African-American Masons, Elks, fraternities
and sororities have had to do likewise because of an unwillingness by their
white-counter parts to accept Black people and/or to accept Black people on
an equal and dignified footing devoid of racism and cultural insensitivity. In
1989 more than 200 years after Richard Allen and his followers made their
fateful decision, George Stallings a African-American Roman Catholic
Priest from Washington D.C. is being compelled to confront the same
historical conflict and dilemma that Richard Allen and so many other
Africans in America have had to face.
The Catholic Church like all other predominantly white institutions in
America is inescapably afflicted by racism given the history and culture of
America.In addition each predominantly white institution in America
contains its own peculiar Euro-centric cultural heritage. In the case of the
Roman Catholic Church the rituals, customs and ceremonies are derived
principally from the Roman/Latin traditions of the early Catholic Church in
Italy. Hence even converts to Roman Catholism from other European
nations have sought their own particular accommodations within the
Catholic Church based on their own culture and needs as distinct nationali
ties.
Here in America one frequently finds Irish Catholic Churches, or Polish,
Italian or Hungarian Catholic Churches. The Roman Catholic Church has
tended to tolerate the emergence of these essentially ethnic congregations
in America. In Central and South America, and to a limited extent in Africa
the Catholic church has made concessions have resulted from committed
struggle waged by the faithful inside of the Catholic Church for respect for
their particular ethnic or national culture identity.
Obviously we are not Irish, Italian, Polish, Hungarian or Hispanic. And
of course w e’re are not Roman. We are African-Americans. Rev. George
Stallings contention is that the African-American struggle inside the Roman
Catholic Church to overcome racism and for a fundamental appreciation
and recognition of African-American culture and the Black experience has
been very slow in yielding sufficient results. Consequently Stallings has
moved like Richard Allen before him to create, along with his followers, a
new church, the Imani Temple; a new church which could become a new
denominalion-the African Catholic Church in America.
It is most refreshing to see Rev. Stallings articulate a Christian theology
which is Afro-centric and promotes human liberation. The church, any
church which purports to paster to African-Americans must meet the basic
needs of Black people. Retaining the wholeness and richness of our culture,
and working to heal the wounds resulting from slavery, racism, segregation
and cultural aggression is essential to the salvation, growth and develop
ment of African-Americans. In that regard not only the predominantly white
dcnominations.but the entire African-American Church itself might well
leant from what Rev. Stallings efforts will eventually lead.What we do
know is that Rev. Stallings is treading in the foot steps of Richard Allen. I
for one hope that he keeps stepping!
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Stopping the drug plague is going to take action on a wide variety of
fronts.Govemment has to get serious about ending the flow o f drugs into the
country. That will take more than rhetoric. It will mean committing military
resources to close our borders to drug importers, along with diplomatic
negotiations and economic inducements to exporting countries.
And government will have to fully fund drug treatment centers. It is
shameful that drug abusers who want to kick their habit must wait many
months before a slot opens up for them at a treatment center.
Expanding those centers’ capacities has to be at the to[p of any serious
anti-drug campaign.
But the war on drugs also has to be waged on the streets and in our
neighborhoods. This is a national problem affecting rich and poor, suburbs
and inner cities. But it is African American communities who bear the
greatest burden of drugs, and we’ll have to take the initiative in making our
neighborhoods drug-free zones.
For too long, people have been making excuses for drug abusers, reciting
a litany of social pressures and racism that drives some people to take drugs.
That won’t wash any more. If we wait for society’s ills to be cured to end
drug abuse and other anti-social behavior, we’ll lose the battle for our
communities and become subjects o f the drug dealers and drug lords.
The brutal fact is that drugs are taking over many of our communities.
Drug gang wars have turned many of our neighborhoods into combat zones.
Little kids are out hustling for drug pushers and people are terrorized into
silence.
Our future as a people is endangered by the drug plague that saps
ambition, pulls young people away from school and jobs, and sends our
infant mortality and AIDS statistics sky-high.
The drug dealers represent the biggest threat to African American
communities today. They’re killing more African Americans than the Kian
ever did, and our communities must mobilize to drive them out.
Citizens have to join together to work closely with law enforcement
officials to identify dealers, gather evidence to convict them, and ensure
they are incarcerated.
Too often the drug lords intimidate and overwhelm neighborhood
protesters but they won’t be able to do that if people band together and join
forces.
That’s the way you win wars, and we are definitely at war for control of
our lives and our communities today.
People will have to get tough on users, too. African American commu
nities, which have been subjected to the intolerance of others for so long,
tend to be too tolerant
But we have to stand up for the values that enabled us to survive, and that
means making it very clear to drug abusers that they and their drugs are not
wanted in the community and they should either kick the habit or get ouL
Local community institutions need to be in the forefront of the fight
against the drug dealers. Urban Leagues, churches, social and fraternal
organizations, and the press, need to come together to mobilize citizens and
publicize ant-drug activities.
If we don’t win the war against drugs, we can forget about winning our
war for equality.
A CHILD OF AFRICA CRIES OUT
FOR HELP
by Benjamin F. Chavisjr.
Early on the m orning of August 18,1989 in the city of Huam bo .Angola,
the young life of six-year old Felismina Castilho was shattered when a
mortar rocket exploded inside o f her small block home. The rocket had been
fired by the rebel group UNITA which is now supported financially and
militarily by the United States. Until last year the largest supplier of military
aid to UNIT A was from the racist apartheid regime of South Africa. But now
the Bush Administration has become the proud sponsor of UNITA’s
atrocities.I happened to be in Huam bo, Angola on that tragic morning. I was
awakened by the loud noise of the explosions of UNITA rockets hitting as
close as several hundred yards from where our delegation was sleeping. I
was one of eight persons who had traveled from the United States to the
People’s Republic of Angola to perform a health assessment of the current
medical situation there. Our delegation consisted of Dr. Adewale Troutman,
Medical Director for the City of Newark, New Jersey; Dr. Rosilyn M. Ryals,
Arizona Department of Health Services; Dr. Sandy Daly, Orthopedic
Surgeon; Ms. Wendy Perlmutter, Pediatric Physical Therapist; Mr. Ayo
Sosona, Proshtesist; Ms. Deborah Sanks, Professional photographer; and
Ms. Denise O ’Brien, Translator.
Later that morning we visited the Huambo Regional Hospital and we saw
Felismina lying in a state of shock on a small hospital bed in a room that was
overcrowded with other victims of recent UNITA attacks on the civilian
population. Dr. Troutman, Dr. Ryals and Dr. Daly examined the severe
wounds to Felismina’s right leg and hip. The metal shrapnel from the
explosion of the rocket had ripped her tender flesh.
As we leaned forward to show our expression of concern and empathy for
Felismina she struggled to utter in her native tongue, “ Where is my
m am a......I want my mam a.” As tears began to fall from her bright eyes,
several of us also began to cry. We knew that this young beautiful daughter
of Africa would never see her mother nor her father again. Mr. Jose and Mrs.
Lucia Castilho were killed instantly when the UNITA rocket tore through
the roof of their bedroom and exploded while they were asleep.
After leaving the hospital we went to the Castilho’s house which was still
smoldering from the destruction. The bodies of Jose and Lucia were lying
together in a room on top of a wooden table. We viewed them with a sense
of deep regret, disgust and pain because we knew that our tax dollars helped
pay for this merciless inhumanity. We had prayer with the remaining
members of the family and pledged to let the American public know what
we had witnessed in Huambo, Angola.
The cry of Felismina for her mother is the cry of millions of children of
Africa. Today in Angola in particular, the painful reality o f the death and
destruction of war shatters the lives of innocent children. UNITA is guilty
of crimes against humanity. Jonas Savimbi has become deaf to the cries ot
the children of Angola and it appears that President Bush is not the "gentle
ind caring' ’ President that he has claimed to be.
The cry of this African child for help and for peace must not go
jnanswered.
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Along The Color Line
“ SOUTH
AFRICA: THE
DEATH OF
APARTHEID?”
PART ONE OF A
TWO PART
SERIES
by Dr. Manning Marable
We are witnessing the beginning
of the death of apartheid in South
Africa. The glue which has held the
oppressive system of racial domina
tion together for over forty years has
been the unity o f the Afrikaner white
minority, which has armed itself with
the most sophisticated military weap
ons to ensure its survival. This month’s
elections in the white house of par
liament illustrate that unity of the
white electorate has shattered, in the
aftermath of worldwide pressure from
economic divestment and political
isolation. The ruling Nationalist Party
the architect o f apartheid,suffered
heavy losses to political rivals on the
right and left.
The recent political crisis for white
supremacy in Africa began with the
forced resignation of former Presi
dent P. W. Botha and the ascension to
power of F.W. De Klerk as head of
the Nationalists. De Klerk recognized
that he had to cultivate a “ liberal”
image if apartheid had any prospect
for regaining international support
and investor confidence, the remak
ing of apartheid’s “ image: was un
veiled at the Nationalists’ party con
gress in late June. De Klerk called for
“ limited power sharing” between
the nation’s five million whites and
the twenty eight million oppressed
and disfranchised Africans. The Na
tionalists adopted a so called ‘ ‘action
plan” , which called for the removal
of criminal penalties for violating
segregated housing laws, and ex
panded government support for non
white education. De Klerk was pre
pared to amputate the party’s neo-
Nazi, ultraracist right wing, which
had formed the new Conservative
Party, and to appeal to the more
moderate sentiments of middle class
whites in the Democratic Party.
Coinciding with De Klerk’s pol
icy shift was a visit by an all-white,
115 member delegation from South
Africa to Lusaka, Zambia, for meet
ings with the outlawed leadership of
the African National Congress, headed
by imprisoned martyr Nelson Man
dela and exiled president Oliver
Tambo. The majority in the white
delegation was clearly unsympathetic
with many o f the ANC’s policies,
including the use of armed struggle
against the apartheid regime. Most
also opposed the use o f economic or
military sanctions against the all-
white government. B ut on the central
issue at hand, the ultimate elimina
tion of the apartheid policy of racial
segregation, and the establishment
of a multiracial democracy with full
constitutional rights for people of
color, the white delegation and the
ANC had no disagreements, opto-
mistically, Tambo declared at the
end of the negotiations: “ Today we
can truly say that the end of the
apartheid system is in sight.”
The media, long intimidated by
the goons in the apartheid propa
ganda departmenL began to give some
space to the antiracist opposition.
Sections of the ANC’s 1955 “ Free
dom Charter” are now circulated ,
widely in the press. In late June, a
statement by Nelson Mandela was
published in the country’s largest
white daily newspaper.
Even in the area o f social equal
ity, the steel barriers of racism are
slowly collapsing. This summer, a
formerly whites-only swimming pool
in Johannesburg was desegregated in
a protest in which several liberal
white members of the city council
participated. Police were called in
when neo-Nazi racists blocked the
integrated group’s entrance to the
pool. However, it was discovered
that Johannesburg’s city council had
never actually ratified the law re
serving specific pools for whites only,
and that technically, Blacks were
within their legal rights to use the
facility. Consequently, the police
removed the racist protestors, allow
ing the integrated group to use the
public pool. Ten years ago, this little
episode
w ould
have
been
unimaginable.The Blacks in this dem
onstration would have been swiftly
arrested, clubbed senseless, and per
haps shared a common fate with an
tiapartheid martyr Steven Biko.
Why has this political change
occurred within South Africa? There
are several fundamental reasons for
the new flexibility coming from
Pretoria. International pressure against
the regime, firstly, has been building
since the early 1980s, despite former
President Reagan’s notorious policy
of “ Constructive Engagement” with
apartheid, which aligned the U.S.
behind the domestic terrorism and
brutality of the government against
progressive forces. The divestment
of several hundred U.S. and Euro
pean firms from South Africa placed
economic pressure on the govern
ment. Most of these foreign firms
were capital-intensive with substan
tial numbers of white collar employ
ees. Given the racial stratification of
the south African labor force, divest
ment meant that the overwhelming
number of employees whose jobs
were in jeopardy were not Black, but
white. When American multination
als began to pull out, white politi
cians in the Nationalist Party recog
nized that some sort of liberalization
policy was necessary to keep the
economy going.
Secondly, the progressive forces
of racial reform resurfaced in the
1980s, with the development of the
United Democratic Front in 1983,
and the rapid expansion o f a non
white, multimilitant labor movement.
Even after the apartheid regime initi
ated a draconian state of emergency
in 1986, these liberal social faaK>
were not completely e ra d ic ^ ^ .
Thousands of nonwhites began to
disobey apartheid laws, and it be
came impossible for the government
to arrest and imprison them all. Al
though world-incidentally, the United
States is second-the country’s legal
system could not accommodate mil
lions of dissenters. By 1989, thou
sands of nonwhites began living in
formerly whites-only neighborhoods,
in direct violation of the law.
A, third, and in many ways the
most overlooked factor in South
Africa’s internal change has occurred
because key elements o f the white
minority population no longer^wj-
port apartheid. Significant s e c l^ B '
the educated middle class, business
executives and financial leaders have
never been members of the National
ist Party. Like liberal white politi
cian Helen Suzman, they oppose the
brutalities of apartheid as irrational,
inefficient and antidem ocratic.
Clearly, they do not share the ANC’s
political commitment to social equal
ity, which would require the eco
nomic redistribution of power and
ownership in a postapartheid state.
But they also have no intention of sit
ting silently on a white, racist Ti
tanic , as the ship of state slips into the
waters. Key groups of moderate whites
are searching desperately for a strat
egy which will guarantee a sort of
Zimbabwean solution-Black and In
dian domination of the political sys
tem with a multiparty democracy,
and continued white domination of
the banks, industry, land and invest
ment.
The harsh reality o f “ moderate
apartheid’ ’ was also apparent during
recent weeks, with the unjustified
arrest of Nobel prize winner Arch
bishop Desmond M. Tutu in Cape
Town, and the arrests and beatings of
thousandsof antiapartheid protestors
from religious, labor, and educational
groups. In Durban, over two hundred
medical students were arrested by
police in protests. In Cape Town and
other cities, police used heavy whips,
tear gas, rubber bu Hets and occasion
ally live ammunition to break up
nonviolent demonstrations.
While the recent steps toward lib
eralization in race relations arc en
couraging, it would be a mistake to
suggest that the system of apartheid
will gradually disintegrate and will
be replaced by a multiracial democ
racy without struggle. The essence
of apartheid is a system o f white
privilege
and
nonw hite
exploitation,gcncrating a surplus
which is unequally distributed within
the social order. Those who have
materially benefited from apartheid
will never willingly surrender their
power and privileges.