Page 2 Portland Observer DECEMBER 6, 1989
E ditorial / O pinion
Civil ‘Rights Journal
by Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.
Articles and Essays by Ron Daniels
W h e n Is E n o u g h
Not E nough?
by Professor McKinley Burl
The readers of this colum n are quite
a* are by now how events at home or abroad
im pact upon the economic and social
condition of urban b lack s-lo cal, regional,
national, and, how, international. If submarine
w arfarc World War I had not cut off European
im migration in 1914, Blacks would had
soon been displaced to reservations right
along with the indains (has our vast drug-
besieged and incarcerated underclass fared
any better ’). It has m ade equally obvious
that it is education and workplace that
comprise the urban stage for scenarios that
can match any Shakcspearan tragedy. But
is it all the fault of that middle class which
Black essayist Shelby Steele says should
get rid of its victim focused Black identity
... our real problem is lack of ability to take
responsibility and seize opportunities"? And,
is that w hat D ann Scott m eant when he told
a standing-room only audience at the
University of Southern California last month,
"We (Blacks) are the first group in m odem
history to see those who follow behind us
have few eropportuunities and rockier road
ta travel than we did"? 1 wonder about the
validity of these statem ents when 1 look
back through my filesa which are 35 years
compendium o f activism and observation.
Beginning with my ten-year sojourn in Los
Angeles (1954 1964), I find that, supported
by an equally- com ited peer group, there
was an intensive involvement in every aspect
of a history -making upw ardly mobile decade.
These were precedent-shattering times and
there were breakthroughs on m ajor fronts:
Employment opportunity, housing and school
desegregation and public access. All o f us
were heavily involved in the the NAACP,
Urban League and Black Press, and given
o u r professional careers. It was also about
how to utilize a 70 hour week effectively.
If there was any concensus among us at
all, it was that the rest of the tribe would
move right in behind us, clim bing the runds
of the ladders we built; it had always worked
that way before, hadn't it? C ertainly, in
Portland immediately after W orld W ar II
this was the case. The marching, picketing,
striking, pushing and screaming of the new
im migrant Black population carried the
city past the period when there were no
Black retail clerks, banktellers, busdrivers,
long shoremen, supervisors in industry or a
public agency, and only a handful of teachers
or postal workers. The opportunities for
m inorities burgeoned-to a point.
But, today, as we begin the last decade
of the 20th century, Blacks rail at whites,
the establishm ent, and the world in general,
"We are still far behind in jobs and
prom otions-and in education dropouts are
accelerating and enrollm ent in higher
education has dropped precipitously since
1980. And on top o f this we exclaim, we
have developed a huge body o f individuals
euphemistically described as the underclass
or disadvantaged.
Now, think about it, aren't these the
very same people who would m ore right in
behind us, climbing the rungs of the ladders
we built?" Wha' happen? Is Shelby Steele
right about a "lack o f ability to take
responsibility and seize opportunities?"
I could run through a vast litany o f
"what happened" type recitations. That Black
upw ardly-m obile middle class moved to
suburbia taking with it theeconomic and
political skills necessary to m aintain an
urban infrastructure of viable housing and
school systems, or even retail stores and
shops. The neighborhoods o f the rung
climbers rapidly degenerated and the absentee
landlords and developers moved in, utilizing
every device from Urban Renewal (Removal)
and eminent domain to more sophisticated
forms of gentrification. Today, we look at
television programs like "Tony Brown's
Journal" and we see groups o f the black
middle class managers and executives
lam enting their difficulties and alienation.
"We have titles but we are on soft
money in industry, we are on staff, not in
line positions--W e have no path to the top,
and in these days of reorganizations and
frequent buyouts we are more insecure than
ever. We try to spin out and set up businesses
but the banks have no money for us
(nevermind the loudly heralded franchise
purchases in sports--also 80% of those auto
franchises failed)." These television programs
are a sad sight indeed, so many brains, so
many degrees, so many silk suits, so many
M ercedes in the parking lot and so much
estrangem ent fgrom reality, did we do this
to our children and ourselves? N ext week:
W here to go from here?
Black Politics At The Crossroads
The recent election may mark a critical
crossroad for Black politics in America.
Nov. 7 was being heralded as the day that a
‘‘new Black politics” was bom ; the com
ing of age o f a group of African-Am erican
politicians who won public office by pro
moting “ m ainstream " values and project
ing strong appeals to white voters. The
great significance of Nov. 7 is that large
num bers of white voters in the state of
Virginia and the cities o f New York, New
Haven, Durham, Cleveland and Seattle
decisively dem onstrated a willingness to
vote for Black candidates. What we are
witnessing, according to some analysts, is a
trend whereby white voters are likely to be
increasingly willing to crossover to vote for
"m ain stream ” and "m o d erate" African-
A m erican politicians.
The obvious question which this new
trend poses for the future of Black politics
is what will be the cost of white voter
support or what price will Black politicians
have to pay to form Black-white coalitions,
particularly in those circum stances where a
majority o f white votes may be required to
gain election? The medias ’ heavy emphasis
on “ m ain stream " and “ m oderate” som e
how suggests that crucial items on the
African-American agenda such full-employ
m ent, decent wages, affordable housing,
health care, education, the right to organize
unions, education, civil-rights, and affuma-
tive action are outside o f the m ainstream.
The im plication is that the Black Agenda
m ust be set aside or soft peddled in order to
address real mainstream issues. In this context
"m ain stream ” may simply com e to be a
code word for that which is saleable to and
acceptable to moderate, white, middle
America.
A frican-Am ericans will need to pro
ceed very cautiously in this new era of new
Black politics. The mainstream may be
very murky water for African-Am erican
concerns and interests. By and large the
principal goal of Black politics has been in
eradicate the barriers of racial discrim ina
tion, economic injustice and to overcom e
racist violence and oppression. At its best
Black protest politics and electorial politics
has been at the cutting edge o f the struggle
to transform A m erica into a new society
free o f racism , sexism, religious bigotry
and econom ic exploitation. Far from rely
ing on a " m o d e ra te " or “ conservative”
agenda. Black politics has o f necessity
challenged the status-quo, and put forth a
liberal progressive vision and program for
change.
I bis Way For Black Empowerment
b\ D r I
c h u iii
titillili
Where Are Black Students At?
On Nov. 15 1 went down to the court
house in Virginia Beach, VA to stand up
with the Black college students who had
been arrested there over the Labor Day
weekend, when local police and state troop
ers went on a rampage against them.
I am working to make clear that the
New Alliance Party will support anyone
who asks for it. But we ca n 't "p lay it safe"
by responding to such attacks on a case by
case basis; if we do, then we’ll be doing that
no n -sto p . . . forever. The ' ‘new rapproche
m en t" which has brought the Democratic
Party and Republican Party closer and closer
together--and further and further to the
political rig h t-h a s created a climate in
which no one is representing the working
class African American community, or other
oppressed working class comm unities, and
the right wing is taking advantage of that to
com e down very hard on our people. That ' s
why we need an ongoing tool, a w eapon of
our own, to fight back with.
T h at's when students at Howard U ni
versity in W ashington, D.C. turned to me.
The demonstration eventually took place
on Nov. 18, the day that several students
w ent to trial. I ’m g la d l was there a n d l’ll go
on being there for the students.
We saw it in the case of the V irginia
Beach police wilding; the Black establish
m ent was terrified that a protest by the
students would endanger Doug W ilder’s
chances of becoming America's first elected
Black governor. A conservative Democrat,
W ilder him self publicly sided with the city
governm ent against the young people. A
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Septem ber 30 dem onstration in Virginia
Beach planned by the Concerned Black
Awareness Council, a coalition o f students
from several colleges founded in response
not only to V irginia Beach but to the rising
tide o f police violence against our people
throughout the country, was stopped dead
in its tracks by the national N A A CP and
senior Black elected officials.
W here are the students at? They are at
an “ awkward ag e” - n o t for any psycho
logical or biological reasons, but because a
fight is going on between the Black Demo
cratic Party establishm ent and progressive
independents for the political soul of this
new generation. It isn 't clear where they
will go. A t schools like Howard University
in W ashington and Moorehouse college in
Atlanta, they are being groomed to take
their place among the Black middle class. A
young M oorehouse student who is trying to
arrange for me to speak there in January
says that most o f the young men “ are
concerned w ith how much money they can
m ake, rather than doing something more
substantial--helping the com m unity."
O r exercise any power. As Virginia
Beach revealed, in 1989--two and a half
decades after the C ivil Rights Act and the
Voting Rights Act were enactcd-B lack
people, including students with cars and
com puters and credit cards, are being ar
rested on trum ped up charges, beaten up
and hounded out o f town for the crime of
being Black in white America.
I urged the students to go back to
Virginia Beach as new young leaders of
N A P -to make clear that they’re willing to
do w hatever needs to be done, to line up
with whoever is fighting for them and their
com m unities. They chose not to make that
statem ent this time around. I had told them
that either way I'd support them, and I will
continue to do so. NAP is a very crucial
weapon in this fight. I have been building it
for ten years, and I am offering it to anyone
who wants to use it. I have been there and I
will go on being there for the new genera
tion of Black leaders. The question is, where
are they at?
We may now be forced to confront a
scenario where the powers that be within
the ruling elite in A m erica, the two major
political parties and the m edia offer us up
"m oderate" and “ mainstream" Black faces
as a means o f m aintaining cultural, eco
nomic and political dom ination and con
trol. Faced with the prospect of this kind o f
strategy o f cooptation, we as African-
Americans must ask ourselves whether we
are simply seeking to replace white faces
with Black faces in old places, or whether
our politics are fundam entally about the
liberation of the masses o f the Black poor,
working people and other oppressed na
tionalities. If our politics is simply dictated
by a desire to get a Black face into public
office then what is to prevent us from
perpetuating our own oppression by falling
for a Ronald Reagan in blackface?
The basic desire of the vast majority of
African-Am ericans is to support and vote
for B lack candidates because we want a
CHA NG E in the condition o f our people.
That’s our mainstream agenda. That agenda
may well be at odds with others who have
a different definition o f m ainstream and are
only willing to support our candidates on
terms which mean that the Black Agenda is
submerged.
A frican-Am ericans m ust become in
creasingly aware the electing Black people
to public office does not automatically trans
late into political empowerment or a change
in the condition o f the Black masses. For
one thing, there are structural barriers within
the system at all levels w hich severely
constrain the capacity of even the m ost well
meaning Black elected officials to deliver
on the expectation o f a change in the quality
of life for our people. W hen these con
straints are coupled with the election of
African-Am ericans to office who are not
pledged to the Black Agenda, or candidates
who feel a necessity to de-em phasis our
agenda in pursuit o f the white mainstream,
then the interests of African-Am ericans
will surely be stuck at the very bottom of
the river.
Racial Tensions Increase In Miami
During the 1989 Advent season across
the nation there are many who are looking
toward the traditional holidays as a time for
reflection. In the wake o f the recent dra
matic victories o f African-American, Latin-
American and other racial and etfinic candi
dates for elected office at the state and m u
nicipal levels, there appears to be growing
ground for the im provem ent o f race rela
tions in some sections of the nation.
Yet, in the city o f M iami, Florida race
relations are not improving. In fact, local
elected officials and law enforcem ent per
sonnel are now predicting and preparing for
further racial unrest. One of the primary
contributing factors to the tense situation in
M iami has been the continued incidents of
racially-m otivated police brutality and
misconduct.
Early in the year, Miami exploded after
a M iami police officer killed tw o unarmed
A frican-Am ericans who were riding a
m otorcycle through an African-Am erican
section o f M iami. Now that the trial of
M iami police officer, W illiam Lozano, has
begun there are increasing fears that if
Lozano is found not guilty in the killing of
Clem ent Floyd and Allan Blanchard, then
another riot will erupt.
Ironically, the C hief o f Police o f M i
ami is an A frican-Am erican named Perry
Anderson. The tensions in M iami are
complex. There is a growing antagonism
between M iam i’s African-Am erican com
munity and the expanding immigrant
comm unity in Miami from Central and
South America. The trial of Officer Lozano,
a thirty-year old C olom bian immigrant, has
heightened tensions betw een the African-
American and Colom bian American com
munities in Miami. Spanish-language ra
dio stations in the city have launched fun
draising radiothons to help Lozano finance
his legal defense. All of this coupled with
this city 's long legacy of racial discrim ina
tion against the African American commu
nity has now caused M iami to reach the
boiling point again.
We caution against the self-fulfilling
prophecy attitude of M iami officials in
cluding that o f Chiel Anderson. W hen the
police abuse citizens o f any city in Am er
ica, the situation should be challenged. We
believe that there are some forces in Miami,
namely in the Miami police departm ent,
who are deliberately polarizing the racial
situation in hopes that O fficer Lozano will
be vindicated in the courts as a backlash to
the expressed rage of the African A m eri
can community.
We are alarmed that given all of the
poverty and homelessness in the city of
Miami that officials have spent nearly one
hundred thousand dollars in preparing for
what they believe is " a possibility of acivil
disturbance." $72,000 reportedly has now
been spent on a rush order for 700 gas
masks for the Miami police department.
Chief Anderson has appealed to the judge
of the Lozano trial to delay the announce
ment o f the trial verdict until the Miami
police departm ent is able to deply two ar
mored personnel carriers and police offi
cers around the perim eter of the African-
American community.
The New York Times reported that
C hief Anderson stated, " I f a group of indi
viduals plans on having a riot, we will be
read y ." Racial riots are not planned, they
never have been and history show s most
riots could have been prevented. Riots do
have causative factors. O ne o f the main
causative factors to riots specifically in
Miami has been the gross insensitivity and
racist acts ol the Miami police departm ent
against the African American conuiiunity.
Rather i ll an arm the (>ol ice departm ent w uh
more and more weapons o f death and de
struction, the people of M iami need to w ork
harder at easing tensions not just preparing
for more explosions.
The Repentant Racist
by Joel B re shin
"Before I can serve God and go on with my life, I have io clear up my past.’’
—David Waughtal
On a Friday morning in m id-Septem
ber, a young man stood before a judge in a
Scottsdale, AZ, City courtroom and heard
him self sentenced to 12 months probation
and the assignm ent o f reading Treblinka, a
book about the Holocaust death camp.
This unusual sentence m arked the end
of a saga for David W aughtal, 24 . . . one
that saw him change from an avowed white
suprem acist who idolized A dolf Hitler and
launched a one-m an hate cam paign against
Jews, to a man who has renounced his racist
views in favor o f religion.
Ironically, one o f the first targets of
W aughtal’s hate cam p aig n -th e A nti-D efa
m ation L eague-played a key role in help
ing W aughtal find his new life.
The story began in July 1987. During a
typically hot Arizona w eekend, harassing
telephone calls started to com e into our
regional office in Phoenix. W hen I picked
up the phone, I would hear the voice o f a
young man, stridently proclaim ing; “ De
Partie es Hitler. Deutschland es D eutsch
land. You Jews are no longer welcome in
Phocni x. You are s w ine. You are the seed of
Satan. G et out before you c a n 't."
Sim ilar c a lls - some 75 o f th em -w ere
made to two synagogues in the area and to
the home o f a rabbi. As the days passed,
other Jewish agencies contacted ADL to
com plain o f harassing calls with Hitler-like
messages. Some of the calls appeared to be
playing recordings of Hitler’s actual speeches
before a roaring crowd. In all, 12 Jewish
agencies in the Phoenix, Scottsdale and Sun
City areas received 200 calls spewing hate
and venom.
I immediately contacted the police
departments in those municipalities. In order
to allay fears in the Jewish com m unity and
to keep the various Jew ish institutions
apprised of developm ents, I arranged a
meeting between the victim s and the po
lice. Phoenix Police captain Irwin Bankin,
a member of ADL’s Arizona regional board,
who chaired the meeting, assured the as
sem bled group that the identification and
capture of the perpetrator was a major
police priority.
At subsequent meetings with ADL,
police reported narrowing the field of sus
pects to one pcrso n -D av id W aughtal. Then
21 and an unemployed landscaper, W augh
tal was known in the com m unity fordistrib-
utmg the neo-Nazi newspaper WAR (White
Aryan Resistance) on the lawns of Central
Phoenix homes. I told the police that he had
contacted me some months earlier in a
cynical attempt to learn what the Anti-
Defamation League would do about the
forthcoming appearance on a Phoenix cable
TV station of Tom M etzger's "R ace and
R eason" program, spreading M etzger’s
W hite Aryan Resistance propaganda. Sub
sequently I learned that W aughtal and his
brother, G len, and a third individual were
the distributors o f “ Race and R eason” in
Phoenix.
In an effort to obtain evidence linking
Waughtal to the anti-Semitic telephone calls,
we organized the Jewish comm unity to
work with the M ountain Bell Telephone
Com pany w hich placed traces on the tele
phone lines o f several Jew ish institutions,
including the ADL office.
During the second week of telephone
surveillance, the police received the infor
mation they had been waiting for. The
telephone company had identified the source
o f the calls-D av id W aughtal’s home. D e
tectives from the Scottsdale Police D epart
ment arrested W aughtal on tw o counts of
telephone harassment. Later, the Maricopa
County S h e riff s D epartm ent arrested him
on four sim ilar counts. Following arraign
ment in these tw o cases law enforcement
officials were to turn him over to the Phoe
nix Police, who wanted him in connection
with the calls m ade to the ADL office.
W hen questioned about his motivation
for the calls, W aughtal said he did it be
cause " Jews control the m edia in Phoenix ’ ’
which, he claim ed, prevented him from
exercising his right of free speech.
W hen the day arrived for his arraign
ment, I was in court along with representa
tives of other Jew ish groups but there was
no W aughtal. He had fled the night before.
As a measure to prevent further such
incidents, I filed a petition on behalf of
ADL for an injunction against harassment,
naming David and Glen W aughtal as well
as the W hite Aryan Resistance and other
individuals know n to be associates of
W aughtal.
The harassm ent ended with Waugh-
tal's disappearance and the story seem ed to
have ended there, too.
That is w hat I thought until last July
when I received a call from a m inister in
Eugene, OR, who told me that David
W aughtal was a m em ber of his congrega
tion, that he had become very religious,
repentant, and that he wanted to return to
Arizona to face the charges against him.
The minister, the Rev. Allen Stensvad asked
if I would assist in arraigning his surrender
to authorities in Arizona.
We agreed that W aughtal would turn
him self in to the Scottsdale City Court on
July 18. I m et him beforehand and we
discussed his crim es of two years earlier.
W aughtal told me that this inspiration
to enter the white supremacy movement
came after hearing a talk show on Phoenix
radio station K FI Y in the m id-1980s fcatur
ing Glen M iller, a white supremacist and
Ku Klux Kian leader in North Carolina.
" I began to read all of M iller's w rit
ings that 1 could find," he said. "1 didn't
believe in the K ian,’ he went on, "b u t
Nazism and the teachings o f A dolf Hitler
appealed to me. I believed that Jews con
trolled everything.”
“ 1 wanted to get back at them (Jews) in
some w ay,' he said “ Harrassm ent on the
telephone was kind of like a needle in the
giant’s sid e."
When he fled Arizona to avoid his
arraignm ent, W aughtal told me he went to
O regon where he worked at a lum ber mill.
He gradually began to read the bible and
listen to religious programs on the radio.
He joined Pastor Slevsvad’s Bcrcan Baptist
Church in Eugene and told the m inister of
hispast. Rev. Stensvad, who said W aughtal
has become an active participant in church
programs, encouraged him to return to
Arizona to face charges.
' ‘Before 1 can serve God and go on with
my life, I have to clear up my past,’' Waughtal
said. “ W hat I did was real d u m b . a stupid
thing. I am sorry for those I offended. There
is no way to take back what 1 said. I am not
looking for leniency. I just want to go on
with my life."
I was im pressed with his statements of
rem orse and told him I would help him
Because he was charged in several m unici
palities, W aughtal had to make appear
ances in each. In Scottsdale, he was re
manded for sentencing until Septem ber. He
appeared in Peoria, AZ, as a fugitive from
the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department
and received a sentence of six m onths pro
bation and 96 hours of comm unity service.
In Phoenix, where he pleaded guilty to the
charges, he paid a fine and was released.
When he was sentenced in Scottsdale,
the prosecutor asked that an exam ple be
made of Waughtal to discourage others.
Judge George Preston sjxrke forcefully
about the evils o f Nazism and anti-Sem i
tism.
Before passing die unusual sentence,
the judge noted W aughtal's repentance, the
fact that he had returned voluntarily and his
subsequent enrollment at Southwestern
College, an American Baptist Bible School.
Since his return to A rizona, Waughtal
has spoken openly to the press and on the
radio against white supremacy. ADL hopes
to arrange speaking engagem ents for him
so that he- like other reformed white su
premacists such as Font M artinez, the for
mer Ku Klux Klansmaii who blew the whistle
on The O rder (ADI. Bulletin, June, 1988
What Else 11 earned About the Jew s")--
ean serve as a role model for the young
people who are so often the target! for
recruitm ent b\ today's hate mongers.