Page 2 Portland Observer DECEMBER 20, 1989
E ditorial I O pinion
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“Post-Black Politics?
The Election Of Wilder And Dinkins”
Part One of a Two Part Series
More Ways
To Go
by Professor McKinley Burt
Well, here we are at the end of another
busy and interesting year, but I am not
about winding down here. Last week I
spoke of the community's talent bank we
had available--the many college graduates,
professionals and others who could (and
should) be busy at countering the "shrill
assault of denigrating media images "which
can only stultify and impede the activism
and remedial responses of the community
to its problems.
We are certainly compelled to con
gratulate those newly-energized groups of
Black men and women who have moved on
the issues of youth and gangs, drugs illiter
acy, teenage mothers, and family m ainte
nance. But, these are just the initial-albeit
scattered-responses to the emotional im-
mediaces prescribed by the establishment
media. What is really needed among this
new class of Black activists is a specific
structuring which will enable them to fully
utilize their skills and background in a
facile and effective manner. It is important
that even before determining goals and
objectives, there should come a clear de
lineation of the playing field. Then, a per
son or organization is enabled to select
areas of participation relevant to specific
skills and/or areas of interest.
What kind o f a ' ‘Playing Field’ ’ are we
looking at here? There is housing/home-
lessness, education/lileracy, employment/
job development, health/safety, consumer
protection, media monitoring, anti-defa
mation. Now, just for my own writings and
manuscripts (and w ith no staff), I am able to
maintain a fairly current and organized
information base corresponding to the cate
gories just cited. Therefore it is base corre
sponding to the categories just cited. There
fore it is no big leap for me to project the
idea of a Black-operated u rb an Inform a
tion center structured along the same lines-
computerized and with printouts from the
data base available on demand to any and
every resident or organization in the com
munity. How else could they intelligently
or effectively serve themselves or their
constituency?
Given today’s level of awareness and
demonstrated commitment shown in this
community, I cannot see that there should
be much difficulty in securing the volun
teers required to man such a center. It
occurs that, with proper supervision, a number
of high school and college students can be
used in clipping, sorting and collating media
material in preparation for data entry. I
would contemplate that the modicum of
expense required for rent, utilities and
computer/peripheral rentals could be fi
nanced through monthly assessments of
individuals and organizations. It may even
be possible to have the premises donated;
the same with some of the other costs. I
have reservations about accepting help from
many of the governmental agencies; this is
because I have found through experience
that most of what they describe as a m oni
toring or reporting process is in reality a
control function.
Now, in any system which is designed
to collect information that is to be used in an
applications environment, it will soon become
apparent that there are informational needs
beyond the naked data. You must have
manuals and reference books to guide you
in the effective application of the data to the
specific area of relevancy. Otherwise the
information is like an unsorted hand of
cards; you must have a lib rary . Let me
provide you with a model. In the early
1970’s I maintained an office where, under
contract to Model Cities (Charles Jordan)
and the Albina Contractors Association, I
provided fiscal management and business
assistance services to large and small
community corporations -the total cash flow
was close to a quarter-million dollars a
month. Because of my establishm ent, real
world experience I had available the type of
lib ra ry necessary to conduct procedures in
a productive and accurate manner.
To my surprise and consternation,
though, I found that I was being besieged by
the personnel (and clients) of neighboring
Black-operated programs who were trying
to operate without libraries. Since I was
dealing with every type of business and
social enterprise, my shelves were crowded
with hundreds of volumes pertaining to the
operation of the entire spectrum of these
entities. Not only were there the standard
texts, but I had materials from wet and dry
leasing of vehicles to the various industrial
classification manuals and four types of
Dictionaries of Occupational Titles. There
was also the individual T rade o r Profes
sional Association material. I was not a
carpenter without tools. The same applies
today if Blacks are to be able to use the data
bases made available to them. That is if
there is going to be an effective process of
improving our quality of life in the afore
mentioned areas of housing, health, educa
tion and so forth; old Massa is not going to
do it for us. That has been made evident.
Last month’s elections of Douglas Wilder
as Governor of Virginia and David Dinkins
as Mayor of New York City represent a
turning point in national Black political
history. In the quarter century since the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed,
most Black elected officials have gained
office from Congressional or state legisla
tive districts which are predominately Afri
can-American. Few Blacks seeking office
ever earned more than 25 percent of the
white electorate’s vote. An “ invisible ceil
ing" within the electoral system limited
the mobility of talented women and men,
seemingly denying them access to effective
positions of power within the larger soci
ety.
Although W ilder” s margin of victory
was far smaller than polls had indicated,
and Dinkins failed to win majorities in
white, traditionally Democratic constitu
encies, the two politicians successfully broke
through the invisible ceiling. By reviewing
their political histories, its possible to
understand the reasons for their respective
victories, as well as the problems each will
encounter immediately upon assuming office.
David Dinkins and Douglas Wilder are
the products of the civil rights era, entering
politics during the maelstrom o f change
initiated by the mass desegregation cam
paigns across the South in the 1960s. Wilder
was a liberal Democratic attorney who made
a living defending the poor and victims o f
police brutality. In his initial campaign for
the Virginia State Senate twenty years ago,
he had an Afro hairstyle and employed the
political rhetoric of Black Power. Dinkins
was also a liberal ideologically and politi-.
cally, developing close relations with the
city’s powerful public employees unions,
the liberal-left intelligentsia, and Black
middle class reformers in Harlem and
throughout the city.
And from the beginning, Dinkins culti
vated cordial links with New York’s influ
ential Jewish community, lending his back
ing to Jewish causes, speaking out against
anti-semitism, and defending the federal
government's financial and political sup
port for Israel. Dinkins took pains to de
nounce Black nationalist leader Louis Far-
rakhan, and repeatedly took the initiative to
resolve tensions between the African-
American community and an upper middle
class Jewish constituency which was grow
ing increasingly conservative politically.
Like many politicians with extensive
ties to organized labor and Democratic
urban organizations, Dinkins was not with
out flaws. Almost two decades ago, Dink
ins failed to file his income tax returns for
several years, which he eventually paid.
There were questions concerning the value
of communications company stock he sold
to his son to avoid conflict of interest'
charges when he was elected Manhattan
Borough President. But compared to most
of the politicians who had emerged from
the city ’s corrupt institutions, Dinkins’s
personal history and professional record
was better than average.
W ilder” s record of personal conduct,
by contrast, was largely unblemished.
However, he had a very different problem.
During the 1970s, W ilder’s political ambi
tions began to target the then-unlikely goal
of achieving the state's governorship. To
do so. W ilder recognized he would have to
remake him self into the traditional image
of the classical. Southern patriarch - con
servative, button-down, pro-business, anti
crime, and abundantly safe. He couldn't
cross the color line personally, but he would
do so in terms of his political image. Wilder
sought to become a Southern version of Los
Angeles M ayor Thomas Bradley, a moder
ately conservative politician who was “post-
B lack "—beyond identification with race.
Wilder reversed his opposition to the death
penalty. He backed away from his earlier
advocacy of granting the District of Colum
bia full statehood rights, which in effect
would place two African-Americans into
the U.S. Senate. Hoving away form liberal
Keynesianism in economic policy, Wilder
opposed any changes in Virginia’s rigid
"right to w ork” laws, which prohibit
compulsory membership in unions within
individual businesses.
After four terms in Virginia's Senate,
Wilder was successfully elected Lieuten
ant Governor, the state's second highest
office in 1985. Almost immediately specu
lation began concerning W ilder’ ’s chances
for election as governor, since Virginia
prohibits incumbent governors from seek
ing re-election. One of W ilder’s chief dif
ficulties was maintaining his natural base
among the African-American electorate,
which had strongly supported the insurgent
presidential campaigns o f Jesse Jackson in
both 1984 and 1988, while reassuring white
voters that he was just as conservative and
pro-business as any Southern white politi
cian. W ilder placed each foot within tow
dramatically divergent political cultures,
recognizing that both were necessary for
him to achieve his goal. He praised Jackson
personally, but took pains to distinguish the
charismatic campaigner's liberal-left agenda
from his own. He diffused the critics by
suggesting, somewhat falsely, that Jackson’s
electoral mobilization represented symbol
ism without substance. “ Jesse runs to in
spire,” W ilder observed, " I run to win.”
There was a fundamental difference
between the Wilder and Dinkins campaigns
vs. the dynam ic electoral mobilization of
Harold Washington in Chicago in 1983 and
1987. In the later case, African-Americans
used the electoral process to reject the
‘ 'plantation-style politics” of acorrupt and
racist Democratic Machine. They used the
system to protest against institutional ra
cism, economic discrimination and politi
cal powerlessness. But in the Wilder-Dink
ins strategy, the agenda of African-Ameri
cans was not on central stage. Both candi
dates, especially Wilder, ran “ post-black"
campaigns, recognizing that the African-
American electorate had no where else to
go to express its political objectives.
Both politicians had recognized years
ago that their Black electorates were too
small to provide the entire core for success
ful bids to high office. Over a decade, they
cultivated political records which would
place them well within the moderate main
streams of their respective political cul
tures in order to appeal to white liberal-to-
centrist constituencies. Rather than deny
ing race, both sought to "transcend” the
color line, offering generous platitudes of
how racism had supposedly declined in
significance during the 1980s. The problem
with this perspective is that all the evidence
suggests that white voters still remain highly
race conscious far more so than African-
Americans or Latinos. In hundreds of elec
tions across the U.S., when white Demo
cratic voters have been faced with a choice
between a Black Democrat who espouses
their views and class interests.
Articles and Essays by Ron Daniels
Peace On Earth Goodwill
Towards Humanity
December and January are months filled
with religious and spiritual holidays and
celebrations which tend to cause us to pause
to contemplate the current circumstance
and destiny of humanity. From Ramadan to
Hanukkah from Christmas to Kwanzaa this
is a season of celebration and reflection on
the planet earth. With a world tom by strife
and turmoil this season is generally marked
by a momentary calming of conflict and a
temporary reduction of tensions.
It is difficult to imagine that somehow
deep down inside the bosoms of the vast
majority of human beings there is not a
hunger for peace. From Northern Ireland,
to the middle East from Central America to
South Africa, from Bensonhurst to Miami
most human beings are decent people who
yearn for stability, quietude and peace.
Most follow a religions or creeds which
upholds moral values like love, justice,
devotion to family and respect for human
ity dignity.
Why then is the world in such a tumul
tuous state? The problem seems to be the
difficult leap from belief to practice, from
lip service to daily living - translating ideas
into a living, breathing and meaningful
reality. Peace and prejudice are incompat
ible. Extremes of wealth and poverty, vast
disparities in peoples access to opportu
nity, surrender to racism, sexism, religious
bigotry and cultural chauvinism all breed
tension, hatred, violence and war.
As we pause to celebrate and reflect
during this season we need to recognize that
there can be no permanent peace without
justice. The ultimate vision of an “ age of
Aquarius” is not possible unless we re
solve to heed the admonition to feed the
hungry, to cloth the naked, to loose the
prisoners, to turn swords into ploughshares.
The recent meeting of Bush and Gor
bachev at the Malta Summit seem to hold
out new promise that a world which has
been burdened by the adverse effects of a
cold war and a maddening, insane arms
race may now be on the brink of a new era
where the resources of the great powers can
now be used to convert guns into butter.
The prospect and promise of such an era can
only be realized if the overwhelming m a
jority of the citizens of our global village
our committed to the triumph of good over
evil.
What Albert Schweitzer called the
spiritual and ethical forces of progress must
come to guide and lead the material forces
of progress. This is essentially the message
that the “ Prince of Peace” came to bring a
strife tom world nearly 2,000 years ago.
Our world is still waiting for us to convert
our basic instincts of decency and kindness
into a daily ethic that can rescue humanity
from misery and turmoil.
The relative interlude of tranquility
during this season is a great source of
optimism. For it suggests that peace is
attainable. We must keep striving and strug
gling to bring it to fruition. If we listen,
leam and live out the multiple meanings of
the positive messages of this season then
indeed peace on earth good will towards
humanity is possible.
Be Equal
by John E. Jacob
Southern Conference Movement:
50 Years of Struggle
Christmas, 1989
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1 -
Christmas is the season to set aside the
troubles of daily life and dwell on the good
things that we can be thankful for while
praying for the strength to overcome the
bad.
But it should be more than th a t And it
should be more than a binge of consumer
ism and gift-giving that is too often just a
mindless display of wealth and restless
ness.
Christmas should be a time of rededi
cation to the ideals that must motivate us all
year round-ideals like peace on earth,
universal brotherhood and ending poverty.
For while we count our blessings, we
must also remember those who have too
few blessings to count.
We live in a nation that includes over
30 million people, most of them children,
who are poor. We live in a world in which
nearly a billion people go to bed hungry
every night.
Surely, the Christmas message means
caring for those who have less, for those
whose lives have not been blessed with the
fruits of our society, for those who need
help to climb up to more fulfilling lives.
At every family gathering in this sea
son of celebration, there are ghosts at the
table reminding us that all is not well in
America today and that we need to tran
scend personal concerns by rededicating
ourselves to the ideals of the Christmas
message.
I ’m thinking of such reminders of the
need to act as the many homeless for whom
Christmas is not a day of celebration but
another day of humiliation and struggle for
survival.
I’m thinking of poor children for whom
Christmas is not a day of unwrapping ex
pensive gifts, but of wondering why they
are cold and hungry.
And I’m thing of the many others so
often ignored by our society, such as AIDS
sufferers, the jobless, the uneducated who
can 't compete in this economy any more.
We need to make them part of our
Christmas, too, for the meaning of the
season is that we all one, and that what hurts
one hurts all.
It's a meaning based on religious and
moral principles that have stood the test of
time and of the ages, but it is also an
expression of the truth that we are all vul
nerable.
Each of us may become ill, lose a job,
be shattered by crime, by drugs, or other
scourges of our society. And most assuredly,
each of us will become vulnerable to the
inroads of age.
This season also witnesses the inspir
ing revolution sweeping across the com
munist world, as people are rising up against
their rulers and demanding the rights we
Americans have so long taken for granted.
That too, is an apt reminder of the
blessings we enjoy. No matter how hard our
condition, no matter how harmed we are by
the effects of bad public policies and evil
discrimination, we live in a land where we
can freely protest and can organize to change
conditions for the better.
And that too, is an indispensable part of
what I call rededicating ourselves to the
Christmas spirit of brotherhood and the
oneness of humanity.
For redidication is not simply saying
" is n ’t it a sham e” when confronted with
the inequalities and injustices in our soci
ety . It is a resolve to do something to change
them, and to help our society to overcome
the poverty and racism that are sins against
the spirit of the Christ whose birth we
celebrate.
May you have a joyous Christmas and
may you share your blessings with others
and work to make our society the shining
light it can be.
4
December 1989 marked the 51st anni
versary of the founding of the “ Southern
Conference M ovem ent" for racial and
economic justice which was initiated in
Birmingham, Alabama. The history of the
freedom and justice movements in this
nation is extremely important. We must not
allow this history to get lost.
It was in 1938 that 1,500 people from
across the South, African-American and
Anglo-American, dared to come to the heart
of Dixieland to form a multi-racial social
action, regional organization known as the
Southern Conference for Human Welfare
(SCHW). At the time of this meeting, Bir
mingham was a literal racist police state
which forbade under the law African-
Americans and Anglo-American form even
being in the same room together no matter
what the purpose or auspices of the gather
ing. There were many labor organizers who
also dared to attend the founding meeting
of Southern Conference for Human W el
fare. This organization mobilized around
the quest for a true democracy in the South
by challenging the vestiges of Jim Crow
racism.
Out of the Southern Conference for
Human Welfare movement, grew the South
ern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF)
in 1948 which worked for over 25 years in
the deep South to bring movement activists
together to support “ people’s movements"
in the South for racial, labor and human
rights. One of the important historical
understandings of the freedom movement
in this country has been the "continuity"
of the evolution of multi-racial coalitions
known by many different names, but main
taining the basic principle of "grass roots
organizing as the fundamental means of
challenging and transforming American
I
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? < 1 M «■ 7 V “ ftft *
society for social, racial and economic
justice.”
When the Student Nonviolent Coordi
nating Committee (SNCC) was established
in Raleigh, North Carolina in the 1960s, the
Southern Conference Educational Fund was
one of the main Southwide multi-racial
coalitions that openly supported SNCC
financially and politically. Names of lead
ers like Joe Gelders, Jim Dombrowski,
Aubrey Williams, Carl and Anne Braden,
and Fred Shuttleworth were important farces
that forged an essential part of the founda
tion of the evolution o f the Southern free
dom movement.
Recently, in Birmingham, Ossie Davis
rendered an emotional and captivating trib
ute ceremony to all of those who had worked
hard during the last 50 years in the South to
keep the movement alive. From Ella Baker
to Rose Parks, from Martin Luther King,
Jr., to Fannie Lou Hamer to Mojeska Simp
kins to Virginia Derr and from many, many
others the legacy of the struggle in the
South is one of caring and sacrifice, of joy
and struggle and of winning people’s victo
ries for justice and human freedom.
While the list of all of the names of the
persons who have given themselves to the
struggle in the South is much too long to
mention here, it is important that we pause
to salute the thousands pf named and un
named persons who have participated in the
various struggles in the Southland of this
nation. If there is to be a new South and if
there is to be a new nation where economic
and racial justice are realities for all citi
zens then the one thing we have already
learned is that the struggle must continue.
And the struggle can only continue effec
tively to the extent to which multi-racial
and multi-generational grass roots move
ments are organized, maintained and mobi
lized.
i
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