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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (March 14, 1990)
‘ W -*** - f » » V 4 - * 4r PO R TI. VOLUME XX NUMBER 11 • - ar ter- A* <r w + er ERVER "The Eyes and Ears of the Community" MARCH 14,1990 House of Umoja to Open in Portland by Dante Che The House o f Umoja, Philadelphia- based safehouse for gang-related youth has a new home in Portland. Administrators David and Falaka Fat tah have agreed to be the home's first house- parents and have indicated that they will stay here from two months to two years until suitable local house-parents can be recruited. Lorenzo Poe, chairman o f the board of the House of Umoja, Inc. said that the Fattahs first cam e to his attention at the Hope For Youth Conference held at V is count Hotel. The Hope For Youth confer ence addressed the issues of at-risk youth, and the growing phenomena o f gang in volvement of local area youth. The Fattahs were speakers at the conference and aided in the attendant workshops during the con ference. The Fattah's have over twenty years of experience in the field of gang-related youth rehabilitation. They first became involved when one of their sons who was a gang member, thus starting a program that has successfully responded to the threat of gang- related activity for over twenty years. The new House of Umoja will be lo cated on Seventeeth & Alberta in a building which most recently housed the black edu cation Center. Washington Federal Sav ings and Loan has also donated to other houses in same vicinity. The program of the House of Umoja incorporates traditional African tribal val ues, in which there is a mother and father figure, basic family principles o f respect and love for the community, responsibility for ones brothers and sisters, accountability not only for oneself but the larger commu nity as well, and strong work and educa tional ethics with group dynamics, tutorial components and counseling components. There will be a computer lab to aid with the tutorial com ponent as well. The Umoja project has gained signifi cant corporate, government, and commu nity sponsorship in the entities o f Nike, Inc., $100,000; City of Portland, $75,000; Portland Police Bureau Sunshine Division, $10,000; Oregon State Drug and Alcohol Office, $14,000; and Washington Federal Savings and Loan, two properties totalling approximately $195,000 in contributions thus far. However, according to Poe, the projects still needs $150,000 to complete renovations. Referrals to the House o f Umoja will be from three areas: local, county, juvenile division, Oregon State Training school, and community referrals for gang-related, and youth at risk of being involved in gangs. Due to the later aspect of the referral system Poe said that it is very important to secure funding from sources other than government agencies. Poe states that the gang issue is no longer one of California import; it is how our children, relatives, and neighbors' chil dren who are the active participants in the gang activities now. He estimates that we have about five years to stem the tide of social phenomena. We know the Umoja model works and has worked for over twenty years with these kind of kids and it works effectively. The House of Umoja antici pates opening by next Fall. Contributions to the House of Umoja may be made di rectly by contacting Iris Bell 287-7488, or in the House of Umoja Trust Fund at W ash ington Federal Bank. Norm Rice, Seattle’s First African-American Mayor Discusses Agenda for the 1990s the Puget Sound Council of Gov ernments for the tw oyears imm edi ately after. At the time of his election to the Seattle City Council, Rice was manager of corporate contributions and social policy for Rainier N a tional Bank. He also was elected to Seattle’s M etro Council in 1978, and served for 10 years as chair of the council' s personnel and finance committee. During his 12 years in office. Rice has established him self as a recognized expert on issues rang ing from crime and public safety, to fiscal and budgetary policies. Bom in Denver, Colo, in 1943, he moved to Seattle in 1968 to attend the University o f W ashing ton. He is married to Dr. Constance Rice, a successful small business owner. Their son, Mian, is enrolled at Eastern Washington University. Persons wishing to attend should call Commissioner Bogle's office, 248-4682, no later than Tuesday, March 20. Cost of the luncheon is $9.50. Seating is limited, and reser vations will be accepted on a first- come, first-served basis. Norm Rice, who took office in January as Seattle's first African- American mayor, will discuss his agenda for the 1990s Friday, March 23 at City Commissioner Dick Bogle's first “ Commissioner’s Forum Lunch e o n " of the year. The luncheon will be held at the Travelodge Motel, 1441 NE 2nd Ave., off Weidler. A 1972 graduate of the School of Communications at the Univer sity of Washington, Rice earned the Master in Public Administration degree in 1974. He first won election to the Seattle City Council in 1978, and was elected council president in 1983 and 1984. He has chaired every major council committee, including education, finance, labor policy, personnel, public safety, and transportation. As an undergraduate at the University of Washington, he worked as a reporter for K.1XI Radio for two years, and as a writer and editor for KOMO-TV for two years. He served as assistant director of the Seattle Urban League while attending graduate school, and as director o f government services for Will The “New” Immigration Destroy Blacks-Before Drugs, That Is? (First of a Series) By Professor McKinley Burt There is a growing and a very upset segment o f African-Americans who are expressing fears that the rapidly escalating number of new citizens-to-be reaching American shores and borders portend anew round o f economic and social disasters for Blacks (no longer the m ajority among hyphenated Americans). Their fears do not seem at all groundless to those who work in social services, ranging from employment and housing to the criminal justice system. The flames were fueled last month when top Bush Administration officials approved a plan to raise visa quotas and let in 140,000 more immigrants each year above the an nual average of 490,000, citing "hum ani tarian and economic concerns." Things were not helped much when Representative Bruce Morrison said he wanted to raise the ante to 750,000. Whatever the merits of that particular argument. Black leaders and many others know fully well that had not those early millions of white immigrants been cut off by German submarines in W orld War I, Blacks would have ended up displaced to reservations, just as the American Indians before them. African Americans in the nation's inner cities see a more direct, visible and contemporary threat, not only in job competition by new waves of Asians and Latinos for the lower-paid, unskilled minimum wage jobs that have always served as an economic refuge for those at the bottom of the ladder-but in the newcomer's increasing acquisitions of those smaller ghetto businesses traditionally a stepping stone for Blacks into the world of com merce. (There are two kinds o f immigra tion: people and money.) It has exacerbated the situation as Blacks have perceived the new arrivals to have much greater access to b an k loans, com mercial leases, mall locations, and profit able franchises. Also, they have that which many of the immigrants are able to bring to bear financial resources from their land of origin, or from American combines of their brethren-or are able to tap capital pools formed by their American sponsors. Some blacks are asking where in the world are their leaders and urban organizations on these issues, what programs have they in the works. Last year John E. Jacob, National D i rector of the Urban League, made the fol lowing statements in his weekly column (5/ 18/89): Tm increasingly annoyed by the ac ceptance o f a new mvth about the poor. You've probably heard it, too. It goes like this: "The success o f the new immigrants to these shores proves that we don't need new government programs to end poverty.” Baloney. Our home-grown poor, and especially the African American poor, face a lack o f economic and edu cational opportunities, as well as p er sistent racial discrimination, that makes such comparisons and conclusions odi - ous. Instead o f dealing with the very real problems faced by America's poor people, we're romanticizing an immigrant ex perience that has little relationship with reality. O f course, many o f the new immi grants are making it. But that shouldn't surprise anyone, since immigrants are a self-selected group -o n ly the most am bitious, driven people leave their fam i lies and countries to start life in another land. We shouldn't forget that many of the current immigrants to America are drawnfrom the educated middle class of their countries, so they come with ad vantages yesterday's immigrants and many o f today's American poor don't have. O f course, a lot o f immigrants have backgrounds that are not middle class. Many, including large numbers from south c f the border, come here to escape starvation. They're willing to do any thing at any price. But young African Americans are products o f our own system and rightly expect the economic opportunities other Americans have. Finally, too many o f our kids are ground down by discrimination and grow up in crime and drug-ridden ghettoes. racially isolated, consigned to schools that don’t educate them." (Continued on Page 4) I I (Photo courtesy of the 'Oregonian') David Fattah and his wife, Sister Falaka Fattah, will be the first house parents of the House of Umoja, a sanctuary for street-gang youths. Organizers said this building on Northeast Alberta Street in Portland will be home for the program, modeled after the Sister Fattah's House of Umoja in Philadelphia. Retired Pepsi-Cola Vice President Discusses Affirmative Action During 55-Year Business Career NASHVILLE, TEN N .-W ith a bache lor's degree from Harvard College and an MBA Degree from the Harvard Business School, H. Naylor Fitzhugh found in 1933 that he, and otherBlacks,could notget ajob in Washington, D.C. as a department store clerk. stores until they either capitulated or closed.” Fitzhugh's skills went instead into the teaching of marketing at Howard Univer sity and into “ The New Negro Alliance—a distant localized forerunner of Jesse Jackson’s People United to Save Humanity (PUSH)." The Alliance's efforts were opposed by local courts but upheld in the U.S. Su preme Court in 1939. Fitzhugh told the business students during his discourse on "A n affirmative African-American Expe rience in Corporate America.” In 1955 Fitzhugh joined the PepsiC ola Company. He has since retired as a Vice President of Marketing but continues, at 81, to work for the company as a Project Consultant In a recent speech to the Minority Students Association, Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University, Fitzhugh said: “ For a while we picketed "A n affirmative action approach to corporate America calls for optimism as well as realism ," Fitzhugh told the stu dents . " I t calls for focusing on the half-full glass, rather than the half-empty p art-fo r lighting a candle, rather than cursing the darkness." He said, "T here may be occasions when such an affirmative approach seems beyond our reach; however, we should try hard not to let it escape from us when it i t within our reach." Fitzhugh said, “ By ‘affirmative’, I mean a realistic, creative, positive, productive approach. To those who disparage the term as preferential treatment or reverse dis crimination, I say, ‘consider the draft sys tem in major-league sports. If the first- place teams were given the first draft choices, the games would quickly lose their charac ter and popular appeal. ’' Saluting Commissioner Mary Wendy Roberts, Bureau of Labor and Industries Mary Wendy Roberts was first elected Commissioner of the Bu reau of Labor and Industries in 1978, . and was re-elected in 1982 and 1986. She is the first woman labor com missioner and the first woman Demo crat elected to a statewide office in Oregon. As commissioner, Roberts is charged with enforcing state and federal laws prohibiting discrimi nation in employment, housing and public accommodations and the statutes regulating payment of wages and hours of employment, basic working conditions and child labor laws. She also oversees the Bu reau's apprenticeship and training program and chairs the Oregon Apprenticeship and Training Coun cil. She first entered public service in 1973 as a member of the Oregon House of Representatives, the young est woman ever elected to the state legislature. Two years later she ran for the state Senate where she served from 1975 to 1979. She was a member of the Joint Ways and Means Com mittee, State Emergency Board, Senate Labor Committee, Consumer Affairs Committee and Apprentice ship Task Force. As a member of the Oregon Legisla ture, Roberts played a key role in the reor ganization of the Human Resources De partment, and her legislation created the Secure Treatment Unit for Emotionally Disturbed Children at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem. She sponsored and suc cessfully pushed through a bill prohibiting employers from discriminating against women employees because of pregnancy. Roberts is immediate past president of the National Association of Governmental Labor Officials, which is comprised of all the directors and commissioners of state labor and industrial departments. She is currently serving a second term as presi dent of the National Apprenticeship Pro gram Board, an organization representing state apprenticeship programs in working with the U.S. Department of Labor. Commissioner Mary Wendy Roberts She is also on the Oregon State Job Training Coordinating council, and the Oregon Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. She was Advi sory Council on Career and Vocational Education, and the Oregon Council on Economic Education. Roberts earned an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Oregon where she was a member of the Honors College. She was the recipient of a National Defense Foreign Language Fellowship to the University of Colorado's Chinese-Japanese Language Institute for Chinese language study. Prior occupations have included cur riculum consultant to M l Hood Commu nity College, court counselor for Multnomah County Juvenile Court, social worker, and real estate agent for S.J. Poun der Realty and Award Realty in Portland. She lives in Portland with her daughter Alexandra, who is eighL Earlier this year, Roberts testi fied in Washington, D.C. on the federal Parental and Medical Leave Bill of 1989, at the invitation of Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources Sub committee on Children, Family. Drugs and Alcoholism. The Bureau enforce's Oregon’s parental leave law. Roberts also testified on behalf of Washington state’s Family/ Medical Leave bill and submitted testimony to the Pennsylvania Leg islature which also is considering Parental and Medical Leave Legis lative Roundtable in Boston later this year, sponsored by the National Center for Policy Alternatives, Wash ington, D.C. As President of the National Apprenticeship Program, Roberts was invited to attend an International Symposium in Paris on Apprentice ship in 1988. Under Commissioner Robert's leadership, Oregon has been very involved in the forefront of child labor issues. Recently the State Court of Appeals upheld a landmark case affirming the c o n ^ stitutionality of the Oregon Child Labor Laws and affirming the Commissioner's decision on a door-to-door candy sale case. This victory included the assessment of $45,000 in civil penalities against North west Advancement for 75 child labor law violations in the use of minors in door-to- door sales. Her efforts on behalf of migrant work ers earned her two awards in 1989. On June 9 she received a Special Recognition Award from the Oregon Human Development Corporation and on S ept 15, the Oregon Commission on H ispanic Affairs presented her and the Bureau a plaque in recognition of "outstanding service to the farmworkers of O regon."