* • - **
PO R TL
ERVER
April 4, 1990
’’The Eyes and Ears of the Community"
VOLUME XX NUMBER 14
The New Immigration, Part IV:
Quotas Begin With The Mayflower
President Bush Praises Hometown Heroes
In Their War Against Drugs
by Prof. McKinley Burt
Washington, D.C., April 3 , 1990-Presi-
dent Bush recently honored 28 Ameri
cans whose personal initiatives have
provided hope and inspiration for com
munities ravaged by the drug problem.
This luncheon event, hosted 6y W'rffiam
J. Bennett, National Drug Control Pol
icy Director, was held on March 7th, in
the Indian Treaty Room in the old Ex
ecutive Office Building, adjacent to The
White House.
The occasion offered the President a
rare oportunity to recognize people on
the front lines, whose heroic, unher
alded work is making a difference.
The results of this 200th anniversary-
count by the U.S. Census Bureau (began
in 1790) are sure to provoke a range of
emotions--from a chorus of I told-you-
sos to absolute consternation. Before
that happens, let me pull together the
principal points I have made in respect
to the real or fancied threats to African
Americans posed by a rapidly accelerat
ing immigration to these shores. As said
last week, we must examine that ‘‘loaded
deck” of racial ‘ ‘quotas’ ’ (de facto or de
jure) that began with the first Immigra
tion Count of 1820. The firs t‘‘official”
Quota Act was enacted May 19, 1921.
It is easily determined from the chart
I provided to show from the geographi
cal origin of these new citizens that a
very racially-biased quota system was at
work (White Europeans were not spared).
For the total influx of 32,557,418 immi
grants between the years 1820 and 1920,
the averages were, A. Northern and
Western Europe 76.6%, Southern and
Eastern Europe 10.4%, Western Hemi
sphere 6.4%, and all other parts o f the
world, 6.6%. Clearly revealed is the
“ pecking order” imposed upon the world
by American racism -a caste system an
tedating that of South Africa and which
early structure presaged today’s social
and economic traumas. All of the tongue-
in-cheek euphemisms a biased estab
lishment can muster cannot disguise the
reality of the quotas it claims to abhor:
“ preference, allocations, assignment, in
ratio to, needed skills, family priority,
etc.”
We see that America’s immigration
laws reserved the largest quota for Re
gion A; Great Britain, Ireland and Ger
many. Obviously, neither the founding
fathers or their successors ranked the
populations of Region B very highly on
their scale of evolution (Eastern Europe
in particular), since its allocation of
“ huddled masses, yearning to be free”
was barely one seventh of that for the
“ superior” Anglo Saxon, Celtic and
Germanic contingent. Polish jokes may
have begun quite early on. The litera
ture, textbooks, and even the “ scien-
When B.P. Oil Company assumed
operations from Mobil Oil in May, 1989,
it brought with it a commitment to do
more than tojust sell gas and oil. As the
“ new kid” on the block, B.P. decided
to return some of its investments to the
communities in which some of its sta
tions were located. And they have done
so through neighborhood involvement,
mainly its (communities) most valu
able resource-youth.
One such B.P. station has under
taken a project involving youth that has
some families and organizations ex
cited about its prospects.
The B.P. station at N.E. Broadway
and Union/Grand has availed its facil
ity to pre-screened teenage groups,
offering space and equipment to hold
carwashes for fundraising, as well as
part time and full time employment op
portunities.
The brainchild of station manager
Ray Sutton, this fundraising activity
fic’ ’ annals of this hundred-year period
sflected the virulent assessments of the
ntelligence and cultural level of peoples
rom Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czecho-
lovakia, Russia and elsewhere in this
egion.
The first generations of these immi-
;rants suffered from many social preju-
lices and employment discrimination,
mt of course, nothing like that inflicted
ipon African Americans after their
‘emancipation” . These people, in turn,
>ecame as a group the most racist and
violent of those who fought against Black
inion membership and desegregation in
lousing and schools. By the turn of this
:entury they had succeeded in ousting
Hacks from most of the craft and skilled
rade unions—and had instituted the “ For
Vhite Males Only” clauses. All along,
hey were nurtured and buttressed in
heir prejudices by the same type of
;anards, lies and denigrations earlier used
igainst themselves.
The assaults upon the intelligence
tnd capabilities of nonwhites in this
;ountry has in no way subsided. “ The
lustification for ranking groups by in-
jom worth has varied with the tides of
Western History . . . biological deter
minism.” That quote is from a book by
Stephen J. Gould, “ The Mismeasure of
Man, 1981.” It is a must reading for
Lhose who fight against the pseudo-sci-
jntific diatribes of racists like William
Shockley (the physicist turned geneti
cist), or against the flawed assumptions
predicated upon the techniques for ‘in
telligence’ assessment developed by
Lewis Termin (the putative inventor of
the I.Q. Test). Mr. Gould discloses the
entire scope of the 18th and 19th century
dogmas of hate and intolerance that
pervaded (and shaped) science, philoso
phy, literature and most of academia.
Did you know that the full title of Char
les Darwins’ famous work was “ The
Origin of the Species by Means of Natu
ral Selection or The Preservation of the
Favored Races in the Struggle forLife” ?
The world took this literally.
So we have it-a n d it needs to be
understood by all-th at quotas employ
ment discrimination, intelligence con
cepts. educational disabilities, poverty,
urban decay, and just plain garden vari
ety racism are all inextricably intertwined
in the fabric that has cloaked this repub
lic from day one. These are dangerous
times when even the courts of last resort
fail to recognize this fact, and yield to
the pressures of a striden majority who
were once the victims. The pressures of
a strident majority who were once the *
victims. The government itself is often
suspect, as witness the mindset of the
U.S. Public Health Service which per- ;
formed the infamous Nazi-type experi
ment on African Americans at the facil
ity of Tuskegee University. Their physi
cians permitted people of color with
syphilis to go untreated (and unwarned)
for twenty years while they wrote papers
and tracked the progress of the disease-
until death intervened.
If the U.S. Public Health Service had
no morality, certainly the U.S. Army has
shown no sense of history-nor does it
read its own records. In the U.S. Army
Intelligence Tests of World War I, the
African Americans of Pennsylvania, New
York, Illinois and Ohio led the whites of
Mississippi, Kentucky, Arkansas and
Georgia by one to seven percent. Corre
spondingly the rates of illiteracy for these
same whites were much higher-though
not as high as for their region of origin in
Europe (American Journal of Sociol
ogy, vol., 33, pg 256, September, 1927).
Now, here we are working on a correla
tion that even Ray Charles could see, as
we futher proceed to relate the conse
quences of failures to educate at home or
abroad.
The same study also determines:
“ The Negroes of California, Minne
sota, New York, Nevada, South Dakota,
Oregon and Washington are less illiter
ate than the Native whites of white par
entage in Virginia, West Virginia, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkan
sas, Louisiana, and New Mexico. New
York, Minnesota, Oregon and South
President Bush and William Bennett
Pictured in the leftphotograph is Port
land, Oregon’s E. Ray Leary, co-direc-
tor of the Self-Enhancement Program.
Self-Enhancement is a comprehensive
support program which operates within
the school curriculum to instill a sense of
purpose and belonging into the lives of
elementary and high school youths. Lis
tening to Mr. Leary (photo on right) are
Drug Policy Control Director William J.
Bennett and President George Bush.
The luncheon was underwritten by a
generous grant from ADT Security Sys
tems, in conjunction with the National
Crime Prevention Council (NCPC).
In 1985, ADT Security Systems, the
world’s leading provider of electronic
security systems, joined the crusade
against crime by providing financial sup
port for the NCPC.
BPN’s Second
Anniversary Reception
Black Professional Network will hold
its second anniversary Reception this
Sunday, April 8th, between 2:30 and
4:00 p.m.,in the Community Service
Room of Pacific Power & Light’s Dis
trict Office, 3535 N.E. 15th Avenue,
Portland, Oregon.
As special guest, Black Professional
Network will be welcoming the new
CEO of the Portland Urban League, Mr.
Darryl S. Tukufu.
The whole community is welcome to
come out and meet the Urban League’s
new president and celebrate the 2nd An
niversary of Black Professional Network.
Photo Courtesy of White House
Ray Leary, Co-Director of the Self-Enhancement Program
New Board Members At Garlington Center
LaVerne Hampton and Theresa Williams-Stoudamire
tCnntinued nn nave 5)
B.P. Oil: Returning An Investment To The Community
Sam Pierce of MYCAP Chats With Ray Sutton (left) and
Lute Reiprich (center)
has so far helped to send a group of
teenage girls to Seattle, Washington for
participation in Big Sistcr/Little Sister
“ I think you are America s home
town heroes-unconventional warriors,”
commented President Bush. “ You are
the stars in America’s war on drugs.
You shine through the dark, you give
hope in the night. And we’re here today
really to say that someone noticed.”
activities and provided funds for the
United African Americans Organiza
tion to continue its youth gang diver-
sion project.
The project has gained so much popu
larity that the Portland Urban League
Youth Program, churches and other youth
organizations are investigating the pos
sibility of possible involvement
“ We are building a business out of
neighborhood involvement” states Sut
ton. This is a project that should be
addressed not just by B.P. Oil but by
any concern centrally located in com
munities that seeks employment outlets
for its youth. Once this project is
completely set-up, we (B.P.) hope to
encourage independant B.P. operators
to get involved as well,” he added.
Mostly a weekend project, youth are
required to have a work permit and
must be referred by an organization and
be pre-screened.
The project is wholeheartedly en
dorsed by District Manager Lute
Reiprich, who is seeking community
input on other meaningful projects.
The Garlington Center for North/
Northeast Community Mental Health has
selected two new members for its Board
of Directors.
LaVcme Hampton is branch man
ager of the First Interstate Bank of North
east Martin Luther King Blvd. She has
25 years of experience in banking.
Theresa Williams-Stoudamire is a
health plan coordinator for Multnomah
County She is a member of the African
American Health Coalition.
The Garlington Center, 4950 N.E.
King Blvd., with an annual budget of
more than $2.2 million, serves nearly
2000 clients each year. Its facility in
North and Northeast Portland provide
residential and day treatment for chil
dren and for chronically mentally ill
adults.
CREED OF THE BLACK PRESS
Th e Black Press believes that A m erica can best lead the world away from social and
national antagonisms when It accords to every person, regardless of race, color, or
creed, h ill human and legal righto. Hating no person, Tearing no person, the Black
Press strives to help every person in the firm belief that all are h u rt as long as anyone
C O M I N G S O O N !’ !
On April l l l l i , 199«, tlw Portland Observer
newspaper will publish a speeial section featur
ing hair care products and hair %t \ les. \\a tcb tor
this fascinating issue.
i
î
(Nr fe's ;