Page 2
Portland Observer April 25, 1990
E ditorial I O pinion
(
Ciini (flights Jour tia(
,
To Be E qual
by John E. Jacob
The Politics of the Death Penalty
by Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.
In the wake of the very solemn and
celebratory 1990 Easter services of
worship, programs, parades and fash­
ion shows, particularly here m the United
States, one would think that the cry
“ Crucify Them!. . . Crucify Them!”
would not be heard with its current
frequency and national volume. The
raging debate concerning the imposi­
tion of the death penalty as punishment
for alleged criminal activity has taken
on an unprecedented political tone.
The state does not have the power to
create life and the state should not have
the power to destroy life. The United
States Supreme Court tentatively de­
layed the scheduled execution of Robert
A. Harris in the state of California while
legal arguments are made about Harris'
mental competency.
Former San Francisco, Mayor Diane
Feinstein, is now leading in the polls in
California as a Democratic candidate
for Governor. Yet, Feinstein, who is
known to be a liberal politician on most
issues, was not the front-runner in the
polls until she recently declared “ 1 am
the only Democrat who’s for the death
penalty.” The television ads on Fein­
stein’s new pro death penalty position
have seemingly captured the blood thirsts
of the electorate in the state of Califor­
nia.
Disturbingly the cry for capital pun­
ishment is being used more as a politi­
cal strategy to lure votes than as a moral
stance on a critical social issue. O f
course, American politicans have been
known to flip flop on the issues to
attract voters. The cry for capital pun­
ishment has not only increased the rate
of executions in the United States dur­
ing the last several years, but also the
normative value of a human life has
now plunged back to the days when
“ hangings” were part and parcel of
this nation’s sense of exacting justice.
Today, there are approximately 2,250
person on Death row in the United
States. Across the nation, political
campaign consultancare urging both
Democrats and Republicans to take
advantage of the politics of the death
penalty. To our dismay, even some
prominent African American politicans
have now found it necessary to join the
growing chorus of political voices de­
manding the death penalty . Governor
L. Douglas Wildler of Virginia aban­
doned his long opposition to capital
punishment when he announced his in­
tentions to run for Governor. And now
even Andrew Young, an outspoken civil
rights leader, Christian minister and
former Mayor of Atlanta, has changed
his previous opposition to capital pun­
ishment to campaign in favor of the
death penalty as he runs to be Governor
of Georgia.
Forty percent of this nation’s Death
Row prisoners are African American
which is nearly three times the African
American percentage of the population
of the United States. In a state like Flor-
ida.which has executed twenty one per­
sons since 1976, the second highest
number of executions following 33
persons executed in Texas, there is also
a disproportionately high percentage of
Hispanics on Death Row. Florida
Governor Robert Martinez is reported
to be increasing his standing in political
pools after running television ads jubi­
lantly affirming that he has signed 90
death warrants.
The very notion of capital punish­
ment is an affront to human morality
and dignity. Unfortunately, the ad­
vance of civilization on issues like the
death penalty has not progressed very
far. The Greek philosopher, Plato, once
said, “ The death sentence should serve
as an example for the profit of others. ’ ’
Of course what Plato mistakenly be­
lieved, was that capital punishment would
serve as a deterrent to crime once others
were aware of this final form of punish­
ment. Yet down through the centuries
the imposition of the death penalty has
only had the opposite result and in
states in this country where capital pun­
ishment is now operative, the crime
rate has in fact not decreased but dra­
matically increased.
We should not allow politicans to
continue to profit from their support of
this evil in our national midst.
Choose New Super, of Instruction Carefully
To the Editor:
The Voters’ Pamphlet lists five run­
ning for State Supt. of Public Instruc­
tion. Compare carefully their qualifi­
cation as to experience, expertise, and
politices. The winner will have four
years to advise and lead teachers, ad­
ministrators, parents, and others in fos­
tering learning achievement by Oregon
students. It takes knowledge and abil­
ity to do this important job.
Planning For Peace
The euphoria about winding down
the Cold War is wearing off, and pol­
icy-makers now need to take a long,
hard look at easing the transition to a
peacetime economy.
The policy direction should be clear-
reshaping our defense structure to meet
national security needs in a radically
changed world, cutting excess defense
expenditures, and reinvesting the huge
savings in deficit reduction and invest­
ment in our economic future.
It’s in the specifics that things tend
to get tangled. For example, the task of
reshaping our defense structure runs up
against those who want to preserv e world­
wide commitments that may be mar­
ginal to real national security consid­
erations.
Then there’s the debate about how
much of the defense budget to cut. That
depends on devising a new national
security strategy, but is is clear that
annual savings of about S I50 billion
can be made.
Finally, what to do with those sav­
ings—do we implement an Urban
Marshall Plan that develops our human
resources or do we continue to starve
public needs by cutting taxes?
It’s clear to me that our defense ob­
ligations should be realistic, that we
should cut as much as we can from
current spending levels, and invest the
savings in the Urban Marshall Plan.
But beating swords into plowshares
won’t be esay. While African Ameri­
cans and the poor have the most to gain
from redirecting priorities to human re­
sources investments, they can also be
losers in the process unless the transi­
tion is carefully planned for.
The armed forces, for example, is a
major employer of minorities and per­
haps the employer with the best equal
employment hiring and promotion rec­
ord.
Down-sizing the military means that
many minorities will be thrown onto a
civilian labor market marked by high
employment, especially for young
people. Minority officers will enter a
civilian marketplace in which compa­
nies are cutting managers, and where
opportunities for African Americans
have always been tight.
But cutting force structures is only
part of the issue. In the coming years,
we can expect sharp cuts in defense
procurement. We simply don’tneedall
those high tech weapons now rolling
off the assembly lines.
But we do need the expertise of the
companies engaged in producing those
military products and the skills of their
workers. It would be suicidal to simply
cut procurement budgets and let those
people sink into unemployment.
We have to carefully plan the transi­
tion from a defense-oriented economy
to a competititve civilian economy, not
only to cushion the hardships of work­
ers and their communities, but also to
ensure that they will play a productive
role in the future.
There’s no reason that plants now
producing tanks can’t produce civilian
goods, or that workers now producing
military aircraft can’t be retrained to
produce civilian goods.
The nation’s infrastructure needs are
so huge that it should be possible to
construct a relatively painless transi­
tion.
The biggest threat is that the issue
will become a political football, with
unnecessary plants and bases being
preserved just to keep payrolls intact
and local voters happy. And there are
indications that old Cold Warriors who
want to keep Pentagon budgets high are
exploiting legitimate fears.
So the sooner we strat planning the
transition from a wartime economy to a
peacetime economy, the better.
Such planning should include assis­
tance and retraining for workers and
veterans displaced by defense cuts, in­
centives for defense industries to con­
vert to civilian production, and a fed­
eral infrastructure rebuilding program
that utilizes their capabilities.
So far, I haven’t seen much evidence
that such consideration are getting the
attention they need from our poli­
cymakers. It’s time they did.
~ )
c Kindness is a hard thing to give
(
The state school chief doesn’t set tax
policy (the job of Gov. and Legisla­
ture), but the results of spending tax
dollars get affected by this official.
Pick the best “ state schoolmaster.”
away; it usually comes back.
)
Last week’s “ Education” article
highlighted some of the problems pre­
sented to Black students by the SAT
test; in particular their 1988 perform­
ance, frightening, when it was com­
pared with whites and 12 of the minor­
ity segments of our population. At the
same time I pointed out that successful
methods have been developed to im­
prove minority scores, e.g. the com­
puter program designed for that spe­
cific purpose by a Black educator (“ Dol­
lars & Sense” , February-March 1990).
I have been confronted with some
handwringing and despair on ‘ ‘how dif­
ficult it will be to reprise that drive and
motivation toward educational exper­
tise (and the American Dream) that
seemed so omnipresent in earlier Black
generations. In my “ Immigration” ar­
ticle on the front of the same edition, I
commented upon the reason for a mind-
numbing attrition in some areas-ra-
cism and related obstacles. It was given
that the genes and “ intelligence” wa
still there. I put it that what is needed in
our school systems are more teachers
and “ administrators” who know this is
to be a fact (actually “ believe” this)
and who are unreservedly committed to
retrieve those situations given up for
lost. It need not be s o -I belong to
organizations that includes over a score
of principals who have won many na­
tional honors for demonstrating such a
commitment (National Association for
Schools of Excellence).
But, today, I want to start at the be­
ginning of the process, where some of
us have recognized that Black kids do
not have “ learning disabilities” , so much
as a number of us have “ teaching dis­
abilities” . This, in that we do not
understand what goes on in the mind of
a child (or forget!). Bear with me while
we examine a “ childhood tale” (You
just think its childish!). I’ll soon make
my point as we lake a look at a Lewis
Caroll classic, “ Alice Through The
Looking Glass” . The companion novel
was the familiar, “ Alice in Wonder­
land” .
A lively dialogue begins when
Humpty Dumpty announces that he has
received an “ un-birthday” present. A
puzzled Alice questions Humpty, “ I
mean, what is an un-birthday present?”
T his W ay F or B lack E mpowermen
Yours,
I n I h . / e n o n i ! u liin i
Dr. Fred W. Decker
Ret’d Deputy Ast. U.S. Sec. ofEdu
cation for Research and Improve
ment, 1981-85.
ERVER
PO RTLA
Being alone is sometimes
orth being lonely.
Black Children In
Wonderland: Alice
And Humpty
Dumpty
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As the trial of Reverend A1 Sharpton
ends its third week, the evidence is
mounting up-but not against this work­
ing class Black hero. It is becoming
clearer every day that the real criminal
in the frame-up of Reverend A1 is New
York State’s attorney general, Robert
Abrams, who has been out to get Rever­
end Sharplixi, attorneys C. Vernon Mason
and Alton Maddox, Jr., since the days
when they brought into being a militant
“ No Justice, No Peace!” movement
out of the ashes of Howard B each-the
Queens, New York neighborhood where
a mob of white youth drove 21 year old
Michael Griffith into the path of an
oncoming car almost three and half
years ago.
Abrams bided his time until he saw
an opportunity to get these independent
Black leaders who had dared to stand
up to the liberal white Democratic Party
establishment. His chance came year
after Howard Beach, in the form of a 15
year old Black child named Tawana
Brawley from a little town in central
New York who said she had been raped
by a gang of white men wearing badges.
Abrams saw his chance then; he would
use Tawana to entrap Reverend Sharpton
and the attorneys.
And that’s a crime. Richard Nixon
was impeached for using the office of
the President to pursue a vendetta against
his political opponents. But that’s exactly
what New York’s highest law officer
has done. Here’s how, and why.
The movement that began, but did
not end, with the demand for a special
prosecutor in the Howard Beach case
didn't only challenge the powers-that-
bc over a case of racial violence. Even
more importantly it challenged the first
commandment of white liberal reform­
ers like Cuomo and Abrams: It can all
be handled within the system.
4
The Brawley family called in Mr.
Mason, Mr. Maddox and Reverend
Sharpton when it became obvious that
the Dutchess County criminal justice
system was no more likely to find and
punish the animals who raped their
daughter than they would be anywhere
else in America. The Brawleys and
their advisors decided to do what had
been down in Howard Bcach-Tawana
would not cooperate in any ‘ ‘ investiga­
tion” that was actually a coverup.
That’s exactly what Abrams and Com­
pany had hoped would happen. Gover­
nor Cuomo cried crocodile tears and
said yes to a special prosecutor almost
before he was asked. He appointed
Robert Abrams. That was a provoca­
tion; you don’t use an elected official to
be a special prosecutor, because he’s
not going to investigate other elected
officials or police officers.
But the Brawley grand jury was never
intended to investigate the rape, only to
prove that Tawana was a liar and that
her advisors were con artists and worse.
Robert Abrams was orchestrating a sce­
nario to justify the retaliation that would
come later. In the case of Mr. Maddox,
it would be disbarment proceedings. In
the case of Reverend Sharpton, it was a
67 count indictment that came down
last June. It was an evil plan and it
worked.
The rape of an African American
teenager (like the murder of African
American youth) docs not usually cause
our professional politicians (white or
Black) to lose much sleep. Nor do the
white corporate owned media care much
about the brutalization of our children.
But the Brawley case was different,
because Tawna was the club that Abrams,
aided and abetted by the mass media,
would use to beat up on Reverend
Sharpton.
Robert Abrams pursued Reverend
Sharpton with the same predatory hatred
that fueled the Howard Beach case,
committing felony after felony in his
eagerness to sec A1 Sharpton discred­
ited and the movement destroyed. After
months during which the attorneys, es­
pecially Mr. maddox, and Reverend
Sharpton were maligned and ridiculed
and libeled in the media, the attorney
general finally released the “ secret”
grand jury report, which had been leaked
weeks earlier to the New York Times.
Tawana, said the report,iiad never been
raped; she had brutalized herself, smeared
dog’s excrement on herself, scrawled
racial insults on herself, stuffed herself
in a garbage bag. The report included
recommendations for disciplinary ac­
tion against the attorneys and an an­
nouncement that an investigation of
Sharpton had been started.
Abrams had already succeeded in
doing a lot of damage. For one thing,
the coalition that had come together
around Howard Beach had torn itself to
pieces over press reports that Reverend
Sharpton was a police informant.
Then came Bensonhurst. Another
borough, another white mob. Another
Black youth slaughtered, 16 year old
Yusuf Hawkins. And the Black com­
munity rose up, defying the Black es­
tablishment’s warning that they keep
cool so as not to spoil David Dinkins’
chances of becoming New York City’s
first Black mayor.
Yusuf’s father got on the phone to
Reverend Sharpton, who hadn't gone
away, hadn’t turned his back. And the
community knew who to turn to. Not
the David Dinkinses. But the Reverend
Sharptons and the Alton Maddoxes, the
independent Black leaders who will not
back down from the fight for social jus­
tice.
And then, the “ logical ” reply, “ A pres­
ent given when it isn’t your birthday of
course.” Alice considers this, “ I like
‘birthday’ presents the best.” There
ensures in this classis exercise in rea­
soning, written over a hundred years
ago, a rigorous examination of basic
structures in logic that are fundamental
to understanding the “ scientific
method” , computer program design,
and “ artificial intelligence” machines.
Small children can do a lot of this if
their development is not stifled.
Alice pursures the matter:
“ I like birthday presents the best.”
“ You don’t know what you are talking
about,” says Humpty. “ How many
days in a year?”
“ Three hundred and sixty-five,” re­
plies Alice.
“ And how many birthdays have you?”
asks Humpty.
“ One!”
After some computation is performed
with pencil and paper, Humpty now be­
lieves that Alice understands that the
remainder of the ‘364 non-birthday
events’ represent a vast superiority over
one birthday-but then he crows,
“ There’s glory for you!” When Alice
says, “ I don’t know what you mean by
‘glory’,” Humpty smiles contemptously,
of course you don’t know -till I tell
you! I meant, “ there’s a nice knock­
down argument for you . . . when I use
a word it means just what I choose it to
m ean-neither more nor less,” he said.
Let us see if it isn’t a fact that children
can thoroughly understand this.
Martin Gardner (a famous contribu­
tor to “ Scientific American” maga­
zine) had this to say about the same ex­
change, “ Even in logic and mathemat­
ics, where terms are usually more pre­
cise than in other subject matters,
enormous confusion often results from
a failure to realize that words ‘mean
neither more nor less’ than they are in­
tended to mean. In Carroll’s other
novel, “ Alice In Wonderland’ ’, a small
creature puts it more directly, “ Things
are what I say they are.” that’s the
rule-from microchip to a formal lan-
gu ag e-a child easily understands,
whereas we often get too cute with
metaphor, hyperbole and simile, caus­
ing all types of confusion about ‘ ‘ mean­
ing.”
It was around 1970 that a doctor at
Oregon Health Science University called
me after reading an Oregonian article
describing a new approach I had devel­
oped to teach small children computer
programming. Dr. Stanley Jacobs,
inventor of the drug D.M.S.O.). He
asked me to give a demonstration at the
Lake Oswego Montessori School where
his wife was director. My approach
used the paradigims and methodology
cited here; the sessions were successful
and led to engagements in other loca­
tions. Children can understand-let us
look at a session I conducted with Black
kids in Northeast Portland.
This demonstration over several days
was at the Black Education Center on
Northeast 17th and was described fully
in the September 1,1988 edition of this
paper. My description of the process
began by quoting the famous poet,
Gertrude Stein, “ A rose is a rose, is a
rose” (again, things are what I say the
are-all that is needed is agreement
among participants). I went into detail
a process where children, 5 to 8 years of
age were taught to substitute a tomato,
potato, apple and orange in point-to-
point correspondence with the numbers
1,2,3, and 4. They quickly understood
that they had been given a new lan-
guage-and the very same tasks could
be performed as with numbers.
Tomato was always one, potato
always 2 and so forth. Consequently,
when the children were presented with
the set, “ potato-orange-apple” , a cho­
rus of little voices would identify the
number 243. “ Applc-tomato-potato”
would elicit the response 312. It was an
easy next step to substitute articles of
clothing (shoe-hat-scarf-glove) to form
a new code~and eventually, “ X-Y-X
and K” . By the end of the week, the
kids were adding, subtracting, multi­
plying and dividing in terms of any
homey “ symbol” their fertile imagina­
tion provided.
We see that algebra is no problem
for little people before many are stripped
ot tneir enthusiastic powers to think,
learn, imagine and otherwise display
theirinnate “ intelligence” . W ecannot
continue to allow a disabled education
system to treat and classify Black youth
as "learning-disabled” , when in truth,
we know who has the problem
J