Page 2 The Portland Observer May 16, 1990
E ditorial / N
ational
F orum
Professor M c K in le y B u rt
More Adventures In Learning:
I’ve Been Working On The Railroad
Racism And Hypertention
There have been many studies that
have concluded that hypertension of
high blood pressure among African
American is one of the greatest cause of
death. Now a leading medical author
ity on hypertension has authorized a
medical textbook which scientifically
establishes a linkage between one’s
hypertension and reaction to racism.
Dr. Elijah Saunders, a Cardiologist
at the University of Maryland Medical
School, recently authored H yperten
sion in Blacks. Dr. Saunders con
cluded that “ if there were no racism in
America, hypertension would be less of
a problem among Blacks. Hyperten
sion is at near-epidemic proportions
among Blacks and is chiefly respon
sible for their high mortality rates from
heart and kidney disease and stroke.”
We have known for a long time that
being a victim of systematic and insti
tutional racism does limit one’s life ex
pectancy. Yet we live in a society
where certain things have to be proven
scientifically or statistically before
certain things are believed to be true.
Thanks to the research and clinical ob
servations of Dr. Saunders, now maybe
governmental decision-makers and oth
ers will understand better the deadly
nature of racism in this society.
Already, there is considerable aca
demic debate about Dr. Saunders’ con
clusions in Hypertension in Blacks.
Fortunately, the results of a study pub
lished last month in Health Psychology
tend to corroborate Dr. Saunders’ find-
by John E. Jacob
It’s time Americans stopped con
gratulating themselves about their af
fluence and about the great opportuni
ties available here as opposed to other
nations, because for all our affluence
and for all our accomplishments com
pared with others, there is one aspect of
American life that is nothing less than
shameful.
Child poverty in America is outra
geously high-and it is on the rise.
Almost one out of four American
children under the age of six are grow
ing up poor.
Among African Americans, half of
our young children are poor.
That should be an incredible scan
dal-one that ought to be shaking the
Congress and the public. Instead, it’s
just another statistic to be ignored.
ings. Dr. Kathleen Lawler of the Uni
versity of Tennessee and Ms. Cheryl
Armstead of St. Louis University dem
onstrated that ‘ ‘racism sets off a greater
blood pressure rise than other kinds of
anger’’ among African Americans.
These researchers concluded that “ such
a sharp rise indicates a hyperactive blood
pressure, which, if continually provoked
over several years can become a dan
gerous combination with other risk
factors for hypertension.”
As a result of Dr. Saunders’ pioneer
ing research and other studies, the fol
lowing findings should be kept in mind:
(1) People who tend to suppress their
anger, regardless of race, have higher
blood pressure than normal. (2) Ra
cism is a particularly potent trigger of
anger and of high blood pressure in Af
rican Americans. The point here is that
African Americans and others who are
victims of racism have to be careful not
only on how they challenge racism in
their midst but also care must be taken
not to internalize or suppress one’s re
action or anger. It would be a big mis
take for readers of Dr. Saunders’ book
or the studies of the other researchers to
respond by saying, “ Well, this means
we should not react to racism; let’s just
ignore it because if we react our blood
pressure may increase.”
One of the historical problems is that
too many people welcome a chance to
make an excuse or to justify their non
involvement in the struggle for racial
justice and human freedom. Again, we
salute Dr. Saunders and the others for
their work because it confirms what we
have known from life experience to be
true. The question is not should one
react to racism, but how one should
react. Frederick Douglass once said
that the limits of our oppression would
be determined by the extent of our
toleration of the oppression. Thus, we
should not suppress or internalize feel
ings of anger in reaction to racial dis
crimination and injustice. On the other
hand, we should not allow ourselves to
become so enraged with anger in reac
tion to racism that it become detrimen
tal to our health.
We suggest that one’s participation
in organizations and movements for
social change and justice can be very
therapeutic. In many communities, we
find too many people “ worrying them
selves to death” literally about their
victimization due to racism. Racism
can be and needs to be effectively chal
lenged. The whole history of racial
progress in this society is a consequence
of continued struggle and sacrifice.
Dr. Saunders, however, has given us
all an important warning. Just in recent
years, we know the tragic heart attacks
ofa Harold Washington o f Chicago and
of many others throughout the nation
possibly could have been avoided. Thus
Hypertension in Blacks reminds not
only African Americans, but all Ameri
cans concerning the need to work harder
to rid this nation and this world of the
disease of racism.
The trouble is, childhood poverty
cannot be ignored because it’s going to
come back to haunt this country and all
of its citizens.
When you consider that poor chil
dren statistically tend to perform worse
at school; to suffer health problems that
often lead to costly care; are less likely
to become employed in later life, and
are more likely to become dependent as
adults-then you see this as a national
crisis and a threat to America’s future,
not something to be dismissed.
But so far I haven’t seen anyone in
Washington crusading for policies to
end child poverty. There are plenty of
talented, intelligent people fighting to
cut capital gains taxes or crusading for
other measures.
But no key figure in the Administra
tion or the Congress is making an issue
of the fact that almost one of every four
American children is poor.
That’s a serious abdication of re
sponsibility. Especially since the prob
lem is even worse than it appears.
According to Census data, not only
are over 5 million children living in
families with annual incomes below
the poverty line-but another 2.7 mil
lion arc in families just above that arti
ficially low “ poverty line.”
That means one of every three young
children in America is poor or near
poor. The poverty line itself is an un
derstated, arbitrary figure. But, how
ever one may define poverty, there can
be no disagreement that those kids are
growing up in hardship.
Many of those children are in fe-
The announcement by Zairian dicta
tor Mobutu Sese Seko on April 24 that
he would institute tentative democratic
reforms in Zaire (formerly known as
the Congo) was a stunning victory for
the democracy movement in that cen
tral African country and for the anti-
Mobutu movement in the United States
tht supports it. The Rainbow Lobby, an
independent citizen’s lobby, has led the
effort to expose to the American people
and to Congress the brutality and cor
ruption o f the Mobutu regime.
At a press conference on April 27 at
the Washington Press Club, the Lobby’s
executive director Nancy Ross noted
that this grassroots information cam
paign, which “ countless community
organizations, church people, student
groups, courageous Zairian exiles and
individual American of conscience”
had joined, “ resulted in a public outcry
against the complicity of our govern
ment in sustaining, with US tax dollars,
Mobutu’s reign of repression and pov
erty. In response to this pressure, sig
nificant members of Congress have un
equivocally condemned this regime and
called for an end to all US military aid.
“ Mr. Mobutu, who came to power
25 years ago in a CI A -orc hestrated coup
after assisting in the assassination of
Patrice Lumumba, has,” stated Ms. Ross,
"always owned his office not to any
legitimate political process sanctioned
by the Zairian people but by his special
relationship to Washington. He has
clearly been shaken by this turn in the
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by Profesor McKinley Burt
The “ Wabash-Union Pacific-South
ern Pacific-P. S. & S.,” these are rail
roads I worked for in the late 1930s’ and
early 1940s. They carried a lot more
than paying passengers, freight and mail.
Across America, these lines dispatched
a complement of laborers and crafts
men entrusted with the task of keeping
the nation’s most vital arm of transpor
tation funcitonal-from routine mainte
nance of the tracks to restoring service
after such disasters as wrecks, floods
blizzards or avalanches. From week to
week these perapatetic crews might move
from an incredibly beautiful site in a
forested wilderness to, say, a steaming
hell-hole in the Nevada desert, from
the Mississippi Delta to the Rocky
Mountains.
I entered the workforce at the end of
my junior year in high school, to help
support the family. It was a fascinating
world of rough, itinerant workers, af
fectionate camaraderie, oral history and
folklore. I was part o f that special
group of segregated maintenance work
ers called “ gandy-dancers” -B lack
semi-skilled laborers who were trans
ported wherever their services were
needed in special types of railway cars.
These “ gandy cars” were like rolling
hotels (though sparsely appointed), with
sleepers, kitchens and shower cars. Also
there were mobile tool and equipment
facilities, including air compressors,
generators and huge cranes. The num
ber of men involved would range from
25 to 100. There is very little of this
support activity today-except in dire
emergency or to facilitate new con
struction. Gone too are the huffing,
puffing, coal-fired steam locomotives.
The gandy was both a learning and
teaheing experience, for as I have often
mentioned in my articles, there was in
these times a strong, hope-driven moti
vation among Blacks to gain knowl
edge and education-and it was equally
sustained here among the most unlet
tered or illiterate, as with the urban
dwellers. I was constantly pressed into
male-headed households. They are poor
because one breadwinner isn’t enough
to keep a family out of poverty and
because women-especially minority
w om en-earn less and are more often
unemployed.
But two out of every five of those
poor youngsters are living in intact fami
lies with two parents, and most of those
children had at least one parent work
ing full or part-time.
So the disgrace of child poverty is
service to read or write letters, procure
mail order merchandise and books, con
probation officers, execute money or
ders, stall divorce preceeddings, and
otherwise serve as an inhouse lawyer
and professor. Overall, the principal
inducements were escape from the pres
sures of the city and relatives, from
prosecution or bounty hunters (the rail
road went to great lengths to protect
their workers from nosy sherifs)-and
in my particular case, a 16 year-old
could earn the magnificent sum of 80
cents an hour ($36.80 for a 44 hour
week), as opposed to the 12 or 15 dol
lars a week he could earn at menial
tasks in the ghetto.
Except around payday, the long eve
ning times were filled with job talk,
story telling and ribald jokes--but also,
the murmurs of serious conversation,
the prognostication of political pundits,
the lectures of grass roots historians and
philosophers. Like an African Ameri
can barbershop (in the middle of no
where), the warm, edifying social and
cultural intercourse went on into the
night-and when the generators shut
down, the kerosene lamps lit up and the
pleasant cacaphony went on. Through
it all the gandy entrepreneurs would
hawk their wares and services, the bar
ber, the mail order shoe salesman, the
pawn broker, the card dealers and book
makers, the loan shark and the pimp
who could bring a girl from a nearby
town. Alternating with an occasional
(boring) factory job, I pursued the gandy
until 1943 when I went to work here in
Portland as a shipyard welder.
It was at this university that I got my
first firm grip on documentation for the
actual, verifiable existence of the fabu
lous Black innovators of African Ameri
can folklore-leads that led to my re
covery of patent numbers and dates,
family letters and so forth. Those late-
night, kerosene-lit sessions revealed a
surprising wealth of research and knowl
edge among both the literate and unlet
tered; many of the former spending
tied to America’s failure to create jobs
at living wages for family breadwin
ners. Even full-time, year-round work
at the minimum wage would leave a
family well below the poverty line.
We need to move aggressively to
combat child poverty, and we can’t
separate it from adult poverty.
One front of the war on child poverty
should be to raise incomes of the poor
through increased support programs and
real world work and training programs
Professor McKinley Burt
time in libraries when working near cit
ies. College dropouts or those who
went to the cotton fields at the age of
eight—it was all o f their input that fu
eled the curiosity and motivation which
led, years later, to my publication of the
book, “ Black Inventors of America.”
Other learning situations were part
of the process. I taught people to read
and write, but I received as much or
more in return. I learned more about
the industrial infrastructure of America
than one could ever learn at school-
even from a course in industrial engi
neering. The gandys who came to these
work gangs for one reason or another
had worked in every field imaginable;
oil refineries, cane fields, sugar refiner
ies, cotton gins, Mississippi River barges,
Idaho potato fields, Virginia coast mines,
steel mills and iron foundaries, you
name it. And then there were those who
could quote classic poetry and litera
ture for hours from memory. When I
took my college entrance exams after
the war I couldn’t believe how easy
they were for me. The gandy had
served me well.
It was on the gandy that I first heard
of my partial namesake, “ Frederick
McKinley Jones.” His patented inven
tion of the refrigerated box car and the
refrigerated truck changed the mode of
food preservation and transportation in
America. California and Florida were
enabled to become the world’s greatest
producers and shippers of fruits and
vegetables. Other areas were enabled
to make their billions shipping beef. I
had found the real America.
that lead to jobs.
A second front must be preventive-
developmental, education and health
programs that ensure poor children have
equal access to life’s basic needs and to
the tools with which to construct decent
lives as they grow to adulthood.
That goes beyond adding a few more
dollars to Head Start’s budget-it means
implementing long-term strategies that
ensure that today’s poverty children
grow up to be tomorrow’s middle class
adults.
The Rainbow Lobby Pledges Continued Support
to Zairian Democracy Movement; Exposes Mobuto Attempt
to Discredit Its Work
PORTLAK i DOBSERVER
Alfred L. Henderson
Publisher
r :::::::::::::::::
J
tide of American opinion. Under pres
sure from his US sponsors to moderate
his tyranny, he has taken various demo
cratic inititatives, such as his call in
January for a ‘national consultation.’”
Recognizing this call for popular
dialogue as a sign of the regime’s weak
ness, thousands of Zairians poured out
their criticisms of Africa’s oldest dicta
torship, boldly demanding the dicta
tor’s resignation, the legalization of op
position parties, and the separation of
party and state. A document submitted
by employees in the Zairian foreign
ministry warned Mr. Mobutu that might
meet the same fate as Nicolae Ceaus-
escu.
Representatives of the opposition
party Union for Democracy and Social
Progress have stated that they are not
willing to go along with Mr. Mobutu’s
plan for a three-party system in which
the UDPS would oppose two parties
carved out of his ruling Popular Move
ment for the Revolution, currently the
only legal party in the country, UDPS
leader Etince Tshisckcdi wa Mulumba,
who was released this week after two
years of detention, has refused to ac
cept Mr. Mobutu’s offer to appoint him
prime minister, saying he was unwill
ing to serve in any government as long
as the Zairian dictator is in power. The
UDPS has also cajoled for the disman
tling of the regime’s notoriously brutal
security apparatus. The Rainbow Lobby
has expressed its full support for the
UDPS’ demand for a multi-party de
mocracy, and for its leaders ’ stipulation
that the Zairian people, not the dictator,
determine the number of parties.
Amidst these developments, Ms. Ross
reported, “ a pathetic attempt” to dis
credit the work of the Rainbow Lobby
has come to light. “ The Lobby, tiny by
comparison with Mobutu’s six billion
dollar fortune, amassed over 25 years
ofkleptocracy, has nonetheless become
the target of the dictator and his agents
in the US,” she charged. Camille Bamba,
a Zairian exile who fled his country
after participating in anti-govemment
demonstrations and one of the most
outspoken critics of the Mobutu regime
in the Zairian community in this coun
try, had recently told Ms. Ross “ that he
had accepted $1000 in cash from Mr.
Mobutu’s lobbyist in Wasington acting
in behalf of the Zairian ambassador in
exchange for writing derogatory state
ments about the Rainbow Lobby,” Mr.
Bamba, who was present at the press
conference with Ms. Ross and made a
statement corroborating her account,
has been working closely with the Lobby
as a volunteer for the past year.
Ms. Ross said that Mr. Bamba told
her that the ambassador provided him
with documents prepared by Zainan se
curity forces which characterized the
Rainbow Lobby, its personnel and its
organizational allies in not only slan
derous, but virulently anti-Semitic and
homophobic terms. Mr. Bamba main
tained that he stole mailing lists and
other materials from the Rainbow Lobby
office at the ambassador’s behest. Mr.
Bamba said he eventually ended his re
lationship with the ambassador when
he realized that, as someone who had
openly criticized the Mobutu regime,
he would most likely be killed when he
returned to Zaire despite the ambassa
dor’s promises to the contrary.
"T he Mobutu regime’s decision to
engage in an intelligence operation
against a US organization illustrates its
desperation and political vulnerability,”
said Ms. Ross. " I f the history of the
past year teaches us anything, it is that
even the most entrenched regimes must
finally give in to the people’s demand
for democracy, the Rainbow Lobby will
continue to support the Zairian democ
racy movement by pressuring Congress
to condition all aid to Zaire on the com
plete implementation of democratic re
forms,” she pledged. “ To verify the
progress of these reforms, the Rainbow
Lobby is organizing a delegation of
representatives from the democratic op
position, together with Americans ac
tive in the democracy movement, to
travel to Zaire. We will be requesting
Congress and the press to send repre
sentatives to accompany this delega
tion, and guarantee its safety.”
Ms. Ross announced that on May 4
the Lobby is sponsoring simultaneous
demonstrations in Boston, New York
City, Washington and Los Angeles ‘ ‘to
signal to the Zairian people the fullest
solidarity o f the American people in
their struggle for democracy.”
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