Page 6 The Portland Observer July 3, 1991
One Church One Child
Medical Foster Training Available
For African American Families
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(503)224-4910
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"you can call on us"
One Church, One Child of Oregon
is appealing to all African American
families to support children who are in
need of foster care and adoption. Ac­
cording to a commu­
nity information forum
with CSDon Ju n e2 l,
1991, there are 122
African Am erican
children in non-Afri­
can American homes.
55% of these children
are underage 3. There
are 111 children who
need to be adopted and
40 of them are legally
free and ready for
adoption right now.
There is a great
need for medical fos­
tercare parents forba-
bies. There are only
three African Ameri­
can homes certified to
care for these infants.
Classes are being ar­
ranged to train medi­
cal foster care families. Please call the
One Church, One Child office Monday
through Friday, 8-5 to sign up. Finan­
cial assistance is available for most
children who are in foster care, medical
foster care and for those who are adopted.
Call now to be trained in medical foster
parenting or adopting: 285-763.
In order to address the needs of
hard-to-placc African American chil­
dren, the One Church, One Child pro­
gram was started in 1980 by father
George Clements, an African Ameri­
can priest in Chicago, Illinois, who
himself adopted three sons. Since 1980,
the program has been established in 38
states, with Oregon being the 37th. In
November 1988, a local church hosted
the kick-off of the Oregon One Church,
One Child program. Guest speakers
were Governor Neil Goldschmidt and
founder, Father George Clements.
One Church, One Child is one of
several community service programs
under the umbrella of Albina Ministe­
rial Alliance. One Church, One Child
is a minority recruitment program which
seeks to place African American Chil­
dren in African American adoptive
homes. Recruitment efforts consist of
presentations made in churches and
organizations where African Ameri­
can families exist. The basic principle
of the program is quite simple: specifi­
cally to find at least one African Ameri­
can family, per church, to adopt at
least one African American child.
Before the inception of One
Church, One Child there was no effort
made to actively recruit African
American families for adoption. The
effectiveness of One Church, One Child
is evidenced in the numerous African
American adoptive applicants and the
increase of adoptive placements with
African American families since 1989.
One Church, One Child recruits it
families by providing churches and
community organizations with presen-
tors who inform the congregation/staff
about the need for adoptive families
for waiting African American chil­
dren. Additionally, the media is widely
used to get this information into the
African American community: public
service announcements on television
and radio stations; OCOC representa­
tives appearing on local television
shows; a bimonthly newsletter “ Love
Spoken Here” featuring waiting chil­
dren; a cooperative effort with the
news magazine of a African American
radio station to feature waiting chil­
dren and, most recently, a pubic aware­
ness campaign involving purple rib­
bons for everyone to display un their
car antennas until at’ waiting African
American children have been placed
in adoptive homes.
The theme for One Church, One
Child is EDUCATION. This theme
will be applied to practically every
phase of the One Church, One Child
recruiting and adoption process. The
services to families and children of­
fered by One Church, One Child in­
cludes pre-adoption counseling, pre­
adoption training classes, adoption
training classes, adoption support
groups, discussions on African Ameri­
can culture, interview techniques for
private and public adoption agencies,
presentations for transracial families,
and church and organizational presen­
tations on adoption.
There are several annual events
sponsored by One Church, One Child:
Adoption Sunday, recruitment fair,
children’s event, adoptive families
picnic, banquet, and a Christmas party
for adopted and foster children.
O. Virginia Phillips, Ph.D., the
executive director of the program, is
responsible to a 25-member board of
directors, each of whom is a pastor.
Dr. Phillips is a graduate of Union
Graduate School, Cincinnati, Ohio with
a doctorate in Education Administra-
tion/Psychology. She is a highly com­
petent administrator and a mother of
nine with fourteen grandchildren. She
has been working with high-risk and
special needs children since 1977 and
is an adoptive parent herself.
Along The Color Line “ The Sins Of The Fathers”
BY DR. MANNING MARABLE
Most Americans think of “ poli­
tics” as something which is “ morally
neutral.” People may debate public
policies or government programs from
the perspective of the left or right, but
all parties are usually seen as advocat­
ing positions which are responsible.
One does not usually deplore an oppo­
nent as “ immoral” or politically “ evil,”
even if his or her positions are repug­
nant and harmful to many people. But
should we really divorce our politics
from our sense of what is ethically
just?
Several weeks ago, the television
show “ Sixty Minutes” presented a
segment on the children of Nazi war
criminals. Upon learning that their fa­
thers had gassed and eliminated mil­
lions o f Jews and other victims during
World War II, these individuals lapsed
into grief, shock, remorse and repen­
tance. They recognized that they could
not change the course of past history.
But the “ sins of their fathers” forced
them to look at this mountain of crimes
squarely and without ambiguity, ac­
cepting collective responsibility mor­
ally and politically.
Let us compare this response of
atonement with President Bush’s re­
cent maneuvers to block a compro­
mise between the corporate commu­
nity and civil rights leaders over a new
Civil Rights Act. Bush is strongly op­
posed to the overturning of six Su­
preme Court rulings which made it
more difficult for women and minority
employees to win discrimination suits.
The proposed legislation expressly
outlaws the use of quotas by employ­
ers; nevertheless, Bush’s opposition is
justified because the proposed legisla­
tion supposedly advocates “ quotas.”
Is this simply an innocent political
maneuver by Bush, or dishonesty, or is
it a type of “ political immorality,”
rooted in the crime of racial prejudice
and bigotry? Bush feels no moral or
ethical responsibility in eliminating
institutional racism, and therefore
believes that his petty public lies and
posturing with civil rights is justified.
The massive crimes committed against
people of color, in the form of job and
housing discrimination, economic and
social underdevelopment, are conven­
iently forgotten or ignored.
In America, “ racism” is not a
“ Black problem,” or a “ Hispanic prob­
lem’ ’ or “ Asian-American problem. ’ ’
Sexism is nota “ woman’s problem.”
Poverty isn’t a “ poor people’s prob­
lem.” Race, gender and class discrimi­
nation are the result of the power,
privileges and overwhelming resources
which arc disproportionately allocated
to upper class whites, largely males,
and their grim determination to domi­
nate these resources. Their fear gener­
ates hated, and hatred breeds policies
of exploitation.
How many white Americans ac­
tually recognize their personal con­
nections with the “ sins of their fa­
thers” ? Millions of whites personally
benefit from racial and class inequal-
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I
ity. And to make any headway in the
battle to uproot discrimination, they
must actively accept the idea of com ­
pensatory justice; that people who have
experienced systematic discrimination,
poverty and hunger have been politi­
cally and morally violated, and they
have a human right to demand compen­
sation from the larger society.
White Americans must begin to
challenge the language and rhetoric of
racism in their daily lives. This means
making a personal commitment to the
realization of a just society for all those
who have been denied the dream of
equality and material freedom.
One of the central features of the
Civil Rights Movement was the con­
nection between political objectives and
ethical prerogatives. What was desired
politically, the destruction of racism,
was simultaneously ethically and mor­
ally desirable. This connection gave
the language of the Black Freedom
Movement a moral grandeur and pow­
erful humanistic vision. We must rec­
ognize that the “ moral poverty” in
contemporary American life is found
in the vast chasm separating rich and
poor, the powerful from the powerless.
The evil in our political world is so­
cially engineered, and its products are
hunger, homelessness, illiteracy, po­
litical disfranchisement, racial and
gender discrimination. We cannot be
disinterested observers like Bush, while
millions of people arc suffering. Our
politics must stand for something more
than our own narrow, selfish interests.
First Interstate Bank's Community Lending Center
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Portland, Oregon 97211 • 225-3751
Cabinet Clean Up
Is Crucial
The last time you came down with
the flu or a cold, did you drag yourself
to the medicine cabinet in hopes of
finding some relief? Did you wade
through a sea of bottles trying to re­
member which medicine was for which
symptoms?
Children are not the only ones who
can be poisoned by what is lurking in a
medicine cabinet. The National Safety
Council recommends reducing the risk
of accidental poisonings by cleaning
out the medicine cabinet once a month.
Almost all medicines deteriorate
with age, particularly when exposed to
heal, air, moisture and light. Get rid of
them! Flush liquid medications down
the toilet or drain and thoroughly rinse
the bottles before disposing of them.
Solid medicine, such as pills, capsules
and ointments, should be discarded
carefully as well.
The CMinunrhl Lenciinû/ Center h e p every r t f of W way.
rmsi m wrststc Bank
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