Page 2 -The Portland Observer-July 10, 1991
ersoectives
Bv Professor McKinley Burt
In The Beginning Was The Word, Part I
A Job With Benefits Should be a
Basic Human Right in the U.S.
Chronic unemployment and un­
deremployment have become a plague
within U.S. society particularly for
African Americans and other people
of color. Even beyond the color line,
huge numbers of white poor and work­
ing people are also afflicted by jo b ­
lessness and low paying jobs with no
benefits. Despite these conditions there
are few signs of revolt or a movement
for a more equitable distribution of
Am erica’s wealth and power. For far
too long a majority of Americans have
passively accepted the widening gap
between the rich and the poor. It is
almost as if poor and working people
are holding out in hopes that the “ rags
to riches” mythology of U.S. capital­
ism will magically touch them and
transform their misery into wealth,
power and privilege. Perhaps a better
explanation is that the culture of capi­
talism conveys the notion that extremes
of wealth and poverty is simply „,i
unavoidable fact of life.
The brutal fact of life in the U.S.
today is that 1/2 of 1% of the people
now control nearly 30% of the total
wealth and the top 10% control nearly
80% of the wealth. By all indicators
the rich are getting richer and the poor
are getting poorer. The gap between
the rich and poor is the largest in U.S'
history as is the unprecedented con­
centration of wealth in the hands of a
few in this country. The U.S. economy
is characterized by prosperity for a
relative few and misery for many. The
lack of jobs with decent wages and
benefits is certainly a critical factor
contributing to the desperate condition
of many poor and working people in
this country.
During his administration, Ronald
Reagan boasted o f creating 17 million
new jobs. What he didn’t tell us is that
more than half of these “ new” jobs
pay less than $7.00 an hour and most of
these jobs carry no benefits. Low pay­
ing jobs are threatening the livelihood
and stability of millions of American
workers thanks in large measure I?
Ronald Reagan. With the Reagan led
assault against unions and with giant
U.S. corporations expanding their ca­
pacity to exploit cheap labor markets
abroad, working people have increas­
ingly been faced with a dictatorship of
the corporations. Millions of Ameri­
cans have been driven into a new class
called the “ working poor.”
The situation of Blacks and mi­
norities is especially bleak. The unem­
ployment rate for Black adults is gen­
erally three times that of white adults.
Black youth unemployment has per­
sistently remained at depression levels
for years. Scores of Black people do
not even show up in the unemployment
statistics because untold thousands of
Black people have simply given up on
the hope of ever being gainfully em­
ployed in the “ legitimate” economy.
Little wonder that drug trafficking and
other forms of “ illicit” business thrives
in Black communities.
All of this suggest to me that the
principle of good jobs with decent wages
and benefits must become a critical
cornerstone in the fight for economic
democracy in the U.S. Poor and work­
ing people must not continue to accept
the idea that extremes of wealth and
poverty are inevitable and that the
wealthy arc entitled to be rich at the
expense of the rest of society. There is
no inevitability or justice in a system
which allows a few wealthy executives
to have multimillion dollar salaries
while millions of Americans have low
paying jobs or no jobs at all. Every
American who wants to work and is
willing to work should be entitled to a
job with good wages and decent bene­
fits as a basic human right in the U.S.
To achieve this goal there must be
Portland Housing Center Has
Dedication
On Monday, July 8,1991, at 10am,
City Commissioner Gretchen Kafoury
held a press conference to unveil the
Portland Housing Center, located at
2755 Northeast Broadway. The Center
is a result of a collaborative effort on
the part of the local government, com­
munity groups and Portland lending
institutions. The center will be jointly
funded by the City and the local lend­
ing community. There was open house
from 3pm to 6pm later that day.
The Portland Housing Center serves
as a housing information clearinghouse
and counseling support center for home
ownership and housing-related issues.
Services will include information and
referral programs, educational semi­
nars, and pre-purchase and mortgage
default counseling for home owner­
ship.
The founding of the center is part
of the city’s ongoing effort to promote
stability and home ownership opportu­
nities for lower income communities
and to encourage the continued invest­
ment in improving and maintaining
Portland neighborhoods
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antagonisms when it accords to every person, regardless of race, color, or creed, full human and
leagal rights. Hating no person, fearing no person, the Black Press strives to gelp every person
in the firm belief that all are gurt as long as anyone is held back.
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Publisher
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Operations Manager
Gary Ann Garnett
Business Manager
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a renewed commitment to a full em­
ployment economy and there must be
a radical realignment of this nation’s
values and priorities. H uman centered,
rational planning will be required in
order to create a full employment econ­
omy. An indispensable component of
this human centered planning is the
conversion from military spending to
investment in the civilian/domestic
economy. Massive investment in edu­
cation, health care, housing, energy,
environmental protection, and infra­
structure repair and development must
be seen as productive job creating
economic activity which can guaran­
tee employment for every American.
And public works projects must also
be utilized, when necessary, to insure
a full employment economy.
The full employment, right to a
decent job equation, must also include
a fair tax system. Loopholes for the
wealthy must be eliminated through
the institution of a genuinely progres­
sive tax system. The profits on over­
seas investments must be taxed at the
same rate as profits on domestic in­
vestments to remove the current in­
centive for U.S. corporations to invest
abroad instead of in the U.S. Ulti­
mately, we m ust contemplate a ceiling
on profits as a means of promoting a
more equitable distribution of wealth
in this country. Why should an elite
few be allowed to accrue billions when
millions struggle to make ends meet or
struggle to survive?
The fundamental transformation
of the U.S. economy must begin some­
where if the plight of poor and working
people and minorities is to drastically
change for the better. The fight for
jobs with decent wages and benefits as
a basic human right is a good starting
point in the quest for true economic
democracy in the U.S.
H. Naylor Fitzhugh, retired vice
president, Pcpsi-Cola Company, told a
group of marketing professionals re­
cently that the late marketing expert
Herbert H. Wright taught him much of
what he knows about target marketing
to Black consumers. “ Herb’s wisdom
was in understanding early on that
African Americans are not only con­
sumers, but a socio-political force with
a rich history and heritage,” said
Fitzhugh. Fitzhugh was the featured
speaker at the recent New York Chap­
ter of the National Association of Market
Developers’ (NAMD) Annual Herbert
H. Wright Awards Presentation Dinner
Dance at the Copacabana in New York
City. Now a project consultant for Pepsi­
Cola, Fitzhugh spoke fondly of his close
personal relationship with Wright, a
former Philip Morris USA executive.
The two men first met in the mid-
1940’s when Fitzhugh was teaching
Marketing at Howard University. Wright
was among the handful of Black mar­
keting executives who founded the
NAMD in the early 1950s.
A
__ ____
I I
I
T sa ia irt
a
was I black.
Here
the Jews
received
almost
all of their early culture.
The ripe social and moral develop­
ment of mankind in the Nile Valley
which is 3000 years older than that of
the Hebrews, contributed essentially to
the formation of Hebrew literature. Our
moral heritage therefore derives from a
wider human past enormously older than
the Hebrews, and it has come to us
rather through the Hebrews than from
them.”
Further testimony is given by that
prolific black historian, J. A. Rogers, to
whom we all are so indebted for sweep­
ing back the veil that was intended to
conceal the blackman’s true heritage:
“ Psalms that read like those of the
Bible were written by a Pharaoh, Ameno-
phis IV, better known as ‘Akhenaton,
the Heretic King,’ 1300 B.C. or more
than 400 years before David was bom.
Akhenaton, who was the father o f Tut-
Ankh-Amen, was extremely Negro in
type. He is called ‘the most remarkable
of the Pharaohs.’
For a comparison o f one of the
Psalms of Akhenaton with the 104th
Psalm in the Bible see Arthur Weigall:
Life and Times of Akhenaton, pp. 134-
136, New York, 1923. Also, J.H.
Breasted, History of Egypt, p. 373, New
York, 1926.; pp.9,31 Rogers, J. A., 100
Amazing Facts About The Negro.”
So, we really have something to
look forward to next week; the original
texts, style and context of the Psalms,
Proverbs, Admonitions, given in a new
beauty and background-and clearly
recognizable as African. “ Thy rod and
thy staff, the Good Shepherds,” the
metaphors and the similes, the style and
the m anner-they are all yours. Then go
and listen anew to the sermons and
speeches of Reverend King, Jessie
Jackson, Malcolm X, your favorite
ministers. “ Before the cock crows thrice
you will deny me;” let us hope you will
not deny your heritage.
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KVER
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Reinvestments M i Community
This Week in History
Picture this: you’ re a college stu­
dent, on your way to your next class.
Hearing a noise like firecrackers be­
hind you, you turn and find some sol­
diers pumping you and several school­
mates fu ll o f bullets...and the soldiers
are American, supposedly always on
“ your” side o f the fight...
This is what thirteen students o f Kent
State University experienced twenty
years ago this Friday. T w o men and
two women never lived to share their
side o f this tragedy; another man re­
members M y fourth as the day America
turned on him and put him in a wheel­
chair for die rest o f his life.
Fivedayscarlier,Richard Nixon had
induced America’ s gasp o f shocked war-
horror by approving the incursion o f
Cambodia. Public opinion o f the war
went from casual approval (stemming
prim arily from faith in the president) to
vehement malcontent. Anti-w ar dem­
onstrations sprouted from seeds of moral
concussions. This was the beginning o f
separation in the country, between the
government and the citizens, the em­
powered and the powerless. Nixon en­
couraged this separation, as did many
other public officials in position« n f
power. The president upped his secu­
rity in a nosc-tluimbing gesture to the
The Salvation
Army Needs
Volunteers
The Salvation Army needs about
6(X) volunteer bell ringers in 11 Oregon
communities for a one-time Christmas
In July fund raising campaign July 12
and 13, 1991.
The organization anticipates col­
lecting more than $35,000 those two
days to make up for the shortage of
funds caused by the arctic freeze last
December.
“ The freeze put an early stop on
our bell ringing last December,” says
Lt. Colonel Mcrvyn L. Morelock, Di­
visional Commander of The Salvation
Army. “ We anticipate much belter this
July 12 and 13,” he says.
Christmas In July will not be an
annual event.
The following communities need
volunteers: P ortland, H illsboro,
Gresham, Cornelius, Forest Grove,
Salem , La G rande, M edford,
McMinnville, Pendleton and Spring-
field.
People interested in volunteering
for several hours or more should con­
tact their local Salvation Army.
« r * e e
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surveyor and astronomer nails Thomas
Jefferson to the cross of his hypocrisy
(August 19, 1791).
‘‘Ia m fully sensible of the great­
ness of the freedom I take with you on
the present occasion, a liberty which
seemed scarcely allowable, when I
reflected on that distinguished and
dignified station in which you stand,
and the almost general prejudice which
is so prevalent in the world against
those of my complexion.”
Banneker goes on to further ‘ ‘ mess
with the mind” of that patrician Vir­
ginian statesman, who was so well known
for his black mistresses, even becom­
ing the hottest topic of the French press
when he took his favorite black live-in,
Sally Hemings, on an 1787 shopping
trip to Paris (see “ Sally Hemings” by
Barbara Chase Riboud, Avon, 1979).
But such erotica is not what this scries
is about. We not only wish to enjoy and
explore the scope and competence of
the African literary genre-but to advo­
cate for its inclusion in the education
process, self-image, motivation, iden­
tity.
I would turn now to a period over
4000 years in the past, when the genius
of the African continent was excelling
in that cultural exercise we are wont to
describe as the “ founding of civiliza­
tion.” When Ethiopia, the Sudan and
Egypt were driving the process and
where Plato said the “ woolly-headed
inhabitants invented mathematics, as­
tronomy and letters.” It is with interest
we note that so many of the beautiful
and inspiring passages in the Bible are
found verbatim in the Papyriandon stelae
of these African regions-written thou­
sands of years earlier.
Let us hear the words of the lamed
University of Chicago Egyptologist,
James Henry Breasted:
“ The Bible really originated in
Ancient Egypt, where the population,
according to Herodotus and Aristotle,
Portland Observer encourages our readers to write
letters to the editor in response to any articles
we publish.
Targeting On
Black Consumer
Marketing
* *
.** ' - 7 W .
Dear readers, I have changed my
mind. It is permissible to “ lay back
during summer’ ’—well, just for a little
while. I had forgotten that “ what is
good for the goose is good for the gan­
der.”
This is the time of year I back away
from the guides, handbooks, dictionar­
ies, encyclopedias, directories, texts and
manuals; time to gel down to some
‘real’ reading as reading used to be,
enjoyable prose. Remember that sce­
nario? No directions, no commands, no
correlation to a proper data base, no
pressures or stress; just let your mind
walk through the ‘yellowed’ pages. Let
me start you on some eclectic excur­
sions through ‘proseland.’ If, in conse­
quence, you find new insights and per­
spectives, just remember the old adage,
“ The heart knows things the mind cannot
begin to understand.”
For openers, I recommend, “ Early
Negro American Writers,” edited by
Benjamin Brawley (Dover Publications,
Inc., 1970). The book is prefaced with
an introduction that succinctly defines
the scope of the anthology and the 18th
and 19th century influences that shaped
the consciousness of each writer. In­
cluded are Gustavus Vassa, Prince Hall,
David Walker, Martin R. Delaney,
George B. Vashon, Phyllis Wheatley,
Jupiter Hammon, and Benjamin Ban-
neker, among others. Beautiful works,
inspired prose, and I am prompted to
remind you of last week’s quote of the
words of Black congressman George
H. Murray (1894) when he addressed
his colleagues regarding the “ Adanta
Exposition.” It is to the shame of
American education that so many Afri­
can-Americans were more literate a
hundred years ago than today.
We find among the selections a
favorite passage of mine (first para­
graph) taken from Benjamin Banneker’s
“ Letter to the Secretary of State,”
wherein the gifted and erudite black
public.
Any public protests, exercising the
people’s viable Constitutionally-granted
right to assemble and speak pcacably,
resulted in unjust police-dispersing or
arrests. A t Ohio Slate University on
A p ril 30. three students demonstrated
in support o f more Black students and
teachers, and the discontinuance o f m ili­
taristic research. On May third, the
police sent 75 people (including child
pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock) to
ja il for holding an outdoor anti-war
prayer session. College students around
thé nation editorialized and rallied.
The city o f Kent, Ohio (population
27,000-21,000 o f which were KSU
students) cut o ff its beer supply after the
first few days o f rioting. When a KSU
riot against the ROTC became violent,
the National Guard stationed troops at
the campus. The student reaction was
clear: the National Guard was a symbol
ol their discontent, representative to
them o f the army that invaded Cambo­
dia.
On Monday, May fourth, 2000 stu­
dents planted themselves in protest on
the football field widt die National Guard.
The Guardsmen weren’ t enveloped by
the awed respect they usually com­
manded; more or less, they felt rid i­
culed; As Lieutenant Alexander Stc-
vensen, platoon leader o f Troop G,
scoffed, " A t the time o f the firing, the
crowd was acting like this whole thing
was a circus. The crowd must have
thought tliat the National Guard was
harmless. They were having fun with
the Guard. The circus was in town.”
In retaliation for making them seem
foolish, the National Guard inflicted
the death penally on four students, and
wounded nine others.
The Guardsmen should not even have
had loaded wca|xms. The guidelines
set out by the National Advisory Com­
mission on C ivil Disorders and the
by Angelique Sanders
Department o f the Arm y dictate that
the issuance o f loaded wepons to law
enforcement o ffic ials is restricted to in ­
stances in which die resistance is armed,
and the officials must be unable to
control the situation without weaponry.
This clearly was not the situation. Yet,
the 113 Guardsmen wore gas masks,
bore tear-gas launchers, and were armed
with M - l high-powered rifles (deadly
even at two miles).
General Robert Canterbury “ justifies”
the shootings-morc than 30 rounds o f
gunfire—with this explanation: the stu­
dents “ threatened the lives o f my men.”
Photographs taker, by journalism stu­
dents reveal .that the protesters Were
clearly posing no deathly threat. The
Guardsmen, though pursued by students,
should not have panicked (they were
armed with guns; the students were­
n 't!), and they had an escape route
should they have needed to flee.
Ironically, the May fifth issue o f the
W all Street Journal, which carried the
story o f the KSU incident, also carried
a full page that deemed Ohio the best
location in the nation, and went on the
denote the merits o f Ohio, including
education.
Over 700 colleges closed in sympa­
thy with the KSU incident, and many
remained closed for the whole quarter.
Public excitement died down in 1973,
when the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam.
The lesson o f governmental power, and
the separation between governing o ffi­
cials and the citizens, is one that should
remain with us on this anniversary o f
the Kent State University tragedy.
i "Reinvestments In the Community" Is a weekly column appearing
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In API publications throughout the USA.
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