Page 2...The Portland Observer...November 6,1991
p e r s p e c tiv e s
Poorly Performing Schools Will Not Be
Improved Without Increased Funding
DR. WILBERT J. LEMELLE
President of P helps-Stokes Fund
sible to maintain even basic operations.
Students in these inadequately finance d
schools are, for the most part, the poor,
the disabled, and disadvantaged m i
norities. Schools and students cannot
be expected to meet the standards set
forth in America 2000 when their re
sources are reduced to the level of
underdeveloped countries.
If American students are to meet
what the government’s plan calls “ world
class standards” the federal govern
ment must see to it that every American
student attends a “world class school.
At present the majority of African
American students attend sub-standard
schools, which arc struggling under
multiple handicaps. Help can only
come if the federal governm ent adopts
a strategy for emergency action.
But the traditional mission of fed
eral assistance has been abandoned by
the Administration. America 2 0 0 0 sets
educational goals such as national stan
dards, tests, and new kinds o f school,
but according to the newly established
National Citizens Commission for
African american Education, it fails to
urge emergency relief for those schools
most in need. Unless this is done the
Adm inistration’s strategies tor educa
tional improvement risk becoming no
more than public relations ploys. The
first communique on education policy
issued by the Commission calls on the
congressional Black Caucus to prepare
a M aster-Plan for the Improvement of
Education in A merica and specifies
minimum emergency actions to be taken.
In the current fiscal year, 1992,
one billion dollars must be appropri
ated and distributed to the one hundred
poorestcongressional districts for labo
ratory equipment, typewriters, comput
“ A lthough better by a wide m ar
gin than it was some three or four
decades age, by nearly all objective
m easures the status of blacks relative to
whites has stagnated or regressed since
th 1970s.” This was how Gerald Jay
nes, Study Director lor “ A common
Destiny: Blacks and American Soci
ety ,” sum m arized his investigation of
the state o f urban schools and their
im pact on African American children
to the Subcom m ittee on Select Educa
tion two years ago. Among the factors
contributing to the disparity between
the educational achievement of blacks
and w hites are differences in content
and organization of school instruction
and teacher expectation. But at the root
o f the problem is money. Another
witness. Dr. W omie Reed, Director of
the Trotter Institute of Black Culture at
the University of Massachusetts, joined
Dr. Jaynes in the recognition that fiscal
inequity is a major reason for educa
tional disadvantage.
It is now two years later. On Sep
tem ber 31 of this year, the National
Education Goals Panel issued a report
assessing progress toward meeting
educational goals of President Bush’s
much touted plan for school reform,
America 2000. The report concluded
that at the rate the nation’s educational
system is going it cannot possibly reach
these goals.
One reason the goals remain unat
tainable is the failure of the govern
m ent’s strategy to address the fact that
the m ajority of A m erica’s children are
served by public school systems whose
budgets, even before the recession, have
been cut to the point where it is im pos
/
ers, book, instructional films and vid
eos, and emergency repair of facilities
used chiefly by pupils or parents.
Beginning in fiscal year 1993, the fed
eral government should allocate no less
than 230 million dollars annually to
strenghten these schools through the
support of an Institute for the Educa
tion o f At-risk Students; the funding of
a federal resource and technical assis
tance entity in each one o f the one
hundred poorest districts; and the launch
ing of experimental new American
schools in these district.
No less than three billion dollars
should be appropriated annually for
distribution through a federal revenue
sharing program. The funds from the
program should be distributed on a per
pupil basis with all school districts being
eligible except those that do not have
an enrollm ent with at least ten percent
or more of their pupils eligible for the
federal free lunch program.
Important as it is, however, the
more relevant use o f federal resources
will short of dealing with the very “ clear
and present danger” facing our stu
dents unless parents and families in the
African American community make a
full com m itm ent o f time, energy and
money to the education o f our children
and ourselves. W e must aggressively
seek ways to create an atm osphere for
intellectual development and an envi
ronment for learning. Our com m uni
ties must become “ learning com m uni
ties,” our neighborhoods “ neighbor
hoods of students.” Our very survival
depends on it.
Dr. LeM elle was form er U.S.
Ambassador to Kenya and is also Chair
man o f the National Citizens Commis
sion fo r African American Education
BY REV. RON ROSS
There is a storm clud brewing on
the horizon o f African America today.
It hangs heavy with the deep convic
tions and morals of a leadership in an
African America that has basically been
silent. These new leaders have an agenda
that will change the course of the tor
turous voyage that Black America
appears doomed to sail.
W hen this storm hits it will wreak
havoc on the system that has held Afri
can Americans as a permanent under
class for so long. It will take on the
welfare state, support and bring about
economic independence, and clear the
African American agenda of dead weight
like womens rights, gay rights, and
other non essential issues.
It m ust be realized that African
America is making a stand today to no
longer sit idly by and allow her people
to be led down the paths of destruction
by the tomism o f the liberal leadership.
It is time that the toms who support the
liberal agenda begin to seek shelter, for
this is not a movement o f the upper
echelon but rather of the grass-roots
African American, whose power does
not lie in his salary but in his ability to
vote. Make no mistake about it-groups
like the congressional Black Caucus,
NAACP, Urban League, and other are
in grave danger. Unless these groups
get back to their grass-roots people,
thier future looks very bleak.
For quite some time Americans
have been led to believe that because
the leadership of Black America has
been attaching every’ liberal issue to the
civil rights movement, all African
Americans are totally liberal. This is
just not true. By tradition African
American people tend to be conserva
tive when it comes to morals and val
ues, even though there have been con
stant attempts to dispute this fact.
As new and old issues that destroy
the African American Community
become more and more powerful (with
no relief in sight) African American
leaders who have been silent on the
issue of conservative vs. liberal are
beginning to speak o u t
During the week o f September 10,
1991, Black Americans from all around
the country came together to create a
new leadership, a leadership that will
not sell traditional Black values for
Professor M c K in le y B u rt
A Picture May Not Be Worth A Thousand Words
As we wind up the current series
on an examination of the Portland School
Districts, “ Baseline Essays,” we may
lake heart for just through the natural
course of things the detractors arc being
overcome by a wealth o f validating
evidence developed and published by
lop level researchers, universities and
other scholars.
The following case in point en
ables me to get into the entire scheme
of artist’s renditions of historical themes
and personages being a clear exposi
tion o f cultural and racial bias (quite
natural, I suppose, though it seems rather
ludricous to open a science publication
and find what are obslensibly Scandi
navians skipping across the African
Veldt in ancient times). D on’t laugh!
These people are quite serious about
preserving a cultural one-up-man-ship
and understand very well that “ one
picture is worth a thousand w ords.”
An exception is again found in the
excellent material put out by Time Life
Books. There is a current advertising
package being mailed describing their
new series on ancient history, “ Lost
Civilizations, first publication, Egypt:
Land o f the Pharoahs.” It promises to
be as factual and authentic as the pub
lisher’s 1965 series “ G reat Ages of
Man, lead volume, Ancient E gypt.”
The renditions of the artists seem valid
representations of African peoples who
lived in the contiguous areas o f Egypt,
Ethiopia and the Sudan long before the
incursions of Europeans and Asians.
The new book has a chapter, ‘ ‘The
Stories M ummies T ell,” and do they
ever. In this advertising package you
will find a photograph of the unwrapped
mummy o f a thirteen-year-old Egyp
tian girl. ( ‘‘W ith the new techniques of
forensic anthropology, the face o f a
Black Conservatives Surface
Chairman. African American Comm.
/b y
thirty pieces of silver. These leaders
came together in our nations capital to
support Judge Clarence Thomas and to
attend a Black genocide conference.
The African American leaders who at
tended these events were fed up with
liberals pretending they knew what was
best for Blacks and that they spoke for
all African Americans. These leaders
have vowed to bring down the institu
tions that care nothing about the B lacks
of this country and everything about
themselves.
The time has come for black poli
ticians to stop spouting empty rhetoric
and supporting unsound programs. The
African America o f the future wants
solid answers and proven solutions to
herproblems. She wants it to be known
that she will “ KEEP HOPE A LIV E” if
she is given hope; she will fulfill ‘ ‘THE
DREAM” if given the tools; she will
know that she is “ SOM EBO D Y ” if
she is empowered with true knowledge
of an economic system that many have
worked so hard to keep her ignorant of.
She will believe that “ OUR TIME HAS
CO M E” only when the clock chimes
with true equality, not quotas.
long-dead Egyptian comes alive again” ).
How now, you racists? One can go
right over to King School and find
scores of look-alikes among the Afri
can American children there; the very
same with that famous visage of the
young King Tut. And, of course, there
is the equally noted sculpture of Queen
Nefcrtiti (The original African rendi
tion, not the later Greek-inspired ver
sion reproduced ad nauscum in Ameri
can publications). My, that girl had a
long head just like my aunt Marjorie.
You may obtain this preview packet
for free by writing Time Life Books,
1450 E. Parham Road, Richmond, VA
23280. There will be subsequent vol
umes, on Greeks, Rome, China, M a
yas, Aztecs, etc. And try to find a copy
o f that 1965 book ‘‘Ancient E gypt” at
a secondhand bookstore, library, wher
ever. Among the color photographs of
3000 year-old murals of African people,
icons and every-day-life is a priceless
rendition of a dozen sisters at a highly-
anim ated cocktail party. Accompany
ing the picutrc of the partying ladies in
their cornrows is a translation o f the
hieroglyphis beneath the mural, liter
ally: “ Typical afternoon gathering on
the veranda of Mr. and Mrs. X. Guests
drink quantities of beer and wine, and
feast on pigeon, duck, oxen and some
o f E gypt’s 40 varieties o f breads and
cakes.” There arc musicians and danc
ers, and the elegant furniture would do
justice to any found in a fine home
today.
Now, this was in Africa at a time
before Homer and when the Greeks had
not yet returned from Egyptian and
Ethiopian Temple Schools to found
their scientific community at M iletus—
were mostly shivering in animal skins
and getting hemorrhoids from sitting
around on that stone furniture (For Afri-
cans amenities of the same time period
see “ Furniture In The A ncient W orld";
beautiful and comfortable African crafts
manship as found in Tombs like King
T ut’s utilized the dow el, mortise and
tenon joints and the lathe-all still thought
by many to modern European inven
tions. Fortunately, Napoleon brought
back many examples from his 1803
expedition to Africa; placed in the newly-
founded Louvre Museum, this led to the
still popular Empire style o f furniture
and dress.
So it is that the supposedly pure
aesthetic of the artist can, in the wrong
hands, be used to pervert history and
tru th -a n d to disconnect a people from
their heritage. Though the great black
historian W.E.B. Dubois documented
the early presence o f Africans all over
the world, including the South Seas’, the
renditions of American artists for texts
and popular books give no hint that
anybody vaguely resembling an A fri
can was encountered in Captain C ook’s
expeditions in the pacific: Cook Islands,
Polynesia, Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti, Ha
waii, New Caledonia, M arquesas, etc.
Fortunately, I and others have large
collections of photographs taken last
century, showing the obvious African
ancestry o f peoples around the Pacific
Rim. (Books and collections like “ The
Secret Museum of M an-K ind,” M an
hattan House, N.Y. 1925) The same
holds true for Malaya, the Phillipines
and parts of China and Japan.
The past two centuries o f European
discovery and the last century o f Asian
entrepreneurship has all but destroyed
most vestige of seminal African pres
ence and culture. It would seem that the
arti sts are employed to hide the remains.
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