l*age 12...The Portland Observer...January 15, 1992
MA
”¿7
...And Justice For All
L
by Angelique Sanders |
I. '■'is
□ 11
the very foundations o f education, is it
to drink from a fountain, from which
T his week’ s colum n is a trib
any wonder prejudices s till e x is t
her mother steered her away, on the
ute to M a rtin Luther K ing, Jr.
Most o f the people I knew in
basis that it was a fountain for " n e
One o f m y foremost worries
Spokane
were
n ot
b la ta n tly
groes” . Her y o u tlifu lly naive, socie-
w h ile attending school w as-and s till
prejudices...they
had
simply
never
got
tally-unjaded mind could not compre
is—injusticc. I always wished for a
ten
to
know
any
A
frican
Americans
on
hend
segregation;
after
years
o
f
educa
larger soapbox to promote my ideas o f
any
level
aside
from
,
perhaps,
their
tion
and
experience,
die
teacher
is
s
till
equality, and journalism was my o b vi
black bank teller, dentist, whatever
completely baffled on this issue. “ W hy
ous career choice. As a w hite g irl raised
(Spokane has a predominandy white
is
society
like
this?”
she
and
1
won-
in a tow n (Spokane) that contained little
p o p u la tio n -- a c -
ethnic d iversity, I
cording to figures
d id n ’ t know that
The world could use a few more Martin Luther King, Jr.s in the 1980 census,
w o rk in g
at
a
Spokane ties with
“ b la ck” newspaper
PPALCy MAPS 6PPATPROOFS
Madison, W I as the
w ould become my
they ■
HA YEARS
UfTH THFRACFS P£C&m.Y. WHY, IN
second most white-
fate. I knew, how
5EEMEP
AFTER THE
1979, Itâ PIP AWAY(O M Îtël& y WITH AN
populated city in
REAPY.
ever, that I wanted
CIVIL
WARY
OPPINANCP PANNING NF6P0FS FROM
America, with over
I
1
to w o rk at a paper
0IRNIN6 PROPERTY.
94% whites [in first
that was not merely
place is Lincoln,
a splay o f inform a
Nebraska]). Most
tion, but was geared
seemed to possess
toward social reform.
a mental color-line,
W ith few
not on the level o f
exceptions, my fo r
“ whites arc good,
mal education did not
blacks arc bad” , but
o ffe r much inform a
perhaps—fo r ex
tion on b lack-or, for
a m p le —p urpo se
that matter, /\N Y
fu lly not sitting by
n o n -w h itc -c u ltu rc .
an African Am eri
O n ly three excep
can on the bus
tions come to mind:
because
they
were
“
unsure” o f what to
dered somewhat; but even more, we
first, the school’s offered reading o f
M alcolm X ’ s autobiography (students
were required to read one o f several
school-selected books, one o f which
was on M alcolm X ). Regrettably, I
don’ t recall many students opting to
read that book-and what is the surprise
o f this? A fte r a decade or more o f
education prim arily on topics w ithin
the youths social “ circle ” , what arc the
odds that a single opportunity to learn
about another culture w ill be seized by
the students?
The second exception was a
teacher I had that often told stories
about days when he used to live w ith
N ative Americans: this teacher would
expound at great length, not just about
what occurred w ith his Indian friends,
but also the psychology o f them.
The third exception was a lib
eral English teacher o f mine that had a
temperament that oozed o f justice. A
story she told once caused my emotions
to yearn fo r equality: as a child in
W ashington, D.C., she once attempted
scratched our chins at “ How do we
expect.
change it? ”
But these were questions the
texts never explored.
It became clear to me rather
early-on that the school system offer
pupils the bricks, but no mortar, toward
a complete education. I read up, in my
free lime, on black history and other ne
glected topics o f culturization. Pre
sumably, the school fe lt that, w ith a
primarily white student body, few people
would be interested in learning black
history. This is probably truc-bul, then,
few o f my classmates had an active
interest in learning history A T A L L .
A dditionally, the school’ s job is not to
cater to the educational interests o f the
students, but their educational needs.
And i f any o f those students ever planned
on m oving away from Spokane, they
had better be prepared to face cultures
foreign to them, or hide forever w ithin
Though my knowledge o f black
culture was strong, I had never known a
black person until I graduated and move
away from Spokane. It was obvious to
me, though, there was and is a shortage
o f e qu ality-on e need not be outside to
see that i t ’s snowing.
And that is the “ m oral” to my
their “ white bubble” .
W ith ignorance present w ithin
story: you don’ t need to be black, gay,
homeless, physically disabled, etc. to
fig h t for equality. To be a m inority
docs not mean you’ re part o f a small
population:
it signifies repression.
Women, though outnumbering men, arc
a m inority.
So many feel that they’ ll leave
the freedom -fighting to men like M ar
tin Luther King, Jr. or Nelson Mandela.
Do not ju s t sit home and cheer at your
t.v. for those who arc fighting for
us...acccpt your duty as a caring hu
man: don’ t just jo in the fig ht, lead it!
Every day is M artin Luther
K ing, Jr. day u ntil equality prevails.
He Had "The Courage To
Break With Tradition.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
January 15, 1929 - April 5, 1968
Walter C. Reynolds M.D. & Staff
2800 N. Vancouver
Suite 231
287-4532
"THIS SPACE IS DEDICATED
TO A MAN WHO DID NOT
SEE THINGS IN BLACK AND WHITE.”
"The dream is one of equality of opportunity, of
privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a
land where man will not take necessities from the
many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land
where men do not agree that the color of a man's skin
determines the content of his character; a dream of a
place where all our gifts and resources are held not for
ourselves alone but as instruments of service for the
rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every
man will respect the dignity and worth of all human
personality, and men will dare to live together as
b ro th e rs.. . . "
—Martin Luther King, Jr., I960
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
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M E T R O E L E C T R IC A L T R A IN IN G T R U S T
Apprenticeship Training
J r ■ were
GOING
YOUR WAY
5600 NE 42nd
Portland, OR 97218
(503)287-0756
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