Page ?... I he Portland Observer...December 9, 1992
CIVIL RIGHTS JOURNAL
/
By Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.
mend Dr. C one’s book to all of those
who really want to know more details
and insights about what is the meaning
o f Malcolm for us today and in the
future. Too often in the past, it has been
characteristic for writers to portray only
the differences between Malcolm and
Martin. The divisive treatm ent and ap ­
proaches to evaluating Malcolm and
Martin have only served to cause un­
necessary disunity in the African Ameri­
can community.
Dr. Cone stated, "This book is about
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X
their relationship to each other and their
meanings for America. The ‘dream ’
and ‘nightm are’ images are used to
focus their perspectives on America
and to reveal something about the audi­
ences to whom and for whom they
spoke.”
Reading and listening to the “good
teachings” of James H. Cone about the
lasting value o f both M alcolm and
Martin set in a com plimentary tension
is refreshing, revealing, and revolu­
tionizing. Cone demystifies the false­
hoods and stereotypes that have been
made about these two freedom fighters.
Cone emphasized, “They were like two
soldiers fighting their enemies from
different angles o f vision, each point­
ing out the others blind spots and cor­
recting the other’s errors. They needed
each other, for they represented and
continue to represent-the*yin and yang’
deep in the soul of Black A m erica.”
Is it fair or appropriate to measure
or evaluate African-American leaders
today in comparison to the leadership
style and impact of Martin and M al­
colm ? W e say, “Yes, it is imperative to
ship on w om en’s issues, are angry over
the loss suffered by Congressman Les
AuCoin to Packwood in November. They
are attempting to use these unrelated
charges as an excuse to get ' another bite
at the apple.’
“ W hile these people agree with
Packwood on most feminist issues, they
strongly disagree with him on other
issues such as health care, defense spend­
ing, and natural resource use. Because
of these disagreem ents, and because ol
their failure at the polls, they are now
calling for Packw ood’s resignation us­
ing these allegations.
“There is also a distressing double-
standard at work here. Other senators
have behaviors and problems that are
m uch w orse than anything alleged
a g a in st Packw ood. Senator D aniel
Inouye has been accused of molesting
ten women. Senator Ted Kennedy has
been associated in the death o f one
woman and covered up his involvement
in the recent sex scandal at his Florida
residence. W hen will the Ethics Com-
mittce begin an investigation o f these
charges?
“ We need to have perspective. Is
Senator Packw ood’s uninvited kissing
of nine w om en—if it occurred—really
worse than Senator K ennedy’s conduct
in the incident involving M ary Jo
Kopcchne? Is Senator Packwood’s kiss­
ing of nine women really worse than
Senator Inouye’s alleged physical mo­
lestation o f ten women?
“ W eare heading for a modem witch
hunt, in which men and women will be
subject to losing their jobs over unsup­
ported, unproven allegations o f sexual
misconduct. Our constitution guaran­
tees citizens of the United States due
process under the law. A pparently,
Packw ood’s political opponents do not
believe that this basic right applies to
Bob Packwood. They have judged him
guilty without evidence and are now
trying to hang him without trial. W e call
on you to do the right thing and bring
perspective and balance to this outra­
geous m iscarriage of justice.”
f — — — — — — — — — — —
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1
b y Professor M cK inley B u rt
▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼
Education Update IV: We Tried
W e’ve got some important things
to talk about this week (don’t we al­
ways?). But first, some items that were
left out o f my quarterly “Oregon Re­
port Card on Education” that appeared
at the end o f my Perspective column
for November 25.
You may not have seen that O cto­
ber 26 article in the Com m unity sec­
tion o f the O regonian new spaper,
“School Board Rejects Zone Elections
Proposal.” O ur Board o f Education
turned down a request by the Rainbow
Coalition that they diversify electing
members by zone rather than the present
city-wide process. Given that the board
must now redraw its boundaries to
account for population shifts, the coa­
lition had felt that it was an opportune
time for an effort to gain some minority
representation, quite like the redistrict­
ing that went on nationally under that
Voting Rights Act.
Coalition spokesman, Jam ie Par­
tridge said, “There docs seem to be an
elitist attitude about diversifying the
board in terms of race...grassroots ac­
cess. The board’s com m ents on the
need for qualified candidates and the
complex nature of the jo b were code
words for you’ve got to have people
just like us.” Circumstances like this
always bring me back to 1974, the year
I was chairperson o f the M inority
Teachers O rganization, but let us go on
now, beyond the “ Report C ard.”
Poartland’scducationalprocess for
African Americans was quite bad at the
time, just as now, and a num ber o f
grassroots activists had engaged the
system in combat. My principal idea
for a solution that would head off a
further disabling o f our children was a
technique I had learned a few years
before in W ashington, D.C. W hile lec­
always be reminded of the kind o f lead­
ership that is effective with moral in­
tegrity.” Cone pointed out that M al­
colm X and Marlin Luther King, Jr.
were not elitist in their leadership style.
Since their deaths they have been por­
trayed to have been messiahs, but in life
that was not the case. They both knew
the importance of mass movement and
organization for the causes of justice
and freedom. They were not arrogant.
Yes, they were forceful, but not disre­
spectful or drunk with egotism.
Cone concluded, “Thus, it is im ­
portant to emphasize that M artin and
Malcolm, despite the excessive adora­
tion their followers often bestow upon
them, were not messiahs. They show us
what ordinary people can accomplish
through intelligence and sincere com ­
mitment to the cause o f justice and
freedom. There is no need to look for
messiahs to save the poor. Human be­
ings can and must do it themselves.”
We agree with Cone, leadership is im ­
portant and crucial in the liberation
struggle, but there can be no substitute
for mass participation in the struggle.
In other w ords, everyone has a role
to play, energy to expend, and a gift o f
life to share to say “ no” to racism and
injustice and to say “yes” to freedom
and justice. We get inspiration from
leaders like M alcolm and Martin. G o­
ing to the movies can be educational;
but there is also no substitute for consis­
tent study, reflection and then action. In
addition to reading the actual writings
of Malcolm and Martin, we highly rec­
ommend this unique gill in the form o f
a book that Jim Cone has given to
humanity.
Farm Bureau Women Support Sen. Packwood
By unanim ous decision, women
members of the Oregon Farm Bureau
sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader
George Mitchell in support of Sen. Bob
Packwood regarding allegations about
his behavior toward women.
The action was aresult of a w om en’s
advisory council meeting during the 59th
annual meeting o f the 11,000-meniber
Oregon Farm Bureau here today and had
the support o f the entire delegation in
attendance
The letter read as follows:
“We are a group o f Oregon women
who want to express our outrage at the
treatment that Senator Bob Packwood is
receiving and to ask tor your assistance
in bringing balance to this situation.
“In Oregon, groups that supported
Senator Packw ood’s opponent in the
recent election have used unproven alle­
gations of sexual misconduct to call for
his resignation or for strong action by the
Senate Ethics Commi ttee. These groups,
which have been allied with Senator
Packwood in the past due to his lcader-
J
▼ ▼▼▼▼▼
'Malcolm and Martin” : The Good
Teachings Of James H. Cone
As hundreds of thousands o f people
are lining up to see Spike L ee’s historic
movie on Malcolm \ , itis advisable lor
a ll com m unities to take the time to
study and try to better understand the
legacies ol both Malcolm X and Martin
Luther King, Jr. Thanks to a recent
book by the prolific African American
scholar. Dr. James II. Cone, an impor-
tantcontnbution has been made toward
re educating the public about the truth
of Martin and Malcolm.
In Martin A Malcolm A Am erica:
.4 Dream or a N ightm are, published by
Orbis Book-., Professor Cone skillfully
analyzes the lives, ministries and living
legacies of M artin and Malcolm. A l­
though both of these great leaders were
assassinated more than 24 years ago,
the im pact o f their leadership is still felt
by millions o f people in the nation and
throughout the world.
It is not our puqxise at this point to
take sides in the raging debate at some
levels about the historical accuracy o f
the movie on Malcolm X. Certainly,
Spike Lee is to be congratulated for
achieving what no other film m aker
would dare to attem ptconcerning bring­
ing renewed public attention to one of
the g allan t g ian ts o f the freedom
struggle. Notw ithstanding all o f the
overdone com mercialization of the “ X”
image, the fact that generations of |ieople
are for the first time being at least
introduced to the significance o f M al­
colm X is cause for renewed hope. O f
course, the real hope is that more
“M alcolm s” will be raised up out of the
youth from the increasing m asses of
those who are oppressed.
Rather, our purpose is to recom ­
p e r s p e c tiv e s
Name
Address
turing at Howard University, I was
introduced to Dr. Julius Hobson, the
Black economist who had just success­
fully sued the W ashington D.C. school
district. I spent a week with him while
he “educated” me in detail how his
group had corrected a situation that was
just like Portland, only on a m ega­
scale. “ Hobson vs Board o f Educa­
tion”.
Readers, all o f this is quite relevant
to our scene today, so hear me out. Mr.
Hobson had gone about organizing the
entire city for the confrontation, but
had many “disappointing and frighten­
ing” experiences, as some activists and
their organizations turned out to be
weak-kneed frauds under pressure, and
many African American educators fear­
ful of their jobs and condominiums
turned on him and joined the side of the
“ Board”. Two major components o f
Dr. H obson’s coalition came through
and carried the day.
First, his cadre o f mostly white
lawyers, sociologists, economists and
anthropologists, psychologists and edu­
cationists stood fast, and successfully
made the case that a continuation of the
“ D.C. horror story of disabled intercity
schools” should soon lead to further
disintegration of the city’s social fab­
ric. The reference was to a further in­
crease in undirected, poorly educated
and unmotivated dropouts who even
then had become a danger to them ­
selves and public safety. Black juvenile
gangs and drug mules had begun to take
over street corners and housing projects
even back then.
The second faithful and dedicated
support group enlisted by Dr. Hobson
was a medley o f grassroots parents and
the black school janitors. The latter
group was given Polaroid Cameras
which they used to photograph the
racist disparity in equipm ent, books
and supplies between the intercity Af­
rican American schools and the subur­
ban white institutions. U ndeniable was
the shocking lack of laboratory equip­
ment, modem texts and even decent
lighting fixtures in the ghetto.
Now, you may think that I must
have been insane to have sought to
institute such a process here in Port­
land. To make a long story short (which
I’m sure you would expect to be re­
peated today), only 3 or 4 o f my com ­
patriots in the Minority T eachers’ O r­
ganization stood fast. These few and
the several poverty lawyers and legal
aid attorneys I rounded up (all white).
Activists, leaders and educators disap­
peared like the raindrops on your wind­
shield as the project collapsed. Our
“ M iddle class U ncle T om s, Aunt
Jemimas and “O reos” kept the school
board and adm inistration informed of
the internal affairs o f the organization.
Shall we imagine that much haschanged
today when we contem plate where our
youth might be today had we inter­
vened back then? Think about it!
W ell, I have put it on your mind
how hard it is to get some things done
around here. I w ouldn’t want to see a
lot o f the old fears and trepidation
when calling on folks again. There is a
lot that needs to be done and I have put
together my own coalition o f profes­
sionals, industry and ju st plain people.
Hopefully we all have learned a lot and
some we hope have learned like“Pogo”-
-”We have discovered the enemy and
he is us.” Next w eek some exciting
news and resources about m ath, sci­
ence and ongoing programs. And as
usual some pitfalls to avoid w hile en-
hancingyourchild’s future, Takecare!
This Way for Black Empowerment
M A L « »(M X .
R e V( )T.1TTK)NAR
fly D r .
I hope you’re planning to see M al­
colm X, the Spike Lee movie based on
M alcolm ’s autobiography, and to take
kids. I think Spike did a great job in
portraying M alcolm ’s life. It’s our job
to introduce our young people to M al­
colm, the revolutionary, and to teach
them what it means to be onc-which is
being where you have to be (not where
you want to be, or where the powers-
that-bc allow you to be). All the little
controversies over the m ovie have
merely served to stifle dialogue on this
issue, which is o f fundamental im por­
tance to our people.
Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New
York is a case in point.
For the last 40 years, Crown Heights
has been home to two communities.
The majority are Black, m ostly C arib­
bean Americans; the rest are orthodox
Jews, most o f whom arc m em bersof the
Hasidic sect known as the Lubavitchcrs.
Although both com m unities are poor,
the Lubavitchcrs have a lot of political
clout in city politics; as a result, they get
all kinds of special consideration, from
scarce apartments in the public housing
projects to a regular police escort (at
taxpayers’ expense) for their 90-year-
old religious leader, known as the Rcbbc.
A little over a year ago, the driver
of a car in the R cbbe’s entourage ran a
red light, struck another vehicle, then
lost control ofhis car, which jum ped the
curb and careered onto the sidewalk
where a seven-year-old Black child,
Gavin Cato, and his cousin, Angela,
were playing.
G avin’s head was crushed beneath
the wheels. Angela was pinned between
the bumper and the wall of the apart­
m entbuilding behind them. Gavin died
immediately. A crowd quickly gath­
ered, so there were many eye-w itnesses
to what happened next-which is that the
police hustled the driver and his two
passengers, none of whom were seri­
ously hurt, into the private Lubavitchcr
ambulance that had arrived on the scene
(the excuse was that they were in dan-
L e n o ra F u la n i
ger from the crowd). It w asn’t until a
city am bulance finally showed up that
the two children, one dead and the other
badly injured, were taken to the hospi­
tal.
By the evening, Crown Heights
had become a war zone, with roving
gangs of Black and Hasidic youth at­
tacking one another. One young Jewish
man, Yankcl Rosenbaum, a visiting
rabbinical student from Australia-was
stabbed; he died in the hospital later
th a t n ig h t. T he m ed ia h e a d lin e d
Y ankel’s death as a “revenge killing”
and the police soon obliged with a
young B lack su spect, 17-ycar-old
Lemrick Nelson, Jr. Although no one
else was killed, the violence went on for
four days.
Last month, a Brooklyn jury ac­
quitted Lcmrick Nelson, Jr. o f m urder­
ing
Y ankel
R o se n b a u m :
the
prosecution’s case against him, based
primarily on secondary evidence and
riddled with inconsistent testimony from
police witnesses, just didn’t stand up.
Conservative and right-wing Jew ­
ish leaders are using the verdict as an
opportunity to malign David Dinkins,
the city ’s first Black mayor, who is up
for re-election next year. The right-
w ing Z io n ists a re scream ing that
D inkins“ held back the police” in Crown
Heights. It’s true. Left to their own
devices, the cops would gladly have
blown off a few Black heads that night.
1 know. 1 was there-not because anyone
wanted me to be or had invited me to be,
but because that was where I had to be.
I believe that if I, along with the other
Black leaders who were in Crown
heights that night, hadn’t been there, a
bloodbath might well have taken place.
The hundreds of young Black men
in the streets w eren’t out to “get the
Jew s”-they were reacting to the cops
(all o f them in riot gear and heavily
armed) who were itching for an excuse
to open fire. For hours I was in the
streets with those young men, each of
whom could have been my son, talking
acom bination of a Black m other’seon
mon sense and independent politics I
them (which they were in no mood I
hear!). Meanwhile, I kept sending woi
to Dinkins to restrain the cops. So di
Reverend Sharpton and the other leat
ers who were there. O ur presence di
act as a barrier between the police an
the kids.
The Zionists know as well as I d
that there was no anti-Sem itic pogrot
in crown Heights; there was an explc
sion of long-simmering tensions b<
tween the two comm unities. M oreove
the Black community responded b
exercising its pow er through the ne’
coalition o f Black leadership that ha
emerged in the city, which had th
political muscle to tell New Y ork’
Black mayor to call off his dogs. An
that’s what the Zionists are so angr
about-once again there are Black lead
ers who will go wherever we have to b<
In the eyes o f the pow ers-that-be i
America (and those who serve them
such Black leaders arc extrem ely dan
gcrous. T hat’s why, w henever ther
have been Black leaders who m oved t
provide revolutionary leadership to a
people, they have been destroyed: Mai
colm X, Dr. King, the Black Panther;
You see, the pow ers-that-be don
care if Black leaders stay in the Blac
community and preach anti-w hite doc
trine until the day they die, because the
doesn’t put the Black com m unity in th
position to radically change things. (N
one ever touched Malcolm w hile h
was preaching that white people wer
devils.) But a charismatic Black lcadc
who is able to lead other people beside
Blacks-revolutionary Black lcadcrshi
which, while never com prom ising th
Black community, reaches beyond
and provides B lack leadership to a multi
racial movement-such a leader is fearc
by the elite because th at’s the kind c
movement which can change America
I akc your kids to see M alcolm ■
and fill them in on what it means to b
a Black revolutionary in America.
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T hank Y ou F or R eading !
T he P ortland O bserver
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