P age A2
M ay 25, 1994 • T he P ortland O bserver
CIVIL RIÇHTS JOURNAL
To My Brothers: A Call To Action
by
The Voting Rights Tour
Shaw v. Reno threatens the effectiveness of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. We must educate and activate the
people. The Bus Tour-May 27th, Dallas, TX; 28th Dallas & Ft. Worth, TX; 29th Houston TX & Baton Rouge, LA;
30th, Tallahassee, FI; 31st, Jacksonville, FL;June 1st, Decatur and Atlanta, GA; 2nd, Augusta, GA and
Columbia, SC; 3rd, Charlotte, NC; 5th, Rocky Mount, NC; 6th Newport News or Richmond, VA. FMI, call the NRC
Field Office.
b e tte r rd> T^ie <5Lditer
Send your letters to the Editor to:
Editor, PO Box 3137, Portland, OR 97208
African Americans have created some o f
the m ost delicious of A m erica’s foods but
have seldom received any recognition for the
recipes that have delighted and sustained
them through good tim es and bad. M ost
people outside o f the African A m erican com ­
munity have not had the opportunity to treat
their taste buds to these delights.
This is a call to all the “first ladies” in
African A m erican families. If you think you
or may be your mother, grandm other, or great­
grandm other has one of the greatest recipes of
all tim e, please send it to us for consideration
for inclusion in a new book titled “First Ladies
In African A m erican R ecipes’ along with the
name o f the person to receive recognition and
a brief story about the person and the recipe.
If we use the nam e, recipe, and story you
submit, we will send you one free copy o f the
book at printing.
“ F ir s t L a d ie s In A fric a n A m e ric a n
R e c ip e s” c re a te s a w o n d erfu l w ay to honor
th o se w ho h av e g iv en so m uch p le a su re
to th e ir frie n d s and fa m ilie s o v e r the
y e a rs. It a lso a ffo rd s an o p p o rtu n ity to
b rin g m o u th -w a te rin g A fric a n A m e ri­
can fo o d s to o th e rs in th is g re a t la n d o f
d iv e rsity . P le a se send the recip e, the nam e
an d p e rm issio n o f the p e rso n to be re c o g ­
n iz e d , an d a sto ry a b o u t them to:
Peter Bates; Renaissance Book Search
Com pany; 220 North Third; H arbor Beach,
MI 48441.
SPECIAL FEATURE:
COPING
by
D r . C harles F aulkner
O BLACK W OM EN HAVE A
R IG H T T O E X P E C T B L A C K
M EN T O DATE O NLY BLACK
W OM EN?
Do they have a right to dem and such
discretion? Is a black male somehow dishon­
oring his race, when he dates a w hite wom an?
W h at’s black m an to do, if the only acquain­
tance who is com patible with his life and
lifestyle is white?
C learly, there are no easy answ ers, but
W illiam Perry, a black New York city school
teacher, said, “ I sym pathize with our w om en,
but I’ll be dam ned if I’ll allow them to control
my life. They w ouldn’t like it very much if I
selected their dates and husbands.” This state­
m ent prefaces a hard line that black m ales
seem to be taking. It also unveils a less-than-
secret war that threatens to drive black m ales
and fem ales so far apart that they may never
fully resolve their differences, and may never
find com plete happiness with each other.
Ms. C., from Chicago, said this in a letter
to m e, “ I am a w hite female who just happened
to fall in love with a man who ju st happened
to be A frican American. W e fell in love got
m arried and now have three beautiful ch il­
dren. My husband and I are exam ples o f the
m ost exceptional com patibility em otionally,
intellectually and racially. O ur relationship is
valuable to all hum an beings, w ithout regard
to race, creed or philosophy. We have brought
the races together, rather than force them
apart. Those ladies who oppose us will surely
be pleased with the happiness in our house
that has resulted from the loving union o f
m yself and an A frican A m erican m an.”
The issue that seems obscurely situated in
the background, but that overwhelms the subject
of inter-racial dating is compatibility. Mysticism
and religiosity are deeply embedded in the history
of the black race. The strength of the historic
black church was a driving force during the days
of slavery. Now, there arc many inquiring minds,
in every race, that seek to break away from this
historic intellectual bondage, just as many in our
society desire to break away from historic racial
bondage.
Ms. K, o f New Y ork City, writes; “I don’t
wish to dom inate any black m an’s life. And I
know that our brothers have their ow n strong
reasons for dating non-black women. H ow ­
ever, the happiness and strength o f African-
Am erican people is for m ore im portant then
the happiness o f just one black m an, black
woman or, even, a single w hite women. W hite
people have dom inated our race, especially
our m en, for years. And they are still doing it.
Just look at the population o f any prison. M ost
o f those incarcerated, unfairly, are black.
W hite women are just another kind o f dom i­
nation. O urchildren and our future, as a race,
need our m en, and our men should realize that
they have a greater obligation to the black race
than they do to any white w om an.”
Black women seem to have taken the lead in
the fight against black males dating or developing
close personal relationships with white females.
Some black women have a so-called “open-mind”
regarding inter-racial dating feel that a person
should be allowed to be the judge regarding the
color and character of his date. The more vehe­
ment black female voice, however, is heard in
stringent opposition to the personal involvement
of black men with white women. It is this very
powerful voice that predominates. It is the anger
of this voice that pushes the black male into a
comer of discomfort and defensiveness.
^ortlanb (Dhserrier
(U SPS 959-680)
OREGON’S OLDEST AFRICAN AMERICAN PUBLICATION
E sta b lish e d in 1970 by A lfred L. H enderson
Joyce W ashington
P ublisher
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The Portland Observer-Oregon’s Oldest African-American Publication-is
a member of the National Newspaper Association-Founded in 1885, and
The National Advertising Representative Amalgamated Publishers, Inc,
New York, NY, and The West Coast Black Publishers Association • Serving
Portland and Vancouver
B ernice P owell J ackson
t makes you just w ant to cry. The
cherubic face o f a ten year old His­
panic boy on the front page o f the
New York Tim es in a recent series on young
killers. A ten year old who, together with a 14
year old, m urdered the pregnant m other o f
three in M ichigan. O r the story o f a 15 year old
African A m erican in New York, accused of
killing a truck driver, a 15 year old whose
single m other was working full tim e and
going to school in the evenings to make a
better life for her family. She rem inded me o f
the story o f the m other o f the teenager in
Miami who killed the foreign tourist last year.
His m other worked for the police departm ent
and said, through her tears, if only she could
give her ow n life to bring back the life her son
took. The stories make you just w ant to cry.
The statistics make you just want to cry.
According to the New York Times, last year 28
13-15 year olds were indicted for murder. Indeed,
the national arrest rates of juveniles for murder
are up 60 percent in the last decade. One survey
found that seven percent of New York’s public
high school students said they carry a handgun.
Another said that one in every five high school
students in America has carried a gun to school.
Homicide is the third leading cause of death for 3-
14 year olds. The numbers make you just want to
cry.
The realities make you just want to cry. The
realities are that there are too many handguns out
on the streets. Teenagers have always needed to
leant how to deal with anger, with love, with
instant gratification. In the past, they fought with
fists to resolve their disputes or impress their
girlfriends and they got an after school job to buy
those expensive bicycles or clothes. Today, with
the availability of handguns more than tripling in
the last ten years, they are more apt to shoot each
other or to rob or sell drugs.
The realities are that too many of these
young male children-most of these young male
children have no positive male role models at
home. Many of them don’t have positive male
role models anywhere around them. That same
New York Times story of the 28 13-15 year olds
indicted for murder found that 21 of them lived
with a single mother or aunt or grandmother. And
it found that 21 of them were African American.
It makes you just want to cry. And it makes
me address the following words to my African
American brothers everywhere:
My beautiful and strong black brothers, a
few weeks ago I saw pictures of African Ameri­
can men in Chicago taking back their streets. I
saw hundreds of black men standing up to crime
and violence, standing up to drugs and guns. I
rejoiced because I knew that this was the begin­
ning of the answer to my prayer-my prayer that
we find a way to save our young people.
My brothers, we need you. Our people need
you as never before. We need you to be the Nat
Turners, the Frederick Douglasses, the Martin
Luther King, Jr.s to this generation of young
African American men. We need you to take the
lead, to stop whatever you’re doing and sound the
alarm.
We need African American men, and yes,
Hispanic men, who are willing to spend two or
three hours a week with a young man. We need
men who are willing to go into the schools to talk
to young men about jobs and sports and racism
and life. We need men who are willing to go out
on the streets to talk to young men who only know
the streets and have never met anyone who cares.
We need men who are willing to go into the courts
and rescue those youngsters who are just entering
the judicial system for the first time and who can
still be saved from it. We need men who can teach
young people how to resolve their disputes with­
out a gun.
W e need men who are willing to conduct
rites o f passage for our young men, to help
them learn that killing another hum an being
or m aking a baby does not m ake you a man,
and to teach them those things which do. W e
need men w ho are w illing to teach adult men
how to be fathers to the sons they produced,
but never n u rtu red -so n s who now are rob­
bing and killing. W e need men who w ant to
save our peo p le-p eo p le who are ready to act
them selves and to act now.
We need good African American men who
are willing to stand up to the forces of evil bent on
destroying our people. We need proud black men
who are willing to stand up to those who say our
young men come from nothing and will be noth­
ing and to teach our children the history of
ancient Africa and the true history of African
Americans. We need strong African American
men who are willing to stand up to the Qarence
Thomases of the world who say that the reason for
the violence is that this country is too soft on
criminals or to those who say that the answer to
the problem is to build, build, build more prisons.
We who are your sisters stand ready to work
beside you in new and old ways. We stand by you
in love, in respect and in the knowledge that we
are called to do this together. We are called to do
it now.
p e r s p e c tiv e s
Education Hit Song; What’s Going On?
t has been so quiet on the education
beat this past month that I haven’t
known quite how to interpret it; a
sullen silence? Pre-occupation with other
pending disasters? or just blind (deaf) accep­
tance o f a seemingly hopeless situation for
which neither savant, pedant nor politician
seems to have the proper answer? It’s too
quiet. G am e on?
I just received my copy
of the schedule of summer
classes for what my neigh­
bor describes as kind of ex­
panded version of Interna­
tional Business Schools
(Portland Community Col­
lege). D o n ’t knock it
brother, they were delivering “competencies”
before the term became popular. Perhaps we
should call their products “employables.” The
community college people (nationwide) recog­
nized certain realities in that marketplace for
skills long before the designers of some of our
contemporary pedagogic excursions like learn­
ing goals and certificates of mastery.
Some have even put it that the com m u­
nity college people were the first to recog­
nize (at least intuitively) that the workplace
and w orkforce were experiencing traumatic
strains as early as 1960, when the A merican
econom y was definitely seen to be shifting
more to service and financial enterprise and
to have less em phasis on “rust bucket” m anu­
facturing. Iron and steel. And also from that
population o f young men and women -
previously considered alm ost without ex­
ception to be bound for 4-year institutions -
- there was a considerable number who saw
quite clearly a new vocational paradigm: G et
a hard skill or a para-professional degree
from a tw o-year college, and hit the ground
running in a financial sense. "M aybe I’ll go
back for a B.A.”
I was in accounting and adm inistration
in industry during the critical periods rel­
evant to this process; 1954 to 1970, but o f
course the trend has gained momentum since
then. And then, too, 1 was adm inistrator for
a large D epartm ent o f Labor Training Pro­
gram for while, so there was an opportunity
for m e to assess the educational level/prepa-
*11
ration o f the intake for both industry and so-
c alled “ D isad v an tag ed P ro g ra m s.” T he
form er group, o f course, said to be “ the
cream ?”
The upshot o f all this is that I was
brought face-to-face with the same facts con­
fronting a certain C atholic priest who was
prom pted to do som e research and then
write, “W hy Johnny C an ’t R ead;” and more
recently, “W hy Johnny
Still C a n ’t R ead.” T here
is not space to describe
the shock to one who
made it through K to 12
at an earlier time.
But there is space
enough to observe that
many of the failures and conditions that pro­
duced these debacles have not been corrected.
And as a very interested party, I have visited
enough schools in Oregon and nationwide to
know that, in the general case, this is true.
Now, at the time of early momentum for
com m unity colleges in Oregon, I was em ­
ployed by a m ulti-national corporation oper­
ating in a small O regon town (pop. 10,000)
and worked with com m unity groups includ­
ing the local school district (1964-1969). So
it was that I had firsthand acquaintance with
several im portant trends or situations. There
was indeed a troubling decline with K to 12,
though nothing like many big urban centers;
The community colleges were definitely “right
on tim e” with their vocational skills banks -
- there was no place else for rural youth to
acquire these skills, except for long, expen­
sive and arduous trips to a m ajor population
center.
One should note that the com m unity
colleges were also “ahead” o f their time, for
now their com plem ent o f educational objec­
tives is just what the doctor ordered for big
urban populations facing the limits o f a
service and para-professional workplace. But
is there contradiction and redundancy here
when the “Oregon School Improvement Plan”
is brought into the equation? W hen “every
high school graduate is prepared for college
or for training by industry.” Is som eone
trying to usurp the role o f the com m unity
college? find out next week.