J uly 13, 1994 • T he P ortland O bserver
Minorities And President Nixon: A Debt Owed
V enerable F. B ooker
G ordon S tudebaker
by
and
Minorities owe a special debt to
our nation's 37th president,
Richard Milhous Nixon. For
despitethe just-published diary
recollections of the late Bob
Haldeman, one of Nixon’s chief
lieutenants, the results of what
the Nixon Administration strove
to accomplish for minoritiesare
there for everyone to see.
Though not the first president to
target federal initiatives directly at
inner cities and their staggeringly
under-utilized residents. President
Nixon seem ed the first national poli­
tician to com prehend the value o f
competitive econom ic development
in our m ostly m inority inner-urban
areas PresidentN ixon'sapproach was
unique. R egrettably it still is.
Mr. Nixon used an executive or­
der to drive his vision for economic
developm ent in m inority com m uni­
ties. His E xecutive O rder 11625,
signed a quarter of a century ago,
remains the bedrock o f federal pro­
gram s to spur com petitive develop­
m ent in innercities. Nixon used 11625
to undertake creative assistance pro­
gram s like the M inority Bank D e­
posit program (M BDP).
The M BD P channeled federal
agency m onies, on a com petitive ba­
sis, to m in o rity -o w n ed banks to
strengthen the banks. Mr. Nixon real­
ized that strong and com petitive in-
ner-city banks would bring overtime
more competitive economic opportu­
nities for their custom ers and com ­
munities.
During the Nixon Presidency the
Minority Enterprise Small Business
Investm ent Corporation (M ESBIC)
concept became a reality. M ESBICs,
structured to promote com petitive­
ness of minority businesses through
com petition for access to external
capital, made governm ent capital
available on a leveraged basis with
capital raised and com m itted by pri­
vate firm s. And even though the
M ESBICs involved substantial sup­
port form the governm ent’s Small
B u s in e s s A d m in is tr a tio n , th e
M ESBIC board o f directors, consist­
ing o f private sector bankers and other
corporate supporters, tended to keep
business loans much more com peti­
tive than they w ould have been had
the SB A lacked access to the private
sector expertise.
A third, and potentially the most
i mportant, aspect o f M r. N ixon ’ s con­
tributions to addressing the then-aw-
ful-and-now-worse inner-city socio­
econom ies was his creation of the of
the O ffice o f Minority Business En­
terprise (OM BE), today called the
M in o rity B usiness D ev elo p m en t
Agency (M BDA). Still uncodified,
this agency in the D epartm ent of
Com m erce has stumbled badly since
the end o f Mr. N ixon’s presidency.
The decline in virtually all as­
pects o f our inner cities, so evident
p rio r to Mr. Nixon *s w inning the
presidency, showed nobody had the
right answ ers or nobody cared. Cer­
tainly federal governm ent officials,
with the resources and the pow er to
change things for the better, remained
out o f touch with the severity or range
o f problems ravaging minority com ­
munities.
Mr. N ixon’s idea was that OM BE
would becam e a lightning rod o f new
ideas for com prehensive and com ­
petitive econom ic advancem ent in
inner cities.
The N ixon A dm inistration real­
ized that m istakes are part o f the
landscape w hen pursuing aggressive
new approaches to long-intractable
problems. Solutions, President Nixon
knew, would not come easy. And
many difficulties surely would arise
along the way.
O M BE/M BD A charged ahead
under the errant banner o f building
minority businesses in minority com ­
munities. No one questioned the fal­
laciousness o f OM BE putting all its
marbles in the basket o f creating busi­
nesses in m arkets where com para­
tively little m oney existed. Lack of
resources in minority communities
meant minority businesses would have
to survive on low-margin goods and
services. O r to really succeed over the
long haul, they w ould have to gener­
ate revenues from beyond the geo­
graphic boundaries o f their socio­
economic com m unities.
N ot many, least o f all the govern­
m ent bureaucrats and political ap­
pointees w ho in the post-N ixon era
drove the program s im pacting inner
cities, knew anywhere. Nor did they
understand the obstacles that m inori­
ties, largely new to business in a U.S.
society o f stifling color conscious­
ness, faced in trying to disrupt long-
established buyer-supplier-customer
relationships.
W ith Nixon discredited and out
o f office, the patina o f perpetuating
the status quo q u ick ly engulfed
N ixon’s aggressively experimental
program s attacking inner-city atro­
phy. Failure in the governm ent had
becom e established and acceptable.
Bureaucrats and political appointees
got paid the same for success or fail­
ure. A nd failure not only involved a
lot less work, it provided endless em­
ployment for a pathetic bureaucracy.
So over time, once-dynamic ideas
bogged down in an isolated bureau­
cracy led by self-promoting political
appointees who had no solutions be­
yond their hollow fifty-cent words.
M ESBICs never attained their full
potential, mostly because the Small
Business A dm inistration’s growing
involvem ent bureaucratized the pro­
gram and frightened off qualified pri­
vate-sector supporters.
The Minority Bank Deposit Pro­
gram reached its nadir in the mid-
80s, w hen the D on R egan-Jam es
Baker Treasury D epartment falsified
financial ratings on m inority banks
as a way to kill any com petitiveness­
building assistance for minority com ­
m unities. Indeed, T reasury cam e
within one day o f underm ining the
economic integrity of minority-owned
financial institutions. Had it not been
for Senators Bob D ole and Bob
P a c k w o o d , R e p re se n ta tiv e Jack
Kemp, and several others. Treasury’s
deceit would have succeeded, send­
ing across our nation a false but le­
thal, govem m ent-endorse message
that m inority-ow ned financial insti­
tutions were not stable enough to
handle federal deposits.
A nd M BDA by the late 70s had
become a domain o f six-week-a-year-
vacation bureaucrats fearful o f ex­
perim entation. Though trying to ere •
ate grow th businesses in minority
comm unities was neither working nor,
even if it did work, capable of remedy­
ing the worsening problems o f job
scarcity, regressing competitiveness
o f the inner-city work force, or all the
other problems associated with un­
der-developm ent, M BDA plodded
along on the same course o f accept­
able failure hidden with in an inter­
m inable and self-serving paper trail.
Nixon left office before his m ar­
ket-driven initiatives took root in the
bureaucracy. Maybe the fact they were
m arket driven would have in any
event doom ed them in the bureau­
cracy.
For the past 20 years, bureau­
crats perpetuating the status quo and
politicians unfam iliar with both in­
ner cities and effective economic de­
velopm ent, have excised from virtu­
ally all federal programs any com pat­
ibility with w hat the Nixon A dm inis­
tration knew to be the most basic
ingredient o f successful social and
economic advancem ent-com petitive­
ness.
Is there hope today? the “new
dem ocrat” Clinton certainly raised
expectations. But a year-and-a-half
into his term, Clinton lacks substan­
tive progress in inner-city-targeted
initiatives. Both his widely promoted
reform o f the Community Reinvest­
ment A ct and his Com m unity Devel­
opment bank program are high sound­
ing initiatives; but they are doubled-
edged swords which also carry anti­
competitive threats to im provem ent
in minority comm unities.
Reports after president N ixon’s
death indicated president C linton dis­
cussed foreign policy concerns with
Mr. N ixon. L e t’s hope President
Clinton also asked Nixon about m ak­
ing progress in our inner-cities and
that there will soon em erge evidence
that Mr. C linton has learned som e­
thing o f bringing tangible economic
advancement to our deteriorating core
cities.
Pretty quickly presidential cam ­
paign time will be upon us, when the
federal government focuses all its ef­
forts on the president’s reelection.
And if this presidential cam paign
times follows previous models, the
President should be encouraged to
put into productive inner-city im ­
provement initiatives even five per­
cent o f the effort his governm ent will
put into the zippy w ords and m ean­
ingless slogans o f getting him re­
elected.
Are You And Your Children Suffering From Lead Poisoning?
The law has banned the use o f
lead base paints. However, some of
the older hom es and apartm ent still
have lead base paint on their walls
under the new paint and so you still
have to be careful and not let your
children put paint chips from your
walls into their m ouths.
If you live in
an older house or
a n d a p a r tm e n t
b u ild in g ,
you
should make sure
that you have your
water checked for
le a d ,
because
some of the older w ater pipes m ight
have been soldered together when
they were installed.
If you are a parent w ho is experi­
encing behavioral problem s w ith a
child o f yours, there may be a scien­
tific reason why this young person is
acting the way that he or she is.
This article is not meant to make
excuses for the behavior o f children,
but to shed some light on what may be
the root cause o f some o f their prob­
lems.
W hen a young person is disrup­
tive in so ciety ,
etc., he or the is
said to be hyper­
active. C ould it be
this person is suf­
fering from lead
poisoning? Lead
Poisoning can be
devastating to the m ind o f a young
person. Even an adult can be affected
by this poison.
According to some o f the experts
in this country such as Dr. Herbert
Needleman, M.D. Professor o f Psy-
chiatry and Pediatrics at the Univer­
sity of Pittsburgh, 20 percent o f all
delinquency can be associated with
lead poisoning.
Another expert on the same sub­
ject, Dr. John Rosen, M .D. Professor
o f Pediatrics at M onteriore Medical
Center, New Y ork City, has stated
that if a child has an elevated lead
level in his/or her blood this could
mean the following: T here could be
an im pairm ent o f the intelligent quo­
tation, resulting in problem s with
reading, w riting, basic m ath, visual,
motor skills, language, abstract think­
ing, and som ething that is really high
on the list, concentration, plus growth
are also affected.
A ccording to Dr. John Graff,
M.D. Associate Clinical Professor at
Harvard Medical School and Chief of
the Lead Toxicology Program at the
C hildren’s Hospital in Boston, we do
not have the full story regarding how
many people are suffering from lead
poisoning.
Some o f the other experts in toxi­
cology have stated that there may be
dam ages done to the nervous system
o f some o f these young children that
could be perm anent. There is a possi­
bility, according to some scientist,
that some high lead levels in the blood
may cause high blood pressure, strokes
and heart attacks as w ell as kidney
disease. It had further been suggested,
by American Scientist, that lead will
enter into the bones o f the body within
a few w eeks after it has entered into
the blood stream.
Have you had your child or chil­
dren tested for lead consum ption in
their body? If you have not, you might
want to do so, because if there is high
Newly-Elected National Urban League
President To Keynote Annual Conference
Hugh B. Price the new ly-elected
President and C hief E xecutive O ffi­
cer o f the N ational U rban League will
set the tone for the organization’s
annual conference during his keynote
address speech on Sunday, July 24, in
In d ian ap o lis, In d ian a aro u n d the
theme “M obilizing for Com m unity
Em pow erm ent.”
The conference, to be held at the
Indianapolis C onvention C enter, will
also mark the first m ajor public ap­
pearance o f Mr. Price who was for­
merly a senior officer o f the Rockefeller
Foundation and a frequent com m en­
tator on social issues.
Held concurrently w ith the con­
ference will be the fifth annual N a­
tional Urban League Youth Confer­
ence m eeting on the cam pus o f Indi­
ana U niversity, Bloom ington. The
them e o f the conference is “Youth
and Unity - Rebuilding our Com m u­
nities.”
The National Urban League C on­
ference will be in session through July
27, where conferees will attend fo-
rum s and plenary sessions addressing
critical is"'ies facing America.
Featured on the conference pro­
gram will be more than 65 prom inent
speakers to include Lani G uinier,
U niversity o f P en n sylvania Law
School Professor, who will be the
conference dinner speaker; The Hon­
orable Deval L. Patrick, A ssistant
Attorney G eneral for Civil Rights,
the speaker for the Human Resources
Luncheon; and The Honorable Alexis
M. Herman, A ssistant to the Presi­
dent o f the U nited States and Director
o f the W hite House Office o f Public
Liaison, who will be the guest speaker
at the National Council o f Urban
League Guilds luncheon.
O ther noted participants include
Earl G. Graves, Publisher and CEO of
Black Enterprise M agazine who will
be addressing the issue o f Black Eco­
nom ic E m pow erm ent; T w o w ell-
know authors, Ellis Cose who wrote,
“The Rage o f a Privileged Class: Why
are M iddle-Class Blacks Angry? Why
Should A m erica Care?” and George
Hugh B. Price
Fraser who penned, “ Success Runs in
our Race: T he Complete Guide to
Effective Networking in the African-
A merican Com m unity,” will be pan­
elists on a forum entitled Reflections
on the Contem porary Black Experi­
ence.
Featured also at this year’s con­
ference are Dr. James A. Forbes, Jr.,
Senior M inister o f T he R iverside
Church in New Y ork City, who will
be part o f the forum on Our Future is
Rooted in O ur Legacy; the Rev. Cecil
W illiams, Minister of Liberation Glide
M emorial United M ethodist o f San
Francisco, bringing to this year’s
Fam ily Session an inspirational M es­
sage; The H onorable A ndrew M.
Cuom o, A ssistant Secretary, Com ­
m unity Planning & Developm ent,
Housing and U rban Development;
M ario F. Sanabria, Executive D irec­
tor o f 100 Black M en o f America, Inc ;
W illiam Lucy, International Secre­
tary-Treasurer, AFSCM E; and the
Rev. Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson,
G eneral Secretary, National Baptist
convention, USA , Inc., and Pastor o f
G race B ap tistC h u rch o f Mt. Vernon,
NY. Rev. Richardson is also a m em ­
ber o f the Board o f Trustees o f the
N ational Urban League.
lead consum ption in the body, it could
lead to death if it is not treated. A c­
cording to research, the best way of
m easuring the level o f lead in the
body is by having the blood tested.
This way an estim ate can be made of
the am ount o f lead that is circulating
the body through your blood system at
a given m om ent.
T h e e x p e rts say th a t th e re are
se v e ra l th in g s th a t one can do to
h e lp a v o id lead e x p o su re : 1 (1)
h a v e y o u r w a te r c h e c k e d by the
H e a lth D e p a rtm e n t to see if it is
sa fe fo r h u m a n c o n su m p tio n , (2)
c h e c k y o u r d ish e s, g la ss w are,
p o ts a n d p a n s and (3 ) m ake sure
th a t you do n o t leav e fo o d in cans
a fte r th e y h a v e been o p en. Som e
c a n s m ay h av e le a d c o n te n t in
th e m .
O ne o f the things that you might
wan t to think about is that some o f the
glass-ware that you have might have
been imported into this country from
abroad, and this glassw are might not
meet the F.D.A. standard in thiscoun-
try.
Case in Point: A California fam ­
ily stored orange juice in their refrig­
erator in a p itc h e r purchased in
Mexico. After drinking this juice, the
entire family alm ost perished as a
result o f lead poisoning.
The prudent thing for you to do is
to invest in a small water system that
you can connect to one of your faucets
so that you can m ake sure that all of
the lead chemicals and toxic wastes
are extracted from the water that you
and your family will consume.
It is imperative that you become
aware o f what lead poisoning can do
to you and to your children.
Jaguar Sacks Official
T he top U.S. spokesman for
British car m aker Jaguar, who used
a racial slur during a talk w ith a
groupofW ashington, D.C. area jour­
nalists, resigned his position in late
May. John Crawford had been vice
president for public affairs for Jag­
uar and during a luncheon m eeting
at the Four Seasons Hotel with jour­
nalists who cover the automotive
industry referred to rival carm aker
M ercedes-B enz as the “ B iggest
nigger in the woodpile.” Craw ford
later sent letters of apology to each
reporter present, including W ash­
ington Post writer W arren Brown,
the only African American present,
adm itting he was guilty o f “ gross
insensitivity.”
A t first, after Craw ford’s re­
m arks w ere published, Ford an ­
nounced it would suspend him pend­
ing an investigation. “ I d o n ’t think
the p u n ish m en t fit the c rim e ,”
Braw ford told Automotive News
b e fo re his resignation w as a n ­
nounced. “I hope cooler heads pre­
vail,” Craw ford added. A native of
Australia, Crawford, 50, started with
the company in 1977. He said that
the phrase he used is “unfortunately
in such common usage Down U n­
der, that it slipped out due to my
thoughtlessness.” B ut“cooler heads”
did not prevail and Craw ford, who
came to the U .S. in 1990, was sacked,
asked if Craw ford’s resignation was
linked to the racial slur he uttered, a
Ford spokesman told USA Today,
“Certainly.” Ford Motor Company
bought Jaguar in 1989 for $2.6 bil­
lion.
Among African Americans Jag­
uar has traditionally been a popular
carchoice.bul, the“ woodpile” phrase
has bad connations, say many blacks.
Callers to a W ashington black-ori­
ented talk show program w ere
unam ious in their opposition to
Crawford and his statem ent, most
saying that it was “Racist” and “D e­
m eaning.”
PSU, Metro Study Impact
Of Groundwater Contaminants
Portland State University, METRO
and the environmental consulting firm
Parametnx Inc. are teaming up to study
the future impact of contaminants flow­
ing underground from the S t. Johns Land­
fill in north Portland.
The nine-month study is conducted
by Dr. Shu-Guang Li, PSU assistant
professor of civil engineering and a spe­
cialist in environmental hydraulics and
hydrology. Heading the project for
METRO, which manages the landfill, is
senior solid waste engineer Joanna Karl.
PSU received an $83,459 contract
from METRO to develop a three-dimen­
sional computer model to help deter­
mine the flow of waste material, or
leachate, from the landfill. The site
opened in the 1930s and covered about
250 acres. It is marked by a 90-foot-high
debris pile loaded with contaminants.
The land fill, which stopped taking
garbage in 1991, site in an environmen­
tally sensitive area. The Columbia
Slough, Smith Lake and Bybee Lake-all
major wildlife habitat areas-are adja­
cent to the landfill.
“The C olum bia Slough is one of
the dirtiest bodies o f water in Oregon,
and the St. Johns Landfill is a poten­
tial source o f pollution,” said Li, who
plans to com plete the study by mid-
September. “O ur study will deter­
mine the status o f contam ination in
the area and will exam ine the interac­
tion betw een the landfill and the
I
4»
nearby lakes, surface w ater and
groundw ater.”
Using computers, Li is compiling a
mathematical model that wi 11 help envi-
ronmental engineers and hydrologists
determine the speed and direction of
contaminants percolating into the ground
from the landfill. Li and other scientists
believe that rain falling atop the landfill
over the years has caused contaminants
to flow toward the Columbia Slough and
underground, but for years it has been
difficult to ascertain the extent of the
problem.
Scientists w ant to determ ine how
long it takes the contam inants to move
dow n into an aquifer that sits below
layers of sedim ent under the landfill.
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VANCOUVER
iARMERS