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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 1994)
P age A 2 S eptember 21, 1994 «T he P orti , and O bserver ä B y R everend J esse L. J ackson Marion Barry's election could only occur in a dem ocracy-in an open, free and fair election. Marion Barry's election could only occur in a country where the law, and equal protection under the law, is the standard. In one sense, the victory of Marion Barry symbolizes that a revolution can take place Within The Law. The DC. mayoral election de fied the conventional political wis dom and the “expert" media pundits. Even though this was a Democratic primary race, Marion Barry's elec tion is the political lesson most in the Democratic Party have failed to learn and have consciously ignored--that the way Democrats can win is to broaden the pool of historically locked-out voters through voter reg istration, not recycle Republican and Perot voters and call them "New Democrats." There are as many people in this country who don’t vote as do. Demo crats ignore these voters (and Re publicans act like they don’t know they exist) because they are mostly minorities, or poor, uneducated, young and ill-prepared for the world of work. The experts based their pre diction on a specific pool of voters, but failed to realize that Barry added more water to the pool by registering nearly 12,000 new voters. If they did know it, they did not believe these newly registered voters would vote- -but they did—and he won six of eight wards! Marion Barry's victory symbol izes hope for the young, the poor, those in trouble with the judicial sys- Ä ? : deem ed and make it. M any, m aybe even a m ajor ity living in D C., identified with the strength of M airon Barry. The m ajority o f us have com e in co n tact with the law and the ju d icial sy stem , if not d ire c tly , then through fam ily m em bers, rela tives or friends. In the nation there are now 1.3 m illion Ameri cans in jail (including 583,000 Black m ales—B lacks are im pris oned at six tim es the rate o f w hites), 519 per 100,000, the largest num ber of persons incar cerated in any country except Russia. In ju st the past five years there has been a 22% increase in the jail population. The result? A tern, and the unempowered. It shows sically M arion Barry got him decrease in crim e? No! A reduc that there is hope beyond prison and self. He got him self because there tion in violence? No! Yet, T u es that there can be a resurrection and were weak and neglected areas in day th e P r e s id e n t s ig n e d a life beyond the crucifixion. his private life that made him draconian crim e bill that will d ra Marion Barry’s victory was won, vulnerable to the la w -a n d for m atically increase this record not with fingerpointing, fighting or that he paid a heavy personal and number. An election appeal? Yes! violence, but with the power of the public price. A political ploy? Yes! ballot over the bullet. Thousands of S till o th ers w ill say that Our com m unity had a deep, previously unregistered and M arion B arry’s election doom s deep longing, not for the “co m e unempowered people, many of them statehood for D.C. That is an back kid, but for the prodigal young and restless, saw a great light excuse! The 600,000 d isen fran son to com e hom e—and he did. A of hope—in Marion, yes—but mostly chised residents in the n atio n ’s spirit of redem ption resonated within themselves. If they continue capitol should not be persecuted throughout the D.C. com m unity to vote, to act and to agitate for a because M arion Barry was pros for Marion B a rry -a s it does when morally sound agenda of jobs and ecuted. If good feelings and good a child com es home after wasting justice, they cannot be ignored. relations with the m ayor o f D.C. their life and treasure on rav en Some will say, "M arion got was the m issing link to statehood, ous living, and the fam ily w el away with it." That is not true. then we would have had state com es her or him home. He did not get away with any hood in the first year o f the Sha We can only pray that the thing. He was caught, hum iliated, ron Pratt-K elly A dm inistration. hopes inspired by this election dethroned, tried, convicted and Through all of his trials and will not be dashed by those b ro th jailed . He did not get away with trib u la tio n s , M ario n B a rr y ’s ers and sisters who now resent it! He served his time and paid spirit was not broken. M arion the fact that the prodigal son came his debt to society under the law. Barry taught those o f us who live home. The race for m ayor (in the Others will say “they” got in broken com m unities, com e general e le c tio n ) is still very him. That is not true either. While from broken hom es, and struggle mush an uphill battle, and will be the governm ent may have been with broken dream s that you can another very real test for D em o overzealous in its approach, ba- still overcom e, rebound, be re- crats and the D em ocratic Party. I NATIONAL C O A L IT IO N Marion Barry’s D.C. Mayoral Victory Shelter 'Ce>' T~hc (3t.,Pp, vr Send your letters to the Editor to: Editor, PO Box 3137, Portland, OR 97208 Health Reform Needed Now • . hen o p p o n e n ts of health care reform say, we have the best health care system in the world, they are not taking into account the millions of people who can’t afford health insurance. Just like the saying goes that we are one pay check away from V the poor house, we are also one jo b aw ay from no insurance. Heaven forbid that one should be in need of medical help under those circum stances. Some people still feel that if youcan t afford it you d o n 't need it. L e t's face it, we are under the mercy o f the insurance com pa X - ... J r So Many Of Our Children Are Going Astray An Open Letter To Rosa Parks V B ernice P owell J ackson Dear Mrs. Parks: by Those were your words to us after you were beaten up and robbed in your own home last week. “...We still have a long way to go and so many of our children are going astray. You so eloquently captured in words the state of our people to day, just as you so eloquently cap tured in action the state of our people that day in Montgomery nearly 40 years ago. You need to know, dear Mrs. Parks, how I felt last week and how I suspect millions of others ofusfeltas well. I felt personally violated, as I too. had been mugged. I felt a physi cal and spiritual pain too deep to name for you and for our people. You see. Mrs. Parks, your neigh bors said they see you as a communal grandmother. I see you as a hero of maybe shero would be a better word I see you as the conscience of our people. On that cold day in 1955 you refused to give up your seat not be cause it would make you a legend or a leader, but because it was the right thing to do. And your dignity and your rightness launched a movement and the career of more than one civil rights leader. You proved that one person can make a difference. You have been my hero for a long time, but that's not the only reason for this lamentation, for the sadness I feel deep inside me. You see. in the back of my mind. I always imagined that if Jesus were to come back to earth now. it would be as someone like you. As a wise and « can't have your own doctor, who is going to pay for it? and of course the cartoons... We can't afford not to reform our health care as it works now. How many of you retired people have had changes in your insurance coverage? Now is the time and I urge you to support health care reform Edward R. Alcantar, Grants Pass Civil Rights Journal . r * ■'•r nies. How many o f you have ca r ried a policy that later proved not to give you the coverage you thought you had? Why do you think the medical and insurance pro fessions are spending millions of dollars to scare the American pub lic? Buzz words are hard to ignore: Socialism, government control, you dignified and elderly black woman, as one who knew life's suffering and sorrows as well as life’s joy. And I keep remembering Jesus' words about as you do unto the least of these, you do unto me. Look what we have done to you, Mrs. Parks. Look what we have done to the thousands of nameless African American grandmothers who also sleep in fear in their own homes. I am so glad the people of Detroit have rallied to your aid and are finding you a home where you will feel safe. But there are tens of thousands of others who don't have that option, who remain prisoners in their own homes. Tens of thousands of elders of our community are afraid of their own people, sometimes afraid of their own children and grandchildren. Once we were a people who treasured our elders, who valued your wisdom and experience. Now we are a people who treasure only the al mighty dollar and who stoop to any and everything to get it, including beating up old people, selling dope to children and supplying guns to young people. Once we were a people of prin ciple, who served as the conscience of this nation. That's why the whole world stopped for a moment on that day when you wouldn't give up your seat on the bus to a white man. Be cause they know that you were right and the system was wrong. Because you were willing to confront that injustice that day, black people in Montgomery were willing to walk to work day alter day, month after month. And people of good faith around the world came to our side. own nuclear family isn’t in jeopardy Once we were a people who that there's really no problem. We valued our children and who would can continue to blame white people, go to the very ends of the earth to foreign people, rich people, poor ensure that they had a better life than people, conservative people or lib we did. We believed that knowledge eral people. We can continue to spend and education and service and re our own money for the here and now, spect were the keystones of our com at fancy conventions and meetings, munity and that we as adults had a at soirees and parties instead of on responsibility to pass those values on our children and on our future. to the next generation. Or we can choose life for our Now, Mrs. Parks, I believe we people, a nurturing life of commu are a people struggling for our very nity where our elders are safe and souls. Your mugging is but the vis able to share their wisdom, their guid ible and very sad evidence of that ance, their experience. A community struggle. The brief life, and death, of where our children are safe and loved II-year-old Robert Sandifer is an and educated and able to achieve other tangible evidence of it. A child their potential in this society. A com not yet five feet tall who murdered munity where men and women live in another child and who was murdered, equality and respect and commit in turn, by other children An 11- ment. year-old who was abused and ne All we must do to choose life, glected by the time he was only three Mrs. Parks, is to follow your ex months old. A troubled child arrested ample and refuse to give up our seats 28 times in his 132 months of life. A on the bus. AI we have to do is take child whose parents, whose commu charge of our own destiny and know nity, whose public officials had failed. that in rightness we will prevail. All A child, like thousands of others, for we must do is do something positive whose souls we as a people are strug with our young people in our own gling. communities. All we must do is take My prayer, Mrs. Parks, is that on those whose only answer is to once again, by your story, we as a build prisons. All we must do is stand people will be ignited. That we will for what is right and others will join be ignited to do something about our us. But we must lake that first step fate. Because the choice is rally quite like you did - alone and in faith. simple, isn’t it? We can choose life or You taught us that, Mrs. Parks. we can choose death. May we be strong enough and brave We can choose death for our enough to once more follow your people. We can continue to allow lead. May God grant you peace and other people to decide our future We a feeling of safety and comfort and can continue to let drugs and guns be may God grant us the courage to help sold to our children We can con "so many of our children who are tinue to pretend that just because our going astray.” p e r s p e c tiv e Immigration: Race, Money And Power, II “My grandfather arrived in this country with .25 cent in his pocket, Fortunately, he had $50,000 sewed in the lining of his coat.” citation o f the book o f these records). These facts are very im p o r tant because they fit a pattern where historians alw ays have m aintained that it has been n ec Sign over a essary (even bar in B rooklyn, to m o d e rn New York. tim e s ) to E qually im b rin g in p o rta n t tie s o f white im m i im m igrants to the g r a n ts t<5 “old co u n try ”, as properly d e they used to call v e lo p an d it, has been the two-way traffic m anage technology--and to ex o f m oney betw een Europe and ploit the labor o f a ‘less-than- A m eric a--an d in th ese later co m p eten t’ black. E specially in years, between Asia and A m eri the last thirty years we have can. No isolated and segregated heard this lie from various fed race on the Am erican m ainland, eral agencies and think tan k s’ such as A frican A m erican s, concerned with m anpow er p ro could possibly m aintain a p o si jectio n s. Way late in the gam e, tion o f econom ic equality un after im portation o f Germ an and der these circum stances. In fact S candinavian M ach in ists and their condition could only turn tool m akers, it was finally d e for the w orse--and it did! term ined that blacks with these The “em ig ratio n ” o f m on s k ills e x is te d , o r c o u ld be ies to A m erica began with the trained. financing o f the colonies, and For an ex cellen t ‘e sta b lish from the b eg in n in g was in m en t’ history of A m erican, im vested in enterprise which de m igration policy, see “The A n pended upon the slavery and nals O f The A m erican A cad cruel ex p lo itatio n o f blacks. emy O f P olitical And Social T h is 'im p o rt’ was paralleled by S cience, 1966; Im m ig ra tio n ’ an inflow o f ad m inistrative and (This is one o f the four p u b lica m anagem ent types to supervise tions that year). T his covers the the rap id ly ex p an d in g in fra field from inception to that date; s tru c tu re . So m any A frican for more recent developm ents slaves were brought in to o p er there are ex cellen t m aterials at ate the plantations, farm s, c o t the library. As you will co n ton gins and m olasses m ills that tinue to see in my series here, it becam e expedient to speed these stan d ard re n d itio n s of up E uropean im m igration to A m erican social and econom ic prevent a “dangerous ra tio ” of history reveal only the tip o f a blacks to w hites. cruel and frig h ten in g history. It is interesting to note that Returning to that early period as late as the 1970’s the m edia ofwhite immigrant versus the black j was reporting that the B ritish slave or newly emancipated “Ne Royal Fam ily still held substan gro” as he was called, I shall quote tial in terest in several large from such documented books as, cotton p lan tatio n s. But it is “Follow ing The Color line” by Ray im portant to note that the ta l Stannard Baker (1905), “Ameri ents o f the A frican Slaves were can Immigrant Leaders” by Victor equally applied to the operation of R. Greene, "Going To America”, IRON PLANTATIONS’. From by Terry Coleman, "Immigration Saugus, M assachusetts down to Policy And The American Labor the C h e a s e p e a k e Bay a re a , Force by Vernon M. Briggs Jr there were over 235 o f these (1984), etc. h ig h -sk ill o p eratio n s run by I am sure that there will be a com plem ents of A frican, men, number of raised eyebrows at the wom en, and 'c h ild re n '. accounts of the turn-of-the-century The iron ingots they p ro SALES OF COCAINE to the black duced were shipped to England southern masses by the same greedy and returned to A m erica in the and immoral white merchants who form of finished goods that were also grossly overcharged them for sold at exorbitant prices. F o r food and medicine. These second tunately for a truthful rendition generation immigrants, desperate o f history and not the d en ig ra to finally escape their poverty and tion o f black technical ab ilities hopefully rank with the southern practiced by A m erican sch o l genteel classes, “sold a certain ars, The B ritish C olonial O f patent catarrh medicine with is fice kept m eticulous records o f nearly all cocaine...ten cents for the daily operations. We know wholly irresponsible acts.” The the nam e, age, sex and daily habit, of course, was taken north production o f every w orker (I during the great migrations. will later provide you with a (C o n tin u ed ) (USPS 959-680) OREGON’S OLDEST AFRICAN AMERICAN PUBLICATION Established in 1970 by Alfred L. 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