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N ovember 2, 1994 • T he P ortland O bserver P age A2 •^ 1 nterest in international comparisons on the C*" use of incarceration has increased in recent years. From the Singapore caning of Michael Fay, to changes in the use of prisons in eastern Europe, to the use of prison labor in China, attention has focused on the ways in which nations utilize different sentencing policies. The Sentencing Project, which this article is taken, has issued two prior reports on the subject. The third report, and to date the most compre hensive survey on international rates of incarceration found the following: ♦Russia has now surpassed the U S. to become the world leader in its rate of incarceration, with 558 citi zens per 100,000 population in its prison system The rise of organized crime, political instability and the transition to an uncertain economic future have all played a factor in crime rates and the use of imprison ment. ♦With 1.3 million Americans behind bars, the U.S. rate of incar ceration is 519 per 100,000, second in the world among the 52 nations covered by this survey. The U.S. rate has increased by 22 percent since 1989 and is generally five to eight times the rate of most industrialized nations. NATIONAL’ C O A L IT IO N Americans Behind Bars The International Use Of Incarceration, 1992-93 ♦A racial breakdown of the U.S inmate population shows that Afri can Americans are incarcerated at a rale this is more than six times of whites, 1,947 per 100,000 to 306 per 100,000. ♦Black males in the U.S. are incarcerated at more than four times the rate of Black males in South African, 3,822 per 100,000 vs. 851 per 100.000. ♦The cost of incarceration na tionally in the U.S. is estimated at $26.8billion annually . Estimated costs of incarceration of African American males is $11.6 billion annually. ♦The number of African Amer ican males in prisons and jails in the U.S. (583.000) is greater than the number of African American males enrolled in higher ed u catio n (537.000). ♦Drug, poverty and public order offenders accounted for 84 percent of the 155 percent increase in new court commitments to state prisons from 1980 to 1992, while violent offenders accounted for only 16 per cent of the increase. The study says that a nation’s rate of incarceration in itself only describes one aspect of its criminal justice or social policies. For exam ple, a nation with a high rate of incar ceration might have a high rate of crime, a harsh sentencing system, a politically repressive government or some combination of these and other factors. Similarly, one cannot assume that nations with low incarceration rates necessarily show low crime rates or are respectful of ci vil liberties. For example, the cost of large-scale in carceration is prohibitive for many Third World nations, so they main tain a low imprisonment rate Other nations maintain a rela tively low incarceration rate, yet have brutal conditions of confinement. In Zaire, for example, although the in carceration rate is a relatively mod est 88 per 100,000, it has been re ported that nearly 7.5 percent of the inmates in the prison system die each year due to malnutrition and poor health care. A few of the recommendations of the study included the following. ♦Repealing mandatory sentenc ing laws in order to restore appropri ate judicial discretion. ♦Treating the drug problem pri marily as a public health problem rather than as acriminal justice prob lem. ♦Supporting the expansion of a broader range of alternatives to in carceration to provide judges and communities with viable communi ty-based sentencing options. ♦Establishing a national com mission to examine the high rate of incarceration in the U.S. and of Afri can American males in particular. Civil Rights Journal The Costs And Joys Of Integration by B ernice P owell J ackson Myths are a part of all of our lives. They give us a common story and common values to live by. Sometimes such myths are good, but sometimes myths are misleading and destructive. One misleading myth which seems to be growing in the American psyche is that integration is all good and that African Americans have all profited because of it while white Americans are the ones who have given up something for it. The reality is that both black and white Ameri cans have lost some things and gained some things because of integration. There are pluses and minuses for us all. Let’s look at some of the costs of integration for the African American community. Prior to integration near ly every American city with any size able African American community had a black business district. Wheth er it was U street in Washington, D.C.. East 55th Street in Cleveland or Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, there was a viable black business commu nity. African Americans owned clean ' -I < « X . - u ‘: "»■ : ' * ." ■ r¿. / •X.;. .'A :?• t X - . O . / v •» Ì V. • » j • * •S' • • - •■•.'• . •' S - 'Â ' -* • > f 4' S ' : ' U T '’ ’ .» R on D aniels What we have been witnessing in Haiti for the last few years is a clear illustration of the class dimension of the global/pan-A frican black liberation movement. In Haiti, as is the case in other quarters of the world, the clash and contest is Haitian against Haitian, African against African, the dispossessed African masses against entrenched, self-serving African elites. ‘ I »7. . V •’ » *- • v 5/ • - - h ♦V* f*k’< V _ »'«*_•• < * ’ • work everyday and never knowing anyone who has gone to college. The result is a generation of alienated and hopeless youth. The third cost of integration, many African Americans feel, has been the education of our children. For generations our ancestors be lieved that the solution to the prob lems of racism in America was edu cation. Thus, much of the civil rights movement in the 1950s centered around education and culminated in the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954. I was a Brown vs. Board of Ed baby — I was scheduled to go to a segregated kindergarten, but after the Supreme Court's decision, I attend ed an integrated school. But I know that my predecessors in segregated Washington public schools learned four years of Latin or Greek, had year-round black history and high percentages of students went on to college. I also know that by the time I graduated from high school in 1967, my high school graduating class was 99percent African American. Whites had left the public school system. Today in our cities across this In his provocative book. Class Struggle in Africa, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the late president of Gha na. sought to teach us that some times the enemies of national liber ation and national reconstruction will have the same pigmentation- skin color as the oppressed; that there is nothing within our skin col or or genes as Africans that makes us inherently immune to collaborat ing with our oppressors or becom ing oppressors; that classes do in fact form or are created among Af rican people and these classes often have different interests and/or serve different masters. Dr Nkrumah was clear, however, that over the past 4(X) years the formation of classes in Africa and subsequently the Afri can diaspora has been driven by the forces of European domination/ 4 ? * white supremacy - slavery, colo nialism and neo-colonialism. During the holocaust of en slavement the European invaders often played one African ethnic group off against another in a dead ly strategy of divide and enslave. In the era of colonialism selected Af ricans, or in some instances whole ethnic groups, were granted more privileges to foster their collabora tion and support for the colonial administrations. In effect these se lected Africans were given special privileges to become collaborators with the oppressors. In what Mal colm X might call the “house nigger’’ syndrome, the goal of the colonizers was to have these A fricans identify with and pro tect the interest of their oppres sor. An integral aspect of the house niggerization process was the internalization o f European culture and values through Eu ropean education. As C arter G. W oodson warned, “he who con trols minds has nothing to fear from bodies.” This is why Jean Bertrand Aristide is considered dangerous. The masses support him because he has courageously declared that a redistribution of wealth is neces sary to enable the Haitian masses to enjoy the basics of life, quality jobs, food, housing, health care and edu cation. nation, nearly half of the African American students never finish high school. Of those who do, many can not read or write or add. Many are victims of an educational system w hich embodies a self-fulling proph esy of non-achievement. Many are never taught anything about black history or given any reason to have a positive self-image. Those are the costs of integra tion. But there have been joys too. They jobs of whites and Americans of color no longer being stereotypes to each other, but real people who share experiences of living in the same community. The jobs of living in a multi-cultural world, of begin ning to know each other’s foods and music and laughter. The joy s of peo ple of color bering able to enter many new job markets. With all the costs of integration, would I go back to a segregated world? No way. But as we move toward a new millennium in this coun try where whites will no longer be in the majority, it’s important for us to understand that we must all give and take if we are going to live together in this country. That is our hope and our destiny. 4 b etter ' U0 Class Struggle In Haiti: Which Side Will We Choose? by Í . <• > ' • ers, shoe repair shops, funeral homes, barber shops and beauty salons as well as restaurants, bars and hotels. But with the onset of integration the African American m iddle class moved out of black communities into integrated neighborhoods. Many black businesses could not afford to move into integrated communities and without middle class support, they were forced to close. Businesses weren’t the only ones to suffer as African Americans moved into integrated communities. When all blacks were forced to live in one community the educated lived next to the uneducated; the professionals lived next to janitors and domestic workers; the poor lived near the not- so-poof. As a child growing up in Washington, D.C. my neighbors in cluded two teachers, a nurse, and an entrepreneur, among others. Across the alley were two families on wel fare. In my church was a black wom an judge, several doctors and law yers. Because we all lived together, all the children had positive role models constantly available to them. Today there are children who live never seeing anyone in their life go to (SLÏÏitor Send your letters to the Editor to: Editor, PO Box 3137, Portland, OR 97208 Colin Powell For President? by D r . M anning M arable Colin Powell is widely recognized, according to Newsweek magazine, as “the most respected figure in American public life. He is an African-Am erican who transcends race; a public man who transcends politics." When Newsweek asked Ameri cans several weeks ago who they would support in a presidential elec tion if Powell ran as the Republican candidate against Bill Clinton, the choice was obvious and easy; Powel 1 received 54 percent to only 39 per cent for the incumbent president. Powell’s rise to public promi nence has been nothing short of spec tacular. And in many respects, the closest parallel which can be drawn with Powell’s political career was the rise of Booker T. Washington, a century ago. Like Washington, Powell’s ori gins were humble. Born in Harlem and raised by a seamstress and ship ping d ark in South Bronx, Powell joined the U.S. Army. After I4years, he had served two tours of duty in Vietnam, winning a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star along the way. Also like Washington. Powell has benefitted form the patronage of the Republican Party. In 1972, former S ecretary of D efense C aspar Weinberger selected Powell to work in the Nixon budget office as an administrative fellow. Under the Reagan Administration, Powell’s star rose steadily: first as Weinberger’s military aide, then as Frank Carlucci’s deputy national security adviser, and then as Carlucci’s successor. When Bush became President, Powell ad vanced to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As head of the U.S. military during the Gulf War against Iraq, Powell became a popu lar. well-known figure to the Ameri can public. Booker T. Washington became powerful with Republicans, corpo rate capitalists and white conserva tives by preaching a doctrine of self- reliance, hard work and faith in American institutions. He promoted these values to develop the National Negro Business League and Tuskee Institute at a time when white Amer icans were endorsing racial segrega tion. By running as an indepen dent, Powell might attract the sam e follow ing as Perot, plus a sizeable share of A frican-A m er ican votes. The N ew sw eek poll confirm s this analysis. Forty-sev en percent of A m ericans polled stated that electing an “indepen dent president" would be a “good way” to make changes in W ash ington. p e r s p c c t i r- f South Africa II: Exporting hat March, 1978 issue __ “Africa Magazine” __ had the following lead to a key article: “The proposal to "transfer techno logy’ through White settlersrom southern Africa to South American countries is far from being a developm ent or humanitarian scheme. On the contrary, it is part and parcel of a western backed strategy to consolidate minority rule in South Africa and prop military dictatorships in South America.” So, it was the opinion of the Af ricans themselves that the W hite Afrikaners and in ternational corpo rations were early on preparing for any threatening eventuality in their trillion-dollar power base. Even giv en the possibility that the true own ers of the land and mineral wealth would one day gain the vote (which they just did), the exploiters knew quite well that the sinews of com merce are the international bank ers, the electronic communication highways: the very same network used by the drug combines, money launderers and clandestine govern ment agencies. Last week we saw that these ‘sinews" (perhaps "tentacles’ would be a better description) extended even to the U.N., State Department, Pentagon and even little old Alba ny, Oregon (Wah Chang Metals Complex). Fenced-in like the Amer ican Slave, the black South African was equally privileged to wail, “...the rocks cried out, no hiding place!” Especially when South America, the world’s greatest ref uge for Hitler’s monstrous Nazis, was opening her arms to equally- depraved South African industrial ists. Jews still hunt them down. In N ovem ber, 1977, a W est Germ an initiative led to a m eet ing in C osta Rica which studied the feasibility of opening the frontiers of the Latin Am erican countries to the W hite po p u la tion of the southern A frica. A l m o st 60 p e r c e n t o f th e N am ibia's European population is of Germ an origin, and ob servers believe that it is this fact that com pelled Bonn to take the initiative in organizing the C osta Rica m eeting. This is not the first lime that such a scheme has been proposed. In 1975, a | sim ilar plan to relocate the P or tuguese ‘retornados from An-1 gola and M ozam bique was sug gested, but it was never im ple m ented. The Costa Rica seminar was held under the auspices of the Swiss- based Intergovernmental Commit tee for European Migration (CIME). Its blandly technocratic and seem ingly neutral theme. “The Transfer of Technology Through Migration’, could give the impression of being just another international gathering on a su b ject | which has been recen tly d is cussed in all fly Professor "N o rth -S o u th ’ Mck/n/ey co n fe re n c e s. H ow ever, b e Burt hind the rheto- ric, the substance and the objectives of the meeting appears to be of a highly political, if not strategic na ture. The representatives of Argen tina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Uru guay, and Venezuela demonstrated a varying degree of interest in the project. Both Brazil and Argentina let it be known that they would only accept a small group of selected trained technicians from among the European population of southern Africa. On the other hand, the pro government Uruguayan newspaper, El Pais, Strongly supported the idea. In an editorial the newspaper said it | was necessary to accept the offer because, in the past, several excel lent opportunities had been missed, such as the Belgians fleeing the Congo and the French settlers left Algeria in the early sixties. Many American blacks have been beguiled by false reports of a continent to the south where “ Rainbow C o alitions” were p i oneered, and ethnic dem ocra cies abound Not so according to members of my family who have been there and as reported by my stu d e n ts from S outh America. "These countries are con trolled by the same mulatto culture as is the case with the islands of the Caribbean... Don’t let the adulation given Pele, the famed Brazilian soc cer player fool you. This dark- skinned super-athlete brings mil lions to the box office like Jackie Robinson did." The African Amer ican must come to realize that his ] struggle is on a global front. 4 better ^ 0 r&he (Suitor Send your letters to the Editor to: Editor, PO Box 3137, Portland, OR 97208 Don’t believe the lies being spread by those who would seek to repeal Oregon’s Prevailing Wage Law. I’m an African-American con struction worker who’s been work ing union for one year. I’m enrolled in an apprenticeship program and learning new skills. I have health insurance for my family. I receive the same wage no matter if the job I’m working on is public or private. I know other minorities who are working for open shop contractors. They receive no training, no health insurance and no benefits. They are promised these benefits, but they nev er come true. I know the truth. Don't believe the lies - stop the greed! Please VOTE NO ON MEASURE 12. Sincerely, Aaron Crews JJJnrtlanh (©bsertter (USPS 959-680) OREGON’S OLDEST AFRICAN AMERICAN PUBLICATION Established in 1970 by Alfred L. Henderson Joyce Washington Publisher The PORTLAND OBSERVER is located at 4747 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. Portland, Oregon 97211« 4503-288-0033 • Fax 503-288-0015 Deadline for all submitted materials: Articles:Friday, 5:00 pm Ads: Monday Noon POSTMASTER: Send Address Changes to: Portland Observer, P.O. Box 3137, Portland. OR 97208. Second Class postage paid at Portland. Oregon. The Portland Observer welcomes freelance submissions. Manuscripts and photo graphs should be clearly labeled and will be returned If accompanied by a self addressed envelope. All created design display ads become the sole property of the newspaper and can not be used in other publications or personal usage, without the written consent of the general manager, unless the client has purchased the composition of such ad. © 1994 THE PORTLAND OBSERVER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PER MISSION IS PROHIBITED. Subscriptions. $30.00 per year. 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