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.
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