J uly 26, 1995 • T he P ortland O bserver
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Editorial Articles Do Not Necessarily
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J
( T W ' here have been three
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recent civil rights deci-
sions handed down by
this Supreme Court.
In the Adarand decision, the
Court made the standard for affirma
tive inclusion o f people o f color in
the American dream and society more
narrow, difficult and costly There
fore, the just goal o f racial inclusive
ness was made more distant for those
who need it most. In the Jenkins
decision, the Court laid the predicate
for separate but unequal schools.
Today’s Miller v. Johnson deci
sion, the most devastating ofthe three
decisions, signals the legal end of
what should be called the period of
the second reconstruction, 1954-to-
1995. Today’s decision is disastrous
because it strikes at the very heart
and soul o f the 1965 Voting Rights
Act, the most important piece o f so
cial legislation o f this century for
people o f color. Miller v. Johnson is
critical because political rights are
preservative of all other rights.
The political order writes the
laws that determine the distribution
o f goods and services produced by
the economic order. It determines
who, gets what, when, where, how,
and what it is called. This ruling will
reduce African American, Latino and
Asian American representation in
C O A L IT IO N
Court Ends 2nd Reconstruction
against the forces that have moved
the nation forward and made his po
sition on the Court possible.
Miller v. Johnson continues to
shift the burden o f proof from “ef
fect” to "intent.’ The Court restricts
remedies and relief for past and
present racial exclusion. It will be
broadly applied, not just limited to
the Congress. Ultimately, it will af
fect every facet of American life.
This decision, in effect, is a re
treat to the 1896 Plessy era. It will
reduce the number of African Ameri
can, Latino and Asian officials thirty
years after Selma: (1) there will be less
representation; (2) there will be less
access to equal education; and (3)
there will be me exclusion from jobs,
promotions, education and contracts.
Miller v. Johnson effectively
ends the attempt at a second recon-
legislatures all across America from
top to bottom By 1996, or 1998 at
the latest, nearly half of all African
American and Latino members of
Congress will likely be gone The
impact will not be limited to Con
gress. This decision will affect every
state legislative district, every coun
ty and city council, every school board
and every judicially drawn district.
The Court has authorized the
country to unravel the legal fabric o f
social justice and inclusion which
has been woven together over the last
forty-one years. It is especially pain
ful that a descendent o f slaves, in
effect, stabbed Dr. King and the oth
er civil rights and social justice mar
tyrs in the back, and is lay ing the
legal foundation to pave the way
back toward slavery.
This is a brutally violent act
struction. The new lines o f inclusion
were drawn in 1992-tw enty-seven
years after Selma. Essentially all
white judges had found proof o f race
discrimination. The courts outlawed
the use o f gerrymandering, annex
ation, at-large, role purging, inacces
sible registrars and other schemes to
politically disenfranchise people.
Political lines have never been sym
metrical. They have been based on
incumbency, party affiliation, geog
raphy, industry and racial exclusion.
This C ourt’s rejection of race as
a factor in remedy for inclusion, ef
fectively removes protection for the
minority from tyranny by the major
ity. This is a national day o f shame.
Ironically, this decision comes
the day after trade negotiations with
Japan were completed. In those ne
gotiations we defined fairness as in
clusion. We focused on specific tar
gets, demanded goals and timetables
and, in some instances, quotas. Un
like our civil rights laws, these are to
be strictly enforced.
We demanded that Japan reduce
its tariffs—or face sanctions. We de
manded open markets and two-way
trade We demanded that Japan open
up and be inclusive. The Bible asks a
basic question: “How can you see a
speck in someone else’s eye with a
log in your own?”
THIS WAY FOR BLACK EMPOWERMENT
The Sudan Needs Our Help
m D
I t ><>R* F > 1
1 * 1 r
' • . ■
15 1
ne of the greatest
tragedies on the Afri
can continent is the
civil war in Sudan.
f f i
A military regime, the National
Islamic Front (NIF), is waging a war
o f annihilation against all Sudanese
citizens-Arab and Black, Muslim,
Christian or adherents o f traditional
religions -- who oppose the govern
ment’s agenda.
The most prominent o f its vic
tims, however, have been Black Af
rican Sudanese, who live in the po
tentially rich but economically un
derdeveloped south of the country.
In the past twelve years, the civil
war has claimed over one million
lives. Four million people are dis
placed, and these face the constant
risk o f death from war-induced fam
ine, or from the routine bombing
raids that the Khartoum-based re
gime conducts over refugee camps.
This reality demands the urgent at
tention ofthe African American com
munity.
In surveying the Sudanese cri
sis, some have focused on the en
slavement o f Black Sudanese by
Sudanese
government
uaanese g
u v c iiu n v i« troops. This
has provoked some in the Nation of
Islam to come forth and raise con
cerns about attacks being made
against the N IF regime, in an attempt
to defend an Islamic government from
the usual Western slanders. But while
this debate is battled out on the air
waves and on the pages of our news
papers, the larger point is being lost
- as are many thousands o f African
Lives.
The larger point is that there is in
Sudan a Black - led liberation move
ment - the Sudanese Peoples Liber
ation Army - which desperately
needs our political support. The lead
er ofthe SPLA - Col. John Garang -
- has created a movement that is not
just for the liberation of the Black
African peoples o f the south, but for
all the people o f Sudan, Black and
Arab. Muslim, Christian and follow
ers o f indigenous religions. His vi
sion o f a new Sudan is of a pluralistic,
multi-party democracy, which re
spects human rights, religious free
dom and the rule o f law, and prohib
its all forms o f discrimination - the
antithesis o f the current regime.
The fight for democracy in Sudan
has been desperate and bitter and
many times almost lost. The SPLA
has had to confront not only the on
slaught o fth e NIF, but also its own
disunity, and the conflicts that rage
among the many southern ethnic
groups that make up its ranks.
Moreover, Garang’s efforts to
link up with the northern Muslim
opposition parties in the fight for a
unified, democratic Sudan have an
tagonized those in his movement
whose believe that southern self-de
termination can only be achieved by
the secession ofthe south By insist
ing that the SPLA make common
cause with all o f Sudan's oppressed
peoples, Col. Garang has taken con
siderable political risks.
We should be doing everything
possible to pressure our government s
foreign policy-makers to provide af
firmative support for the democracy
forces in Sudan . There are some signs
that the United States, after several
years o f provocatively condemning
the SPLA as vociferously as it has the
Khartoum regime, has begun to soft
en its position toward the SPLA.
This opening must be extended Some
members ofthe Congressional Black
Caucus, like its chairman Congress
man Donald Payne (D-NJ), have
demonstrated their commitment to
this issue by going on fact-finding
tours to Sudan, and initiating legisla
tion condemning the Khartoum re
gime, urging the United States gov
ernment to provide more humanitar
ian support to civil war victims and
recommending President Clinton take
strong diplom atic and economic
measures against the Sudanese gov
ernment.
We must direct our attention to
pressuring the Clinton Administra
tion and the State department to pub
licly recognize the positive role of
the SPLA is playing in the fight for
democracy, and thereby assist the
Sudanese people in determiningtheir
own political and cultural future.
The struggle against apartheid
enjoyed the passionate support of
African Americans. The struggle is
not over. To quote Col. Garang, “It is
hard to see either the political or
moral difference between the racist
delirium known as apartheid and the
abhorrent policies o f the Khartoum
Government... It is not religion that
inspires this regime, but a mixture of
fanaticism, intolerance and the lust
for power. What we have here is a
new apartheid, from which Africa
must be liberated."
------✓
Civil Rights Journal:
govem m ent’s ability to assist busi
nesses owned by women and persons
he title of Dr. Martin
o f color, some o f us feel abandoned
Luther King Jr.’s last
and under assault. As we begin the
book was Where Do We
budget cuts o f the Con
Go From Here: Chaos draconian
or
tract with America, some o f us won
Community? That question is
der how poor women and their fam
just as relevant for America
ilies will survive and whether we as a
today as it was 27 years ago.
nation really believe that hungry,
Our country is at that proverbial
angry, isolated people just will dis
crossroad, where we must make dif
appear quietly. As bright, articulate
ficult choices about how we live as a
and committed African American
society; indeed, some would say the
leaders like Dr Lani Guinier and Dr
choice is whether we live as a soci
Henry Foster are not even allowed to
ety For many Americans -- for many
have their nominations voted upon
people o f color, for many women, for
by the Senate, some o f us wonder if
many o f the poor - it feels that we as
there is increasingly only room for
a nation are choosing to close doors,
the Clarence Thomases o f the world
rather than open them.
to serve in the public sector. I, feels
As we begin to dismantle affir
that we are closing doors in America,
mative action, as we limit the federal
rather than opening them.
court’s jurisdiction in dealing with
Martin Luther King, Jr. argued
discrimination in education and vot
o f course, that we as a nation must
ing rights and as we limit the federal
®
.. .
a
1-*
build community rather than let cha
os reign. He suggested that we must
address the problem o f economic
injustice as well as racial justice if we
are ever to become a community-. He
challenged us all to live up to our
nation’s ideals and to be actively
involved in opening doors for the
poor and the oppressed.
Nearly three decades after Dr.
King wrote the book, we as a nation
still have not addressed the problems
he forced us to face. In many ways
economic injustice has worsened.
Today, the Children’s Defense Fund
estimates that one in every four chil
dren in America is poor and that
number is likely to increase to one in
every three with the budget cuts.
Today’s poor - nearly 40 million
strong -- have never been poorer,
while the rich have never been rich
er. Indeed, the top one fifth o f Amer-
tinn\
ica oomc
earns rtoarkz
nearly half
half rtf o f thf»
the nA
nation’s
income while the bottom fifth earns
less than 4 percent.
As more and more unskilled la
bor jobs are eliminated or leave the
country, as government and business
downsizes, a large pool o f untrained,
disaffected workers -- white as well
as people o f color - grows. As we
end this century, we are facing a job
revolution just as earth-shaking as
the Industrial Revolution was at the
century’s beginning.
Meanwhile, many o f the job
training programs and even some
unemployment compensation funds
are scheduled to be cut.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s ques
tion must still be reckoned with if we
are to survive as a nation. Where do
we go from here - chaos or commu
nity? T hat’s the question we must all
ask -- and then answer.
V c m fo g e P o in t : Chavannes Jean Baptiste: Haitian Leader Extraordinaire
ba
R on D w in s
,
he nation of Haiti negot-
iates its way through a
round of elections lead
ing up to the election of a new
President in December.
Chavannes Jean Baptiste, a pop
ular peasant leader little known to
African Americans, may emerge as a
prime contender to succeed President
Jean Bertrand Aristide. I first me,
Chavannes through the renowned in
ternational human rights activist
Michael Ratner, volunteer attorney a,
the Center for Constitutional Rights.
When we met, I was immediately
impressed by Chavannes analysis of
U S policy towards Haiti and his strat
egy and commitment for building gen-
uine democracy in his native land. In
his view the Haitian masses through
popular organizations of peasants,
workers, women, youth and students
must be the backbone of democracy .
T his new dem o cracy m ust be
undergirded with an economy whose
firs, goal is self-reliance and self-suf
ficiency in the vital areas of food,
clothing and shelter for the Haitian
people Haiti’s development must be
based on self-development and self-
determination as opposed to neo-colo
nialism and foreign domination
As an outgrowth of our meet
ings and discussions I extended and
invitation for Chavannes to speak a,
the National State o f the Race Con
ference held in Baltimore in Novem
I
c t i v e s
“The Oregonian” Shakes Up Black Community
('TiT''
rom Benefit
Benefit To
To
«•I rom
' j j j Burden”
Burden” was
was the
the title
title
*J||
I
of
of a
a full-page
full-page ’ News
News
Focus* article in last Thurs
day’s issue of Portland’s daily
newspaper (P.A14).
The big bold’
lead was, “Affir
mative Action In
Public - S ecto r
Jobs May Damage
Blacks.”
T he
w hite
male investigative
reporter for Newhouse News Ser
vice lost no time in getting right
down to cases; the opening line was
“ If America’s public sector reflect
ed the nation’s racial makeup, near
ly one o f every two blacks working
for the government would be out o f
a job.”
A warning? A veiled threat?
Or just good news reporting spiced
with an attention-getting punch I ine?
From the rash o f relevant phone
calls that have besieged my elec
tronics, one would conclude that
most readers chose the first inter
pretation. If I didn't have a comput
erized answering system many of
the very concerned inquiries would
have been lost. Let me address just
one o f the consistent themes ‘tick
ing o f f many o f the callers.
“Born yesterday!” is a phrase
frequently used by those who dispar
age (resent) the' see-it-now’ approach
to journalism. Several respondents
were horrified that the news service
writer spent 99 percent of his word
budget trying to make the case that
Affirmative Action was the caus
ative factor for the concentration ot
blacks in the public sector. Only one
sentence addresses the crucial one
hundred-year time-line that under-*
writes the phenomenon.
“But for the black community,
says Oliver, the post office and the
public sector generally have histori
cally and in the cultural memory that
gets recorded from generation to gen
eration become known as the places
you go to and find a good job.”
Everybody knows that — ex
cept white media, text book pub
lishers and the university schools
that dominate urban studies and
sociology. My maternal grandfa
ther was a Spanish-American war
veteran (1898) who entered the
postal service right after the turn-
of-the-century. And his father be
fore him was a civil servant in the
Recorder o f Deeds office in a south
ern state. His daughter, my mother
and aunt, graduated from teachers
colleges, and this pattern was re-
peated throughout the country
The main pressure exerted upon
blacks this early on to force’ them
into the public sector came from the
newly-formed
American Fed
eration o f Labor
Sy
(S a m u e l
Professor g o m p e r s ,
Mckinley |g 9 0 ’s). The
Burt
constitution o f
--- -------------- 1 the new union
for the crafts and skilled labor read
“for white males only”. The hun
dreds o f thousands o f black crafts
men described by the famed histori
an. W E B. Dubois, were ‘econom
ically’ disenfranchised by this vi
cious fiat, enforced by lynching and
other forms o f intimidation.
And if you were “born yester
day”, or brainwashed in most o f our
universities, you would ignore the
reality o f several million newly
freed’ black families with 200 years
o f slavery -based technological ex
perience maintaining the plantation
physical infrastructure, buildingthe
railroads, constructing the planta
tion mansions, warehouses and fac
tories. Thats the background o f those
thousands o f black innovators and
geniuses portrayed in my book and
others I've cited in this column
(Black Inventors o f America). And
this was a hundred years ago.
White politicians and unionists
were frightened out of their wits; the
racists began to whip up the hysteria
of “white subjugation”—calling for
increased European immigration to
maintain white superiority. Only the
advent of German submarine war
fare in 1915 cut off a massive influx
of poor, unskilled Europeans which
would soon have seen the blacks rel
egated to reservations like the Indi
ans. Where else but to the Public
Sector were the blacks to go--facing
a certain genocide as they were?
Affirmative Action my foot!
the likes o f Newt Gingrich, Phil
Gramm, Bob Dole and the Gover
nor ofCalifornia have reached back
into history for a surefire scape goat
to cover up the horrible corporate
greed and theft that has brought
America to the brink o f destitution
with more layoffspending. The Sav
ings and Loan, or Junk Bond thefts
were only the tip of the iceberg. Like
Nixon said, “you’ve got me to kick
around”. Next week do we have a
black leadership that can save the
situation? Do they have a clue?
___________________ _____________
W here Do We Go From Here?
m B m 'i< i P o w n i J ac kson
p e r s p e
ber o f 1994 I saw Chavannes’ pres
ence a, the SORC as an opportunity
to promote African American-Afri
can Haitian solidarity . Equally com
mitted to this goal, Chavannes in turn
invited me to bring a delegation to
visit Haiti. Since President Aristide's
return to Haiti Chavannes has dedi
cated him self to rebuilding MPP and
fortifying the popular movement for
democracy A man o f deep principle
and conviction, he has offered con
structive criticism o f the government
in defense o f the interests o f peasants
and workers inspite o f his friendship
with President Aristide Chavannes
is clear that the U S. government is
no, really interested in genuine de
mocracy, development for the Haiti
Hence he is committed to empower
ing the Haitian masses to promote
and defend their own interests through
organized popular structures.
Whether he runs for President or
not, Chavannes Jean Baptiste is a
man that African Americans need to
meet Accordingly, Campaign for a
New T om orrow ’s Haiti Support
Project will organize a nationwide
tour this fall to introduce Chavannes
to African communities in the U.S.
The goal is to mobilize grassroots
support for the popular movements
as an expression o f our solidarity
with our brothers and sisters in Haiti.
In Chavannes you will see a man who
is destined to play a decisive role in
shaping the future o f Haiti.
JjJartlanfr (©bseruer
(USPS 959-680)
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