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S eptember 13, 1995 • T he P ortland O bserver
Editorial Articles Do Not Necessarily
Reflect Or Represent The Views O f
The ^portlanh Gfrbscruer
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ow that Labor Day has
come an gone, what is
the state of working
women and men? Workers are
facing economic insecurity,
and they are anxious about their
jobs, their families and their
future.
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The 1990s have engendered a
new form o f economic violence.
Companies like ABC and Walt
Disney, W estinghouse and CBS,
Viacom and Paramount, Chase and
Chemical Bank (whose merger will
cost workers 12,000 jobs) are merg­
ing capital, purging workers and sub­
merging the economy. Billionaires
and millionaires will be made in this
process. Let us not be misled, though,
millions more will lose their jobs,
displaced by the concentration o f
capital and power.
Illinoisisagoodexample. Work­
ers around Illinois are working hard­
er and earning less. Job security is
evaporating, as each working day 70
Illinoisans are threatened with lay­
offs and plant closings.
Workers are paying more for
benefits like health insurance while
wages in most parts o f the state are
falling. Across I llinois, jobs with high
wages, reasonable raises and good
benefits are disappearing. Instead,
new jobs pay bare bones wages, and
offer few chances for advancement,
| > NATION A L I I f
R ainbow
C O A L IT IO N
The S tate Of Workers Working
More, Earning Less
no health insurance and no pension
plan
Workers in 6 1 Illinois’ 102 coun­
ties saw their wages decline after
inflation between 1989 and 1993.
The number o f Illinoisans employed
for wages has not grown as fast as the
adult population. Most new jobs pay
bare-bones wages and offer few ben­
efits. Highly profitable companies,
like AT&T, Xerox, Motorola and
First Chicago Corp., have laid off
thousands o f Illinois workers.
Despite the claims o f NAFTA
proponents, workers in industries
with a heavy volume o f exports to
Mexico face a layoff rate that is 3
times the rate lor non-NAF I A relat­
ed industries. Union members con­
sistently earn higher wages and have
better benefits than do non-union­
ized workers.
Illinois w orkers are getting
squeezed on all sides. More and more
workers need second jobs or over­
time at their regular jobs to make
ends meet.
This extra work puts food on the
table, but it leaves less time for fam­
ily activities. Reduced wages com­
bined with higher spending on health
insurance puts a significant burden
on personal savings. And Illinoisans
are worrying more about retirement,
as employers-sponsored pensions are
asserting their rights within the econ­
omy.
There are three fundamental
problems with Illinois' economy.
First, it is not producing enough jobs
to employ all adults. Statewide, the
adult population is growing twice as
fast as employment for wages, and
many adults are being forced out of
the labor market Second, the num­
ber of jobs with good wages and
decent benefits is falling, while low-
paying jobs are proliferating. Third,
in most of the state, wages are failing
to keep pace with inflation.
By comparison, on average. Illi­
nois' 100 highest-paid corporate
CEOs took home in four days what
the typical worker earned all year
long. Adding insult to injury, work­
ers are well aware that companies are
enjoying record profits. Illinois is
home to 40 Fortune 500 firms, which
made a combined profit o f $14 bil­
lion in 1994.
What should be done? Some
things that can be done include. (1)
Give economic incentives to indus­
tries that provide workers with de­
cent wages, reasonable raises and
good benefits, and deny them to com­
panies that transfer good jobs out; (2)
Ensure fair and equitable compensa­
tion for injured workers; (3) Protect
workers from retaliatory discharge
in the event they refuse excessively
hazardous work assignments; and (4)
Leaders in both the legislative and
executive branches should recognize
that NAFTA and GATT have con­
tributed to lay-offs and eroded wag­
es. Expansion o f these international
trade agreements should be opposed.
Civil Rights Journal
On The Occasion Of The United Nations Conference On Women:
An Open Letter To My Black Sisters
B ernice P oweli . J al kson
bs
o My Beautiful and
Broken-hearted and
A w esom e and De­
valued and Forgiving Sisters.
The whole world turns now to
look at the status o f women. As for
African American women, we know
that Sojourner Truth’s century-old
question about us, “A in't I a Wom­
an?” still rings true.
The sad truth is that for too many,
African American women still are
less than human, less than woman.
As we look at the pictures being
painted o f welfare mothers - who
are assumed by many to be black
women even though there are more
white women on welfare -- we see
those age-old pictures o f lazy, cheat­
ing black women. We hear only the
stories o f those black women whose
families have been caught up in gen­
erations o f poverty and welfare, not
the stories o f those black women
workingatminimum-wagejobs while-
attending school and raising their
families alone.
The sad truth is that for too many
//
b >
Ajongj h e Color
M anning M arable
Part One o f a Two-Part Series
Q l T n d o u b te d ly , w ithin
| w eeks, the national
i
media will launch a
cam paign am ong national
black leaders in p o litics ,
business and entertainment,
demanding that they publicly
“denounce” the Million Man
March.
The March will be attacked as
an action o f “self-segregation”, be­
cause it ¡sail-black. Prominent blacks
will be humiliated and pressured to
step forward, to deplore the anti-
Semitism o f Farrakhan, to condemn
thequestionableleadershipofChavis,
to tell patient, long-suffering black
folks to “stay home.”
We may experience a replay of
the sad and sorry events surrounding
the June, 1994 African American
Leadership summit in Baltimore,
when a historic meeting o f black
representatives reflecting a wide
spectrum o f interests and constituen-
cies was stereotyped and smeared
solely due to Farrakhan's presence.
Last year, only two members o f the
forty-member Congressional Black
Summit even attended the Summit.
When asked why Caucus members
abandoned the Summit and retreated
from an honest dialogue with Farra­
khan, at least C o n g ressw o m an
Cynthia A. McKinney was honest:'
“ Because w eak-kneed politicians
can't stand up to some heat,"
Let's clear the air, once and for
all. Anti-Semitism has never been a
widespread movement o f bigotry
among African Americans. That's
not to say that anti-Semitism doesn't
t
white Americans, African American
women are still thought o f in only
stereotyped fashion. So we are
thought o f as lazy, when it has been
our mothers and grandmothers who
cleaned other people’s houses and
raised other people’s children or who
worked in the fields and then went
home and cared for their own fami­
lies. So we are thought o f as promis­
cuous, when so often our grandmoth­
ers and mothers and we were the
un wi 11 ing partners of men who forced
themselves on us not because o f our
desire or anything we did. So we are
thought o f as domineering, castrat­
ing, aggressive matriarchs when so
often we have had no other option
but to be the anchor for our families
as our husbands were sold away dur­
ing slavery and urged away during
the Great Migration north.
The sad truth is that too often
our own fathers, our brothers, our
husbands and our sons have accept­
ed the ugly stories about African
American women. So we have found
ourselves victims o f incest, o f do­
mestic violence, o f rape and murder.
For too many black men, black wom­
en have no value or respect. How else
do you explain the lyrics o f gangsta
rap which demean women, calling us
bitches and whores or how else can
you explain the mugging o f Rosa
Parks in her own bedroom last sum­
mer?
The sad truth is'ziat too often we
have accepted the ugly stories about
ourselves. Too often we have accept­
ed society’s view that black is not
beautiful and therefore we can never
see our own unique beauty and love
ourselves. Even those o f us who have
achieved much too often have hid­
den deep within ourselves a negative
self-image.
Some o f us become co-depen-
dents in dysfunctional families, we
turn to alcohol and drugs to cover up
that negative self-image and in the
process we destroy ourselves and our
families.
We are w ounded in spirit,
wounded in body, wounded in mind
The good news, my sisters, is
that we come from strong stock. We
come from spirit-filled and spirit-led
women who believed in themselves
and in their Creator. Through our
veins runs the blood o f Harriet Tub­
man and Sojourner Truth and Fannie
Lou H am er and Mary M cLeod
Bethune and Bessie Coleman and
Madame C.J. Walker.
I he good news is we come from
a people who understood self-help
and self-healing and we can be helped
and we can be healed. But first, we
must forgive ourselves and forgive
each other. First, we must let go o f
the bitterness and the self-denigra­
tion. First, we must stopjudging each
other and start lifting up each other.
First, we must love ourselves and
love each other.
Then, we must call ourselves
back into the Spirit.
We must call our brothers back.
We must call our children back be­
cause in the Spirit there is hope.
Hope for our families, hope for our­
selves.
Just as Harriet Tubman led 300
slaves to freedom, so, too, can we
take our destiny in our hands and
reach the promised land.
L i n e " Million Man March: An Analysis Of Black Protest
exist within the black community.
When one listens to Khalid Abdul
Muhammad o f The Nation o f Islam
describe jew s as “bloodsuckers o f
the black n a tio n ” , th a t’s a n ti-
Semitism. Over the years, Farrakhan
has vigorously denied being anti-
Jewish. Yet he continues to make
statements which seem to many as
blatantly anti-Semetic. For example,
Farrakhan made this statement in a
New York City speech in 1986: "Jesus
was hated by the Jews. Farrakhan is
hated by the Jews. I am your last
chance, Jews. You can’t say, Never
again' to God. cause when He puts
you in the oven, you are in one in­
deed.”
As deplorable and detestable as
anti-Semitism is, as well as white
racism and all forms o f intolerance
and prejudice, that doesn't negate
Farrakhan’s enormous power and
prestige among significant sectors o f
black America. Black people don’t
listen to Farrakhan because o f this
anti-Semitism. They listen to him
partially because the traditional civil
rights establishment and most black
elected officials have failed misera­
bly in providing any effective leader­
ship or vision. They listen because
the economic and social conditions
are so oppressive within our commu­
nities, that they are desperately
searching for solutions. They listen
because the white political establish­
ment and the media constantly attack
Farrakhan, and in doing so, reinforce
the aura o f his legitimacy among
many black folk.
In the aftermath o f last year’s
Baltimore summit, journalist Carl T.
Rowan spoke for millions o f African
Americans who were disgusted with
the media attacks against black lead­
ers like Chavis who engaged in a
dialogue with Farrakhan. Jewish pro­
test against the 1994 National Sum­
mit “sends a signal that some Jews
will cripple or destroy anything that
is black in their zeal to punish anyone
black whoexpresses anti-semitic and
racist views.” Hardly a black radical,
Rowan for years has been identified
with coalitions with whites and con­
servative in tegration^. But even
Rowan was embittered by the fact
that "many blacks, I among them,
resent the repeated suggestions that
to avoid being considered anti-
Semitic they have to give a speech or
write a column disavowing every
anti-Jewish tirade by every black
demagogue... A black-Jewish coali­
tion for justice,” Rowan concluded,
“ is being poisoned, tragically under­
mined, by the gross overreaction ofa
few Jews who want to decree who
can speak on a black college campus,
or who can attend a meeting of black
leaders, or how much affirmative-
action black job-seekers can enjoy.”
Rowan's comments are illumi­
nating, but inaccurate.
The primary political opponents
o f the black freedom movement are
white conservatives in the political
system and the corporate establish­
ment, some o f whom happen to be
Jewish But Jews as a group have
consistently been far more support­
ive o f African American candidates
for public office, for example, than
non-Jewish whites. Anti-Semitism
works against the best interests ofthe
black community, in part, because it
undermines the ethical and moral
foundations o f our historic critique
against injustice and intolerance.
Nevertheless, black people can­
not afford the political luxury not to
talk to one another, and we should
never apologize for doingso. If black
nationalists, moderate integrationist
and blacks favoring political trans­
formation and radical democracy can
agree, for example, on strategies to
uproot deadly drugs within our com­
munity, then we must work aggres­
sively in concert. If we determine
strategies to pool our resources to
build strong black institutions, let us
proceed.
No one should have a monopoly
o f how “blackness” is defined. And
no one should be condemned for
frankly stating, in a principled man­
ner, where we may agree and dis­
agree.
One o f the most frequently-
raised questions concerning the
March are finances--who will profit
from the transportation arrangements
for the thousands o f participants, and
who is actually providing the funds
for staffing the national mobilization
effort?
The Nation o f Islam clearly is
carrying the greatest financial bur­
den to make the March a reality. But
we need to ask what permanent con­
tribution the March can make toward
black economic self-determinations.
The Million Man March is right
in expressing the desire for us to go to
Washington, D C., inspired by strug­
gle and resistance to our oppression.
There’s a need to go to Wash­
ington, to denounce the Republicans'
“Contract on America.”
p e r s p e c tiv e s
Education: What Took You So Long?
‘ j ’jf*
jJ J
ployment difficulties for the semi
literate products o fth e school sys­
tem - many further hampered by
resulting disordered psychic or be
havioral states. The psychology o f
the gangs was to be understood in
this context
I related his comments to my
recent observa
tions in Portland
day istotally awe­
Observer articles
some” is a quote
By
where I forecast
a ttrib u te d
to
Professor
increasing trau
Jefferson princi­
Mckinley
ma for minorities
pal Alcena Booz­
Burt
due to the rash o f
er who further
both industry and
c o m m e n te d , “
public sector layoffs. But it was
W e’re now positioned to offer ex­
suggested that perhaps I had not
traordinary opportunities for our
children”. Well said madam, and
sufficiently emphasized this dou
ble-whammy o f educational disabil
those words from a sincere and ded­
icated educator reassure us that there
¡ties which had carried well into the
are some committed personnel on
second generation right here in Port
the firing line in this district.
land
Unfortunately, neither you nor
After pointing out that the now
many others with similar motiva­
defunct Adams High School should
tion and intentions for our commu­
have been added to the dollar value
nity are part o f the hierarchy that
o f exercises in educational futility'
drives the district machine. The first
I stated how disheartening it was to
comment around the table at our
have many ofthe semi-1 iterate grad­
weekend gathering place for neigh­
uates in classes at Portland State
borhood dissenters was, o f course,
Un i versity and sudden ly rea I ize that
here we go again!” And then, as
I knew three generations o f the fam­
the calculators and laptops came
ily; And things were going downhill
out, “surprise, reprise! There was
fast. All the while, o f course, the
the New Math, Metric, the Mathe­
district’s public relations department
matics Scope And Sequence and
was achieving new heights in rhet
the Science Scope and Sequence,
oric and the teachers union strove
the supporting structure o f Multi­
mightily to prevent parents from
cultural Blue Books, the Scope And
having any meaningful impact on
Sequence Curriculum Guides, and
their child’s education
the respective Time Lines for all o f
The social worker made a dis­
the above.”
tressing projection o f how many of
“Stop the music,” one veteran
the community youth had been
teacher cried, “ I’m up to 43 million
caught up in the criminal justice
dollars, already yet, and we haven’t
system in consequence o f their ed'
got into the Baseline Essays or In
ucational disabilities, how many
Seryice Sessions even—or outside
were in the penitentiary and how
contracts.” Another complained.
many were likely be there at year
All this special stuff has been go­
2000. The othercommentaries were
ing on for over twenty years, yet
not much more favorable.
today, we have School Supt. Norma
I can remember when I had
Paulus describing the math and sci­
10,000 Sq. FT. o f floor space and
ence scene as unacceptable:’”
tens o f thousands of dollars o f elec­
A youth social worker strove
tronic and reproduction equipment
to make a direct connection to the
for producing innovative but prov­
depressing statistics derived from
en educational curriculum and dem­
his case loads during the years. His
onstrations. I, too, though “W e’re
passionate litany described the un­
now positioned to offer extraordi­
taught and the unmotivated, the
nary opportunities to our children”.
dropouts and the forced-outs, and
That was in 1969 and 1970, but as
all the half-literate truants who had
one o f my former students said,
hit the streets during the past 25
“This system is a mean mother”,
years. He further detailed the em-
continued next week.
ast Friday’s Oregon-
¡an newspaper featur-
C
ed an education article
with the big bold headline, “A
New Magnet For Students: The
Portland District Is Getting
$4.2 Million For A Biotechnol­
ogy Program At 3 Schools.”
“For us, this
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