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n support of the national
day of commitment to
children on June 1 -
Stand For Children - Children
First for Oregon Is releasing a
new report called “County Data
For Community Action: 1996
Status of Oregon’s Children.”
The report provides 36 fact sheets
with information o f how counties are
doing on 14 indicators o f child well
being and reports on progress toward
meeting the 1995 statewide bench
marks. Information is included on how
to use the county data to improve the
qual ity ofhow to use the findings in the
report for community action.
“The report’s findings highlight
the need for all Oregonians to get
involved in turning things around for
our children, if we are to reach the
Oregon Benchmarks forChildren and
Fam ilies,” said Gary Dombroff, E x
ecutive Director. “ We hope all Ore-
New Report On
Children To Be Issued
gonians w ill jo in the Stand For C h il
dren effort by pledging to change at
least one thing in his or her life in
order to put children first -- anything
from reading daily to your own child
to volunteering in your local school.”
The Children First report com
pares county data rates in 1990 to
1994/95 and assesses whether there
Civil Rights Journal:
by
'
B ernice P owell J ackson
hose who find th em
selves incarcerated on
Mother's Day and Fa
ther’s Day often find themselves
forgotten by the outside world.
So, as we approach Father’s Day,
it would be well to remember that
there are men in our prisons who are
striving to change their lives and
their relationships with others, in
cluding their families. Here are two
stories o f healing and hope
Bad Dads
That’ s the name o f a Fox T elevi
sion documentary which w ill air on
Father’s Day, which focuses on an
unusual parenting program called
H .O .P .E . for Life . Conducted at
Lew isburg Federal penitentiary in
Pennsylvania, this program places
incarcerated fathers, who admit to
was a change for better or worse, or
no change for each o f the 36 coun
ties. It found several clear trends that
were true for the majority ofcounties
across Oregon.
The percent o f women receiving
adequate prenatal care has increased
in 30 counties (however, no counties
have achieved the 1995 benchmark of
95 percent). ITie Mortality rate among
infants has decreased in 21 counties
and more childcare spaces have been
made available in 27 counties.
Crim es against individuals has
increased in 26 counties and the ju
veniles arrest rate has increased in 27
counties. Teen suicide has increased
in 24 counties.
“ The First step to improving the
quality o f life for Oregon’s children
is to become better informed about
the overall condition o f the children
in out county and to identify the
issues that need out attention,” said
report author, Swati Adarkar. “ We
are hoping that the county profiles
will provide communities with a snap
shot ofyour children and families are
doing on some important indices o f
community health and well-being and
that the suggested action steps w ill
hop more people to get involved in
reaching the ch i Idhood benchmarks.”
An Inside View Of Father’s Day
hav ing been “ bad dads” together with
at-risk teens who have been neglect
ed, abandoned or abused by their
parents. O ver the course o f four
weeks, the men struggle to become
better fathers and the teens struggle
with the connection between their
actions and their past.
The dads are faced with the unde
niable effects o f their actions and
apathy on their children and their
families and then are provided with
concrete ways to improve their rela
tionships with their children, regard
less o f age or c ircumstance. The teens
are helped to real ize the consequenc
es o f their behavior.
Through participating in this pro
gram, these incarcerated dads not
only can help themselves and their
children, but they can help the ch il
dren o f others to stay out o f prison.
This is a very different Father’s Day
present to all involved.
God's Inside-Out Kitchen
Most Americans have heard o f
Sin g Sing. Most, however, have not
heard o f a program dubbed “G od ’s
Inside-Out Kitchen,” which was be
gun by Sing Sing inmates this year.
Fifteen Sing Sin g prisoners, who
are students in the master’s degree
program o f the New Y o rk Theolog
ical Sem ¡nary, organized a food drive
for the homeless for Easter. They
collected 500 cans o f food, even
though inmates earn at most $ 1.55 a
day and a can o f tuna costs 65 cents
in the prison commissary.
“ We are portrayed in a certain
way, not as caring, giving people,”
said Leonard Lott, a student in the
program. But students in this pro
gram devote 15 hours o f volunteer
work with other prisoners as chap
lain’s assistants, A ID S prevention
teachers and Alternatives to Violence
program leaders.
For this project, the prisoners
linked up with the Rye Presbyterian
Church, whose members visit with
the prisoners twice a month.
The church youth group held a
fund-raiser, earning more than $600
and church school members spon
sored a food drive during Lent and
the food and money were all given to
the Interfaith Soup Kitchen for Eas
ter dinner and for their food pantry’s
future use.
This Father’s Day remember the
dads in prisons across this country
who are working to help others and
working to help themselves.
(Bad Dads w ill air at 7:00PM
(6:00PM Central) Fox Television)
The Ballot As A Weapon In The Black Freedom Struggle
rom the perspective of
the new White power in
the South, the most im
portant element of the system of
apartheid instituted in the Post
Reconstruction period was the
disenfranchisement of African
voters.
The betrayal o f 1877 effectively
removed the protective cover o f fed
eral troops which had ensured that
B la c k s could vote in the south.
Though the ballot was not immedi
ately taken out o f the hands o f Blacks
after 1877, the populist revolt, which
saw Whites and B lack coalesce at the
ballot box to challenge for power,
persuaded the power elite that vast
majority o f Blacks must be perma
nently disenfranchised.
A series o f legislative measure was
adopted throughout the South to make
it virtually impossible for most Blacks
to qualify to vote: the Grandfather
Clause, which provided that only those
B lacks who grandfathers had voted
would be eligible to vote; the Poll Tax,
a monetary fee which had to be paid
before you could register, a decided
dis-incentive for a population o f peo
ple who were largely impoverished;
Literacy Tests which were used to
check the prospective voter’s under
standing o f various clauses and provi
sions o f the U.S. Constitution, a diffi
cult task for former slaves who were
mostly illiterate; Ifall else failed, there
was lynching, terror and intimidation,
a tactic which was very effective in the
absence o f federal troops to protect
Black voters.
B y 1895 when Booker T. Wash
ington made his famous Atlanta E x
position Speech, the glory days o f
B lack Reconstruction were over. The
W hite-Black coalition which had
threatened the power el ite in the South
was shattered, and the ballot had
been removed from the hands o f
B lack folks as a weapon o f B lack
advancement. D efying Booker T .
W ashington'sadvicethat B lacks and
Whites should remain “as separate as
the fingers on the hand: on social and
political issues/concems, young turks
like W E B. Dubois would insist on
mounting legal challenges to the sys
tem o f apartheid, including the dis
enfranchisement o f B lack voters. I,
would be the N A A C P which would
hammer away on this issue in lawsuit
after lawsuit until all o f the Post
Reconstruction era barriers erected
to prevent Blacks from voting would
eventually be overturned by the fed
eral courts. These victories proved to
be moot, however, in the absence of
mechanisms to protect B lack voters
from the terror tactics employed by
Whites to discourage B lacks from
registering to vote.
While Blacks in the South were
disenfranchised. B lacks in the North
retained the right to vote. However,
the effectiveness o f Black ballot pow
er was severely limited for decades
because o f a fierce allegiance to the
Republ ican Party. For decades north
ern Black Voters were locked into
the Republican Party, the party o f the
corporations and the rich and the
super-rich, paying a debt o f gratitude
to Abraham Lincoln for “ freeing the
slaves.” In the process, Blacks be
came a non-factor in the inter-party
rivalry between the Democrats and
the Republicans.
A ll o f this would change with the
Great Depression. Blacks began a
gradual and decisive shift to the Dem
ocratic Party, pragmatically respond
ing to the New Deal initiatives of
Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The
Great Migration to the North had
positioned the B lack vote to be piv
otal in the competition for presiden
tial power between the two parties.
With Roosevelt enacting an Execu
tive Order banning discrimination in
federal employment and advancing
social programs which positively
impacted the livesofm illionsofBlack
poor and working people, Blacks
cast their lot with the Democrats.
B lacks became a part o f a New Deal
C o a litio n w h ich w ould a llo w
Roosevelt to occupy the White House
for an unprecedented four terms.
p e r s p e c tiv e s
Summer Reading List, Conclusion
ushing th a t word
“electic” to the limit, I
take this opportunity to
suggest the following titles for
your enjoyment as well as an
understanding of the swiftly
changing and dangerous world
around us.
“The
W ar
Against Children:
How the Drugs,
Program s, and
Theories o f the
Psychiatric Estab-
lishm ent
A re
Threaten ing America’s Ch i Idren with
a Medical Cure’ for Violence.” by
Peter R. Breggin, M.D. St. Martin’s
Press, 1994
Some readers are familiar with his
best-selling books which oppose the
“establishment drug dealers” : “Talk-
ing Back to Prozac”, “To xic Psychi
atry”. And some remember my 1994
article on the U.S. Government-spon
sored conference called “Genetic
Factors in Crime”, where I detailed
the resurgence o f last-century’s pseu
do-scientists and their racist theo-
ries--the very same used by Hitler’s
Nazis to support their use o f drugs
and gas ovens as a solution for “ infe
rior races” .
It is fortunate that we have people
like Dr. Breggin to warn o f the “dan
gerous assault on inner-city school
children with
such bio-medical social controls
as “ritalin” . A s the doctor predicted,
the wide spread use o f the mind-
numbing ritalin has found quick ac
ceptance in the white communities.
The nation (and the profit centers
o f the world’s major pharmaceutical
companies who now work with and
fund many local educational estab
lishments). A ll ofthis, notwithstand
ing the fact that this racial, genetic
and I.Q. nonsense was so adequately
refuted in Jay Stephen Gould’s little
book,” The Mismeasure o f Man,”
W.W. Norton, 1981. Get it!
“The Invention o f Africa: Gnosis,
Philosophy, and the Order o f Know l
edge.” V .Y . Mudimbe, Indiana Uni
versity Press, 1988.1 heartily recom
mend this book which intelligently
and honestly addresses fundamental
questions that concern us all. “What
is the meaning o f Africa? “ What is
and what is not African philosophy?
“Is philosophy part o f Africanism ’?
These are the kinds of fundamental
questions this book addresses. We
know only what Europeans have
taught us.
T avis S miley
addy Vasquez, the first
Latino president of the
Orange County board of
Supervisors in California derided
Gov. Michael Dukakis by saying,
“He may speak Spanish, but he
doesn't speak our language.”
That’s exactly how 1 feel about
so -c a lle d b la c k co n se rv a tiv e s.
They're o f my color, but not my
kind. Isn't the phrase “black conser
vative” an oxymoron anyway? I ’ve
often wondered what it is these black
Am ericans are conserving.
The “ Right” (or half-right as I
prefer to call them, since they only
tell h alf the truth) isn’t just Newt
G ingrich and Pat Robertson.
Par, o f the front line o f the attack
on B lack Am erica included Supreme
Court Justice Clarence Thomas, talk
show host Ken Hamblin, professor
Shelby Steele, economist Thomas
Sowell and congressman Gary Franks
o f Connecticut. Like the black sol
diers in the film “G lo ry,” these black
conservatives have been pushed to
the front o f an armed charge to retake
the hills upon which Am erica was
built. The only problem is that it is
not an Am erica that was available to
or open to black people.
In 1995 a protest march orga-
I
nized by black leaders took place in
front o f the home o f Clarence Tho
mas to express the black communi
ty’s disapproval over his attacks on
practically everything that is black.
Clarence Thomas is black Am er
ica’s worse nightmare; neither he
nor other black conservatives speak
for B lack America.
They have been appointed by the
Right establishment, mostly because
oftheir pigmentation rather than their
argumentation. The R ig h t’s very
promotion o f black conservatives is
an enormous act o f duplicity and
deception.
Too much Right-w ing politics are
aimed squarely against minorities.
Unfortunately, like slavery’ itself,
many o f the advances o f present day
conservatives could not have been
accomplished without help from the
ranks o f those being victim ized.
Just as Africans aided slave trad
ers in search and capture o f other
Africans, black conservatives have
aided and abetted efforts to rollback
many o f the hard-won social, eco
nomic and political gains among the
African American community over
the past 40 years.
B y endorsing the half-truths and
distortions o f conservative whites
for ending affirmative action or cut
ting welfare, black conservatives
have allowed themselves to be used
to carry out the dirty work o f close-
minded people who do not have the
interests o f African Americans and
poor people at heart. Worse, they
lend credibility to the views that are
misguided and even racist.
The campaign o f Alan Keyes and
the publication o f books such as
“ Please D on’t Feed the B lacks” (re
titled “ Made in Am erica” ) by Ken
Ham blin, w ill undoubtedly add to
the hoopla surrounding black con
servatives.
One alm ost gets the im pres
sion that A fric a n A m e rican s are
b e c o m in g a b unch o f R ig h t
w ingers. Y e , every p o ll, study
and survey in A m erica shows that
the o ve rw h e lm in g m a jo rity o f
b la ck A m e rican s b elieve that a f
firm ative action is fair, rem edies
a h isto ric in ju stice and allow s
better Cv 'l^tie (3dhtor
r
Send your letters to the Editor to:
Editor, PO Box 3137, Portland, OR 97208
for the ad m issio n , h irin g or p ro
m oting o f a ll q u a lifie d ca n d i
dates. M any adam antly oppose
scho o l ch o ice , fearful that it w ill
further ruin in n e r-city scho o ls;
oppose three strikes le gislatio n ,
not because they are soft on crim e
but because they believe in second
chances; oppose the death penalty
not because they don’t want to pun
ish crim inals but because they are
aware o fho w unfair the system can
be; and support a more expansive
view o f government.
The debate between black liberals
and black conservatives dates back
at leas, as far as W E B. DuBois and
Booker T. Washington, who had pro
found disagreements on the direc
tion o f social, political and economic
policy for B lack Americans a, the
beginning o f this century.
However, Dubois and Washing
ton always had the best interest o f
black people at heart! think m anyof
the Back conservatives today are
interested prim arily in their self pro
motion and financial gain.
The only thing the Right wants for
black people is a vote and their help
in condemning those black stereo
types o f which they don’, approve
and which they blame for the moral
decay o f America.
V .Y . Mudimbe argues that the
various discourses themselves estab
lish the worlds o f thought in which
people conceive their identity. West
ern anthropologists and missionaries
have introduced distortions not only
for outsiders but also for Africans
trying to under
stand themselves.
As the case with
b lack thinkers
who seek to
“deslaverize” the
African American
m ind
set,
Mudimbe’s historical anthropology
achieves the “decolonization” o f ac
ademic knowledge o f Africa.
V .Y . Mudimbe is professor o f
Romance Languages and Compar
ative Literature at Duke University.
A ll o f the books cited here have
excellent bibliographies and refer
ences.
I highly recommend the following
(or either of) two books which so
beautifully tell and illustrate the an
cient Egyptian (African) myth o f Isis
and Osiris (and Horns and Seth) -- the
story o f a goddess’ search for and
reassembling ofherhusband’s/broth-
er’s dismembered body -- has haunt
ed humanity’s imagination for mil-
lennia(including Sigmund Freud and
entire schools o f psychiatry).
The tale o f love and betrayal,
death and resurrection, has made its
way from the Nile Valley to affect
cultures all over the world. Isis’
journey to find and awake Osiris
echoes Psyche’s quest for Eros and
Orpheus’ search for Eurydice, and
direct parallel exists between the
worship o f Madonna in early C hris
tianity and the cult o f Isis and her
many devotees in Greece and Rome.
Everyday manifestations o f these
African concepts are seen all over the
place. “Osiris” the African god o f
vegetation and yearly resurrection
appears today as “The Jolly Green
Giant” a logical trademark foragood
products company ( 1925, Minnesota
Valley Canning Co., Symbols of
America’, Biking Press). And the eye
o f “Hours” is incorporated into the
official seal o f the United States, see
reverse o f your dollar bill (At the
request o f Thomas Jefferson).
See “ Isis and O siris,” Jonathan
Cott, Doubleday, 1994 and also see
“The Myth o f Isis and O siris” , Jules
Cashford, Barefoot Books, 1993 To
fullfi 11 the request o f many teacher,
I have continued these citations on
another page.
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