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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 27, 1996)
* • r: ««MB P age A 2 N ovember 27, 1996 • T he P ortland O bserver “ | r J .( j & j H • . / / / Attention Readers! Please take a minute to send us your comments. We’re always trying to give you a better paper and we can't do it without your help. Tell us what you like and what needs improvement... any suggestions are welcomed and appreciated. We take criticism well! Get your powerful pens out NOW and address your letters to: Editor. Reader Response. EAJ. B qa 3137, Portland, OR 97208, CLTI tc JjJortlanit (Dbseruer (USPS 959-680) Established in 1970 Charles Washington Publisher & Editor Mark Washington Distribution M anager Gary Ann Taylor Business Manager Sean Cruz Consultant & Editor Portland Observador Danny Bell Advertising Sales Manager Gary Washington Public Relations Paul Neufeldt Production & Design Rovonne Black Business Assistant C 'ontribu ting H riters : Professor McKinley Burt, Lee Perlman, Pamela Jordan 4747 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Portland, Oregon 97211 503-288-0033 • Fax 503-288-0015 Email: Pdxobserv(o)aol.coin • r ~ ■ "A y - Editorial Articles Do Not Necessarily Reflect Or Represent The Views O f (Eljc 'JjJortlanh ODbsertier •/ A X..kJ .. he Rainbow/PUSH Ac tion Network offers Its congratulations to the African American employees of Texaco, who were victorious in their racial discrimination law suit. The $ 176 million settlement sends a clear message to corporate Ameri- c a -n o t only is race and gender dis crimination wrong, it is expensive. Nevertheless, though civil rights leaders have declared a moratorium on picketing, the Texaco boycott continues. Rev. Jesse Jackson, Pres ident o f the Rainbow/PUSH Action Network; Rev. Joseph Lowary, Pres ident o f the SCLC and the Black Leadership Forum; Cong. Sheila Jackson-Lee o f Houston; Rev. Al Sharpton o f New York; State Rep. Alvin Holmes o f Alabama; Delores Huerta, President ofthe United Farm Workers; Hazzel Dukes, President o f the New York NAACP; Dennis Walcott, President o f the New York Urban League; and 19 other minis ters and civil rights activists agreed to keep the boycott pressure on in a e r Ads: Monday, 12:00pm POSTMASTER: Send Address Changes To: Portland Observer, P.O. Box 3137, Portland, OR 97208. Second Class postage p a id at Portland, Oregon Subscriptions $30.00 per year The Portland Observer welcomes freelance submissions. Manu scripts and photographs should be clearly labeled and will be returned if accompanied by a selfaddressed envelope. All created design display ads become the sole property o f the newspaper and cannot be used in other publications or personal usage without the written consent o f the general manager, unless the client has purchased the composition o f such ad. © 1996 THE PORTLAND OBSERVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART W ITH OUT PERMISSION IS PROHIBITED. The Portland O bserver-O regon’s Oldest Multicultural Publica tion—is a member o f 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. S U B SC R IB E TO 3TI jc |LlnitIaiib (iPhecrucr I he Portland Observer can be sent directly to your home for only $30.00 per year Please fill out, enclose check or money order, and mail to: S ubscriptions T he P ortland O bserver ; PO B ox 3137 P or i eand , O regon 97208 Name: Address: City, State: Z ip-C ode:_________ ___ _____ _______ T hank Y oi F or R eading T he P ortland O bserver 1 better 'Co Cite (SOitor Send your letters to the Editor to: Editor, PO Box 3137, Portland, OR 97208 Triumph Over Texaco pre-daw n conference follow ing Texaco’s announcement that they would settle the lawsuit. In R ev. J a c k s o n ’s w ords: “Texaco’s decision to settle the suit with the gun o f public pressure firm ly at its head does not give us comfort that the company will change its ways and eradicate the racism that current ly exists at the company, once that pressure is removed. “The Rainbow/PUSH Action Net work intends to become a sharehold er o f Texaco. We will purchase $1,000 o f the company’s stock, and will work with other existing share- s p e holders to examine the most effec tive means o f insuring that Texaco’s Board o f Directors will take tangible steps to end the com pany’s discrim inatory policies and corporate cul ture.” The civil rights coalition lead ing the boycott is demanding: ( 1 ) the release o f relevant Texaco staffing and management data; (2) institutionalized policies that discourage “patterns and practices” o f intimidation and discrimination in the workplace; (3) open doors allowing for ad vancement and greater opportunities c t i V e s The Village Gets Educated Deadline f o r a ll submitted materials: A rticles:Friday, 5 :0 0 p m C O A L IT IO N for people o f color and women in all ares o f Texaco operations; and (4) halting the use ofTexacocredit cards, and stopping the purchase o f gas at Texaco stations, until these demands are met. As Rev. Jackson stated: "The set tlement is a step in the right direction but a comprehensive plan including goals targets and timetables in terms o f employment and economic devel opment is still not on the table. There are also unresolved matters regard ing the environment and economic development, and changing Texaco’s internal culture for women and peo ple o f color.” The boycott is having an effect. In a national newspaper brief last Mon day, the following quote says it all: “Operators o f some Texaco gas sta tions are seeing their sales eroding in the wake o f a call by the Rev. Jesse Jackson for a boycott o f the oil com pany because o f racist comments that were made by its executives. Way togo, Rainbow/PUSH! Con tinue the boycott. Texaco will change its corporate culture. bv P rof . M c K inley B t rt here were many words of appreciation for informa tion on the brilliant ca reer of T.M . (Don Rutherford), the black engineer who graduat ed from Benson High School; “Will we ever see his picture in that h a llw a y sh o w c a se honoring ‘Benson Greats' who have made major contributions?” (Portland Observer, Perspectives column for 1 1 / 2 0 / 9 6 ) 1 ask, now, what do the readers think? We are not talking about the most yardage gained inasinglegam e or o f track records still standing af ter so many years or any other ‘ex pected’ examples o f physical prow ess. We are talking serious cultural one-up man ship here - brain stuff at level I. The cultural mind-set o f the suc cessive ruling dynasties o f the Port land School system has never been one to permit any radical departure from the prevailing racist postures they reflect. Not all o f us are naive nor enter taining that old adage, “hope will spring eternal, even from the breast o f a fool.” At a coffee house meeting o f the folks’. One parent said, “you w ouldn't really expect them to dis play the image o f a highly successful African American Engineer to epit omize the type o f graduate Benson send out in the world? after all, you ’re talking ‘white-boy’ stuff here... try and conceive a picture o f a black man sta n d in g next to H ow ard Hughe’s Spruce Goose. And with a notation that this man made a signif icant technical contribution. For pity’s sake, this plane is an All- By Professor Mckinley Burt American icon o f the nation's tech nology.” Evidently, though, there were some villagers present who had en tertained some degree o f hope for the educational process and as late as this past October. They were still expressing disappointment at super intendent Jack Bierwith’s laconic response to a proposal their group had made to the school board in September—for establishment o f a 20-member Citizen Monitoring Ad visory Com m ittee. Someone ob served in a loud ‘stage w hisper', “that approach has failed a dozen times so now you’re going to do it 'rainbow style'... they still w on’t respect us.” After this there were a few less- than-pol ite exchanges and comments about gutless “talking heads” and “media freaks” who would never seriously challenge the system and jeopardize their program or public sector jobs. “No matter another two decades o f ruthless gang activity, our youths shot dead in the streets - - and, worst o f all, the production o f yet another generation o f minority youth who on the whole are not seriously educated for effective com petition in a technological world.” Somehow the conversation was diverted to me before things got too rough - the management was look ing rather concerned. This was alright with me on two counts. First, I would have hated to see some long term friendships destroyed in the heat o f anger, while the real rascals escaped the wrath o f God and man. Secondly, it opened the door for a friend who was close to the process to explain the serious error made twenty years prior when I did all the necessary research for implement ing a lawsuit to bring that arrogant 1974 Portland School District to account. This parent o f three children, brought up in Portland and educated in Northeast schools, pointed out that he had lost one to gang violence and that the other two bounced be tween correctional institutions and deadend jobs, high school graduates who were ill-equipped to deal with today’s world. And much less so than the other cultural groups who were their classmates. The point he emphasized was that he was one o f those members o f a minority teachers group I headed who “chickened out” when 1 actual ly found three lawyers to take on a major suit. “The talking heads and m ediatypesall fled like rabbits when McKinley made a presentation o f all he had learned in several weeks o f tutelage under Dr. Julius Hobson who won the famous and successful suit against the most intransigent school district in America” (Hobson vs Washington , D.C. Board o f Ed ucation). He was referring to the fact that im m ediately on returning from Washington I made it clear that such an encounter with “old massa” would be total war. As Hobson had done, everything would have to be challenged and brought under scrutiny, m onies, buildings, equipment, textbook al location, possible diversions and exotic’ accounting in funds origi nally targeted for disadvantaged’ (black) children, and a score o f other soft’ areas in urban school systems “ Some people go to jail, some lose professional licenses. And if you lose the suit, your name is mud!” He made his point and several loud ‘talking heads' crept out. C ivil Rights Journal; Criminal Justice and Johnny Gammage bv B ernice P owell J ackson have often said th a t I Rodney King was not the only victim of police bru tality, just the most famous. /J And, ifan onlooker had not video taped the brutal beating, the rest of the world would have never known and those police officers would still be on the street. Last week I wrote about Kwame Cannon, a young African American man who received an overly-harsh prison sentence and who has been rehabilitated while in prison. Still, the governor o f North Carolina has refused to give him clemency or to release him to a group o f pastors who want to help him. This week 1 write about the case of Johnny Gammage, a 3 1 -year old Afri can American in business with his cousin, Pittsburgh Steeler Ray Seales While drivinga Jaguar, Gammage was judged by police officers to be tapping his brakes too often and was stopped by these officers outside Pittsburgh. In less than 10 m inutes, Johnny Gammages was dead. T he five o ffic e rs w ho held Gammage down claim that he was resisting arrest. Conflicting accounts say that they were fearful that he was carrying a gun and that they saw he was really carrying a cell phone. In deed, the phone was swatted out o f his hand and the five officers hit him with flashlights and batons. With the weight o f five men on top o f him, Gammage was quickly squeezed to death, killed by the compression on his neck and chest Gammage was characterized as easy-going, mild and professional in his demeanor. There were no drugs or alcohol found in his system Ray Seales and those who knew and loved him find it impossible to believe that he would have charged and attacked five police officers. Sadly, the criminal justice system did not protect Johnny Gammage that night on the side o f the highway and it is not working on his behalf now. The primary police officer in volved in this incident was not charged with murder, but with invol untary manslaughter. Claiming that he would not be able to receive a fair trial in Pittsburgh, the system brought in an all-white jury from Scranton, 200 miles away and in a county with less than 1% people o f color. Not surprisingly, the jury found the po lice officer not guilty. Reminiscent of the Simi Valley jury which found the police officers who beat Rodney King innocent, these jurors believed that Johnny Gammage was the aggressor in this incident. This was despite the testi mony o f a passing tow truck driver who said the police were clearly the aggressors. This was despite the con flicting testimony o f the police offic ers themselves about whether they knew that Gammage was holding a cell phone instead o f a gun. The trial o f the two other police officers charged in Gammage’s death ended in mistrials because o f the testimony ofone witness. They could be re-tried, but so far that has not been decided. A major contributor to the gulf between white Americans and people o f color is the difference o f perceptions about the crimina justice system. As long as people o color can die while in police custod; and the police can go unpunished the gulf will continue to widen. The tragedy is that the most pun ishment Johnny Gammage shouk have received was a ticket for hi: driving. The reality is that Johnm Gammage could have been any Afri can American man in an expensive car in the wrong place and confront ed by police at the wrong time. The irony is that only because o f his rela tionship to a professional athlete dc the rest o f us even know his story. Justice Clarence Thomas and the black leadership: a changing of the guard? bs S tephen *jl C *“ F. S m ith t has been five years since Associate Justice Clarence Thomas was confirmed as the 1 0 6 th Justice of the Supreme Court of the Unit ed States. During that time, he has come under sharp and unrelenting criti cism from almost all segments of the media Indeed, some of his harshest attacks have come from the civil rights community, which one would have expected to welcome the ascent o f a black American to the pinnacle ofhis profession. Is all this part o f some personal vendetta against Justice Thomas? Maybe in part, but far more is at work here The relentless assaults on the Jus tice are part and parcel o f a larger struggle for the hearts and minds o f black America, a veritable last gasp o f those who have traditionally viewed themselves as leaders o f the black community to maintain their hold on power. As the standard-bear er for black conservatives, it is only natural for civil rights leaders to sin gle him out or denunciation because the continued spread o f conservative ideas in the black community poses a direct threat to the status quo and has potential o f filling the leadership vacuum that is widely perceived to exist for black Americans. It is, there fore, little wonder that the traditional civil rights leaders have been Justice Thomas' sharpest critics. Their constant yet unexplained refrain has been that on a number o f issues, especially affirmative action and race-based redistricting, Justice Thomas holds views that no “true” black person could hold. For exam ple, Leon Higginbotham gave a bit ter, rancorous speech last Fall at New York University, arguing that Justice T hom as is not “ re a lly ” black. II igginbotham state that Justice Tho m as’ conservative voting record on the Supreme Court proved that the Justice suffers from "racial self-ha tred” . The obvious implication, o f course, was that only a self-hating black person or an “Uncle Tom” could oppose affirmative action or any number o f similar race-based programs advocated by the black leadership. The vehemence and persistence o f Higginbotham and others in as serting the view that all blacks must and do think alike does not, of course, make their thesis true In fact, it is obviously both racist and untrue: Black people are no, and never have ben monolithic in their views. To the contrary, there has always been a healthy diversity o f opinion within the black community, as in the white community. This is true even-and. perhaps, especially-as to civil rights issues. In the decades that followed abo lition, W E B DuBois and others (including, after the turn o f the cen tury, the N A ACP) rejected the ortho dox approach o f Booker T. W ash ington and argued for an immediate end to all forms o f racial discrimina tion. In the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. advocated nonviolent means for achieving civil rights, but Mal colm X and the Black Panther Party, for instance, were prepared to reject nonviolent means if “necessary” . Today, o f course, many in the black community agitate for race-conscious remedies such as affirmative action in the belief that racism constitutes an insuperable barrier to black progress. Others, including Justice Thomas and Shelby Steele o f the Hoover Institution oppose affirma tive action and argue that, having achieved equality before the law and basic civil rights, black progress de pends on improving schools, main taining strong family structures, and the like. As their use ofplantation, terms like “Uncle Tom” indicates, it is Justice Thomas’ critics who are stuck in the oppression o f the past. Justice Tho mas, by contrast, invites us to live in what Dr.Kind called the “promised land”--a land where that sky is the limit to our success because all people are judged by the content o f their charac ter rather than the color o f their skin. That beautiful conception o f racial harmony and equality is inconsistent with racial preferences of any kind The civil rights leadership is able to insist on such preferences only be re jecting Dr. King’s vision. Higginbotham and others who ar gue today for convenient departures from the unyielding principle of equality that many generations of blacks struggled and died to have written into law mus, be regarded for wha, they a re -th e intellectual off spring o f Jim Crow (in reverse) and the rejection o f the civil rights move ment led by Dr. King and others. As a consequence, in arguing for governmental colorblindess in the affirmative action case from last Term, Justice Thomas has not turned his back on blacks or on the struggle for civil rights. Rather, he has re mained true not only to the text and fundamental design o f the Constitu tion, as amended by the 13th and 14th Amendments, bu, also to the views of,he civil rights movement of the 1960s and before. To the extent Higginbotham and other modern civil rights leaders no longer favor colorblind law, it is they who have “turned back the clock,” no, Justice Thomas.
