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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 4, 1996)
V -••• • ••». 5 *•; Z j ú ¿,> j • *.? P age A2 ’ , F • D ecembi r 4, 1996 • Tm P okii and O bserver í Í r ~ ’ i y — — a ...J 1 "Il f ir « /ft â "■5 ■ fci J ' / Attention Readers! Please take a minute to send us your comments. W e’ 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 N O W and address your letters to: Editor. Reader Response. 1\L>. B oa 3137, Portland. O R 97208. STtfc ^portlanh (©baeruer (LISPS 959-680) Established in 1970 Charles Washington Publisher & Editor Mark Washington Distribution Manager G ary Ann Taylor Business Manager Sean Cruz Consultant & Editor Portlund Observador Danny Bell Advertising Sales Manager Paul Neufeldt Production & Design Gary Washington Public Relations Rovonne Black Business Assistant Contributing Writers: Professor M cK inley Burt, Lee Perlman, Pamela Jordan 4747 NE M artin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Portland, Oregon 97211 503-288-0033 • Fax 503-288-0015 Email: Pdxobserv@aol.corn Deadline for all submitted materials: A rticles:Friday, 5 :0 0 p m Ads: Munday, 12 :00pm P O S T M A S TE R : Send Address Changes To: Portland Observer, P.O. Box 3137, Portland, O R 97208. Second C lass postage p a id at Portland, Oregon. Subscriptions: S3 0.00 per year The Portland Observer welcomes freelance submissions. Manu scripts and photographs should be clearly labeled and w ill be returned ifaccompamed by a se lf addressed envelope. A ll 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 T H E P O R T L A N D O B S E R V E R . A L L R IG H T S R E S E R V E D , R E P R O D U C T IO N IN W H O L E O R IN P A R T W IT H O U T P E R M IS S IO N IS P R O H IB I I E D . 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 Y o rk, N Y , and The West Coast Black Publishers Association • Serving Portland and Vancouver. SljBSC RIBE TO (Dlfc ^ lo r t la t t b (©b s e rtic r The 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. SUBSCRIPTIONS T he P ortland O bserver ; PO B ox 3137 P ortland , O regon 97208 Name: Address: _____ City, State: __________ _____________ ________ Z ip -C o d e :___________________________________ T hank Y o t F or R eading T he P ortland O bserver T better 'Cd 'die iSOitor Send your letters to the Editor to: Editor, PO Box 3137, Portland, OR 97208 To the editor: I read with interest today's Oregonian story about the Port o f Portland dumping de-icing chemicals in to the Colum bia slough. The fact is, there are over 72,000 chemicals on the market today and citizens only have the right to information on less than one percent o f those chemicals. “ The Community Right to Know Act” is the best source o f publicly available information on the release o f toxic chemicals into the environ ment. Unfortunately, it is the woefully inadequate Right now the E P A has opened a public comment period for citizens to urge their support for expanding the public’s right to know. Citizens have the right to know about toxins-encourage the E P A to strengthen these laws by writing to : U S. E P A , 4 0 1 M St. S W, Washington, D .C. 20460 R E : Proposed R u le (O P P T S dockets #400106). V / J I f ~ I Editorial Articles Do Not Necessarily Reflect Or Represent The Views O f « ffliv ^ Jo rtlan b (!f)bseruer pause to give thanks for the many ways in wl which we have been blessed. Much has happened since last Thanksgiving for which we are thankful: • Jesse Jackson, Jr., won his Dem ocratic primary election almost exact ly one year ago, just after Thanksgiv ing in 1995. Two weeks later, he won his seat in congress by a landslide, a pattern he duplicated earlier this month, when he received the 5th-highest vote o f any Congressional Democrat. • The National Rainbow C o a li tion and P U S H agreed to merge into one organization, the Rainbow / P U SH Action Network. The new Rainbow /PUSH w ill continue the economic and political struggles o f its two parent organizations, in the civ il rights/social justice tradition It w ill be headquartered at Dr. K in g ’s p e r The more bi , W) ! P roe , Mt K inlex B ert N A T IO N A L C O A L IT IO N Giving Thanks workshop in Chicago, with a bureau in Washington, D.C. • President Clinton defeated Bob Dole, preventing a complete right- wing takeover ofthe Federal govern ment. The President won in 1996 the same way he did in 1992-with the votes ofwomen, African Americans, and Latino/Hispanics. 1/4 o f B ill Clinton’s vote came from African s p e Americans and Latino/Hispanics. • Thoughoverall voter turnout was down in 1996, B lack & Brown turn out share was up substantially, from 1/9 to 1/7 o f the electorate! The A f rican American share o f the vote increased by 25%, from 8% in 1992 to 10% this year, while Latino/His panics increased their share o f the electorate from 3% to 4% . Our voter e / / mobilization efforts in the fall season made a difference. • H ouse S p e a k e r N ew t G ingrich lost half his margin o f con trol, barely hanging onto his power by only 20,000 votes. In addition, the voters clearly rejected the spirit o f the Contract on America, and repu diated the right w ing’s “government shutdown” agenda. • In response to our boycott, em ployee lawsuits, and public outrage, Texaco was forced to settle its suit with 1,500 African American em ployees who had faced corporate dis crimination. • In response to the pickets o f N O W and the Rainbow/Push Action Network, Mitsubishi was forced to hire former Labor Secretary Lynn Martin to begin the process o f diver sifying its workforce and opening up the corporation. r e change the more they stay the same in mathematics and the sciences. he Third In tern ation al None ofthese optimistic and laud M ath em a tics and Sci able objectives have been attained, ence Study has been nor is there any indication o f change concluded and some things have in the near future. The present situa not changed. tion is highlighted by opinions voiced In average scores for students who by officials like Norma Paulus, Ore have eight years o f schooling, the gon’s State Superintendent o f Edu United States ranks 18th in mathe cation: “The business leaders under matics and 11th in science. The re stand that the greatest threat to this sult was neither surprising nor unex country is that we do not have a pected by many educators. skilled, literate work force.” This study was the most rigorous and comprehensive ever conducted by the International Association for By the E v a lu a tio n o f E d u ca tio n a l Professor achievement. What was surprising to many was that among the many high Mcklnley Burt er-ranking nations, Japanese children watch as much television as Am eri can children and that Am erican What else is new? How many de eighth-graders get more homework cades has it been since that Catholic and spend more time in class than priest shocked our complacency w ith students in Germany and Japan. “ Why Johnny Can't Read?” ... to be It has been some time, now, since followed on over ten years later with that h ig h ly -p u b licize d ‘National “ Why Johnny Still C an ’t Read." And Governor’s Conference on Educa it was 25 years ago in 1971 when tion’. And in the interim there have Charles E. Silberman hit us with his been any number o f h igh-profi le gath- “C risis in the Classroom: the Remak erings with the announced goal o f ing o f American Education.” I found attaining international parity for the latter book most notable for it’s Am erica’s education system s-and attempt to reform the reformers [o f then moving on to various “ Year education). 2000” versions o f world leadership Silberman seems at his best when T he assesses the Madison Avenue Kind o f hyperbole that heralded the intro duction o f C .A .I., the magic wand. C o m p u te r-A ssiste d -In st ructio n , guaranteed to make both teaching and learning effortless (keep in mind that this was over 25 years ago). Dr. Stolurow o f Harvard said, “C A I is comparable to Gutenberg’s inven tion o f the printing press in terms of the potential’ effect it w ill have upon education.” P ro fesso r Patrick Sup pes o f Stanford was not to be surpassed in this rhetorical contest “one can pre dict that in a few years m illions of school children w ill have access to what Phillip o f Macedonia's son A l exander enjoyed as a royal preroga tive: the personal services o f a tutor as well-informed and responsive as Aristotle.” So help me, readers, that’s what the man said. “Computer A s sisted Instruction was likened to a ‘second com ing’. I bet I know what you're thinking, that there is something very familiar about all this rhetoric and hype. And for some, that light bulb w ill sudden ly flash on as in the comic strips. Apercu! I ’ve got it, The net, of course! A ll the world, heaven and earth, man and beast, science and society w ill flow through the copper strands o f the web and into our schools, our homes and our chil dren’s brains. And this inspired vision o f the M IT Communications Lab is expect ed to do what computer Assisted Instruction did not, what thousands o f beleaguered school systems could not, and what hundreds o f thousands o f harried teachers could not do .... substitute and electronic information systems for effective teaching and curriculum design, and make it work. I wouldn’t anticipate any reforms o f the reforms in the near future. A classroom teacher o f long acquain tance has just faxed me a copy o f an article in the Oregonian this past Nov. 12; “Oregon’s Future Teachers W ill Teach A Variety o f Subjects At One Level” The Teacher Standards and PracticesCommission says“The goal for next century is to have class es taught by teachers from various backgrounds... team teaching, instead o f being endorsed to teach a particu lar subject, teachers w ill be endorsed to teach at a certain level, ranging from early childhood to high school.” My friend wonders how this pro cess w ill mesh with the new Academ ic Standards, Year 2000 plan. We all do. Everything seems to get up and walk away. In memory of the children p By i ur.n.^ B ernice P owell J ackson wo heart-wrenching sto ries, 5 0 0 miles apart. Different stories, but the same outcome. Different mothers and children and the same pa thos. It ’s hard, really, to find words to convey the sadness which at tends both these stories, however little we will ever know of them. I n October, the color picture o f the fam i ly was on front page o f the C le ve- land Plain Dealer. A handsome A fri can American family: the mother, her five and two year-old sons and twin 14-month old daughters. The mother and all but the five year-old were found dead in their rented house in Lorain, outside o f Cleveland. A ll o f those who were found dead had been shot and the five year-old was in critical condition from smoke inha lation. The family had been found when firefighters responded to the fire which was raging in the front o f the house. At first it seemed unclear what had happened to that family. Why was the five year-old not shot? Had some one come into their home, even though all the doors and windows were locked? How had the fire start ed and was it to cover up the deaths? It seems now that the mother, 31 year-old Tina Jackson, shot her own children, then set fire to the house and then, finally, shot herself with a stolen semi-automatic handgun. The gun powder found on the mother’s hand and the testimony o f the recov ering child was that no one else was in the house to make the unthinkable seem thinkable. What happened to force the moth er whom others say was devoted to her children k ill them? Tina Jackson and her family were scheduled to be evicted from their home that day, but they had secured other housing near by. She was a single mother and her children all had different fathers, but atleast one father had supervised vis its with his son and carried him on his health insurance policy. He was the son who survived this horrible ideal and who is now livin g with his father. And why didn’t Trina Jackson shoot him as well? The firefighters who found the family, most o f whom are fathers themselves, had to undergo counsel ing. They brought presents to the hospital to the recovering child. They w ill carry with them always the vi sion o f a family destroyed for rea sons we’ll probably never know. And now, the story o f a mother in the Bronx who threw her three ch il dren, seven year-old twins and a two year-old, o ff a 14-story building and then jumped herself. The 23 year-old mother, Chicqua Roveal, and one twin are dead. The other children are in very critical condition. Another mystery o f why a mother would be so desperate that she wouh try to kill her children and then em her own life. Her friends say she wa a good mother, who did not use drug and who dressed her children care fully for school. A single mother and a foster chik herself, she has recently allowed hei own mother, just released from pris on, to come and live with her family This new arrangement did not seen to be working out well. But wa< murder and suicide the only solutior she thought possible? Laurence Bates, Sr., the father ol surviving son in O hio said he hoped for a normal childhood for his son now, one o f falling o ff bikes and going to school like all the rest o f the children. I pray for that future for Laurence, Jr as well. And for the Roveal children in New Yo rk. And I weep for those mothers who felt they had no where to turn and, thus, turned on themselves and their families. Alongjh e color line: Beyond Liberalism By I) r . M xnninc M arable residential Politics, Race It [ and the 1 9 9 6 Election: y Y 1 Beyond Liberalism. The 1996 electoral cam paign which reelected both incumbent Pres ident B ill Clinton and the Republi can-controlled Congress was, by all estimates, the most boring contest in recent memory. M illions o f voters stayed home on election day. Public opinion polls indicated a deep dis trust o f both Clinton and Dole, and a strong desire for a real alternative in politics. Television ratings for the two presidential debates were the lowest ever recorded C lin to n ’s reelection was greatly assisted by a relatively strong do mestic econom y. Sin ce January, 1993, 10.7 m illion new jobs were created in the U.S.--although m il lions o f them were located in the service sector or at low to minimum wages. Corporate profits and the stock market soared under Clinton, so busi ness was not dissatisfied with the political stalemate between a Demo cratic President and a Republican Congress. The failure o f the Democrats to win majorities in the Senate and House was also not surprising. In most o f the major presidential land slides since World War II, usually the w in n in g ca n d id a te ’ s party achieves modest legislative gains, if at all The major reason that the Repub licans performed below expectations was the reality o f the gender and racial gap between the two major parties. White males generally split their votes evenly between Dole and Clinton White women, by contrast, voted for Clinton by at least a 15 percent margin D ole's rejection o f reproductive rights, fam ily leave. s affirmative action and other conser vative policies alienated millions o f working women African Americans in record numbers also rejected the Dole-Kem p ticket. At the beginning o f the campaign. Republican offi cials believed that they might win at least 15 percent o f the total black vote. Colin Powell remains a popular figure among many African Am eri cans, and his decision to become a Republican was viewed as a hopeful sign Jack Kem p’s selection as the Vice Presidential candidate was also wide ly praised, due to his reputation as a defender o f affirmative action and his advocacy o f a more racially in clusive Republican Party Back in 1992, even George Bush was able to take 10 percent o f the national black vote: there seemed no where to go but up. There were several problems with the G O P ’s black strategy. First, Dole and Kemp opportunistically repudi ated their own moderate records on c iv il rights and affirmative action in the cam paign. The Republicans' “Contract for America," the ultra right blueprint ofcongressional conserva tives led by Newt Gingrich, was wide ly opposed by African Americans, Latinos, labor and other liberal con stituencies. The Dole-Gingrich philosophy o f smaller government, reductions in education and health care, and no support for urban policy and em ployment initiatives, directly contra dicted blacks’ interests. Although Kem p scheduled public appearances in Harlem and other black communities, the Republican ticket placed virtually no advertise ments in black media, such as Black Entertainment Television. Conversely, Clinton was able to emphasize his close and cordial rela tionships with A frican-Am erican voters. His roots in Arkansas were readily apparent whenever he visited a black church, or when he addressed the Congressional B lack Caucus weekend in September. Clinton understands the language and culture o f African Americans, and appears personally comfortable around black people. Despite their disappointment with many o f his policies, African Americans made the realistic judgment that Clinton and the Democrats were clearly the best o f the available alternatives. Finally, Clinton won the over whelming support o f the black eco nomic and political establishment: the Congressional B lack Caucus, N A A C P , black elected officials, ex ecutives and public administrators, and the growing African-Am erican professional and managerial class. Ideologically, much o f this gr interpreted C linton’s policies as ing in harmony with its own moi ately liberal agenda: working reforms within the political syst liberalizing capitalism by incn ing black business sub-contracts by expanding the percentages blacks in management, cultural ii gration into the mainstream o f wl America The essential contradiction for black elite is that neither Clinton the Republicans really favor a chai in the racial status quo. Under Cl ton’s administration, blacks w ill doubtedly have representatives the table. But on a range o f subst tive issues affecting the lives o f n lions o f working class and impov ished African Am ericans-on w fare, health care, urban renewal, el -C linton ’s victory changes little nothing.
