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D ecembi r 4, 1996 • Tm P okii and O bserver
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Attention Readers!
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Send your letters to the Editor to:
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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).
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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.