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T hank Y ou F or R eading T he P ortland O bserver
The Du Bois Legacy
in B eknk i P owell J ac kson
\ t ♦ e know him as a
l l I scholar, intellectu al
and philosopher. He
graduated from
Fisk in 18 8 8 and in 1895, after
also studying in Europe, be
came the first African Ameri
can to receive a doctorate from
Harvard.
He ta u g h t
at
Wilberforce University and At
lanta University.
We know him as a prolific and
powerful writer. He was the author
of a book in 1903 that is often still
quoted from today, nearly a cen
tury later It was called The Souls
o f Black Folk and predicted that
the problem of the 20th century
would be the color line It delved
into the duality, the double con
sciousness. which all black Ameri
cans must face — the fact that we
are African and American and what
that means It examined black life
- from the role o f religion in the
African American community to
the living conditions most black
found them selves in. His 1935
work. Black Reconstruction, was
monumental and even at his death
at age 93. he was working on a
massive undertaking still unfin
ished. The Encyclopedia Africana.
We know him as a thinker who
believed that black people must be
given the chance to complete intel
lectually and that those who could
lead their people had an obligation
to do so. So he developed the no
tion of the ‘Talented Tenth " who
would be the leaders o f the race.
This idea was in direct conflict
with Booker T. W ashington, who
advised black folks to cast down
their buckets where they were and
t
7 .'
who urged vocational training for
black Americans. That dialectic —
those two trains o f thought — are
still a part o f the dialogue in the
African American community to
day.
We know him as an social activist
and champion for the rights o f op
pressed people everyw here A
founder of the Niagara Movement in
1905 which became the National
Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, he was a visionary
who also became the editor o f that
organization s important magazine.
Crisis. His dedication to fighting
oppression eventually led him to
socialism and then to communism.
For these social positions and
his opposition to nuclear weapons,
the U S. government made him into
a pariah and refused to grant him a
passport to travel outside the coun
try. Only after a long legal battle
did he receive one in 1958 and he
traveled to China and Russia at the
age o f 90.
He name was William Edward
Burghardt DuBois. He was a giant
among men and women o f all time.
I knew all o f that about him
before I visited Ghana a few weeks
ago. What I did not know was that
W E B DuBois was so much more
than that. He was bigger than we
have been allowed to see him. He
was an African American in the
true sense o f the duality o f that
term, he was a citizen of the world
When you visit DuBois- home in
Accra, where he lived his final days
and where he is buried, you under
stand how important he was to the
Pan Africanist movement and to
the thinking o f the great African
leaders.
1
1
\ \
L
( d je P o r t l a n d
J
or three days this week,
a group of educators,
ministers, elected offi
cials, judges, parents, civil rights
leaders, radio & TV personal
ties, school superintendents,
teachers, parents, and policy
makers met in Chicago to dis
cuss the successes and failures
of America's system of urban
education.
U S. Education Secretary Rich
ard Riley; “Savage Inequalities”
author Jonathan Kozol; NEA Presi
dent Robert Chase, and Ron Glass ot
the AFT; Executive Director of the
C ouncil of G reat City S chools
Michael Casserly; the school super
intendents of Chicago, O akland,
Baltimore, & Atlanta; Kennedy-
King Community College President
Dr. Wayne Watson; Senators Carol
Moseley-Braun and Tom Harkin;
Representatives Jesse Jackson, Jr.,
Richard Gephardt, Maxine Waters,
and Bobby R ush; Dr B arbara
Sizemore along with many others-
- were called together by CEF& Rev
erend Jackson to "move the national
debate from ebonies to the state of
emergency in education.”
As Rev. Jackson summed it up;
"There needs to be a national d e
fense plan for the education of our
children We must rebuild this
country's crumbling infrastructure,
and close the gap betw een our
wealthiest schools and our poorest
ones. A few of our children are go-
O bserver
Editorial articles do not necessarily
reflect or represent the views oj
8
! i
and
C 0 h s e rn e r
Yale, Not Jail
ing to Yale, while too many are
ending up in jail We must change
our direction."
To that end, the conference con
cluded with a 10-point program for
equal opportunity in education, to
achieve the American Dream:
(1) We need to rebuild our schools
to create the facilities infrastructure
that has the capability to join the
com puter age. As Senator Carol
M oseley Braun has persistently
pointed out, many of out school,
urban and rural, have crumbling
infrastructure. They need wiring sim
ply to plug in a computer, let alone
connect to the Internet. But to wire
these schools, you must first go
through walls of lead paint and as
bestos. Many of our schools have
leaking roofs, lack heat and sanitary
bathrooms, and are overcrowded.
(2) We affirm the need for higher
academic standards, sound manage
ment, and accountability.
(3) We need a strong emphasis in
the home, church, school, and mass
media on character educations. Ethi -
cal standards are the key to our
growth as a nation.
(4) Greater parental responsibility
and involvement, in partnership with
our schools, are needed to support the
education of our children. Parents
with jobs or an economic livelihood
are key to this partnership We plan to
mobilize 2 million parents (40,(XX)
parents in 50 cities) and 5.(XX) minis
ters and judges to reclaim our youth.
(5) We need Superintendent and
Chief Executive Officer leadership
»that is empowered to achieve these
goals.
(6) We need mandatory training
for public school teachers in their
subject areas, and an increased sal
ary and benefit base that lends itself
to more professionalism, account
ability, and stability am ong our
teacher workforce.
(7) Our youth must be taught the
skills of survival and success. They
must have a grasp ol the economic
system, to allow them to effectively
pursue jobs and create wealth. Our
youth must be taught to market,
barter, sell, and tra d e -to gain the
entrepreneurial skills that allow them
to apply economic principles and
make money legally.
(8) Our children need health care
and early childhood education pro
grams. Studies demonstrate the cor
relation between physical and men
tal well being. Head Start opportu
nities, and the ability to learn.
(9) In a world where everyone is
a neighbor-one button away on the
Internet multi lingual education is
essential
(10) We encourage the m ed ia-a
primary factor in the development
of the minds and values o f our chil
dren -to stop the demeaning stereo
types that unfortunately shape the
visions of our children’s future. By
age 15 our youth have:
• seen ¡8,000 hours o f televi
sion;
• listened to 22,000 hours o f ra
dio; ,
• seen one quarter o f a million
conflicts resolved by killings;
• spent 11,000 hours in school;
and,
• spent less than 3,000 hours in
church.
Media has, quantitatively, more
access to the minds of our youth, and
a qualitatively greater impact than
churches and schools combined.
White corporation, Black worker
bv
Ei gene R ashad
onflict between black
workers and the corpo
ration they work for is
nothing new. Texaco Inc., Shell
Oil, and Avis, are but a few com
panies facing diversity issues.
The question becomes what can
be done to reduce friction between
minority employees and their em
ployers. One Avenue more com pa
nies are taking is to hire a diversity
trainer. A consultant conducts day
or week long sessions.
These seminars cover everything
from racism to differences based on
cultural and economic background.
But too many companies rather than
solve the problem, treat the sym p
tom. Joy DeGruy-Leary meets the
challenge companies face with m i
nority workers through an unortho
dox teaching method.
“ Some companies view diversity
like parsley on a plate—nutritious
but few o f us eat it. This has to
change,” she said. Among the issues
that come up is her sessions are:
• the company culture needs to be
more inclusive o f its employee base
• the lack o f or infrequency o f mi
norities promoted to senior man
agement positions.
This is the group, DeGruy-Leary
says, sets the tone and creates the
culture for the company.
She is an expert in the field o f
diversity training. She holds a bach
elor o f science degree in com m uni
cation, a m aster’s degree in social
work, and a m aster’s degree in psy
chology.
Her work has taken her to hun
dreds o f companies, working with
Portland Police officers, employees
at Nordstrom and Liberty Insurance,
and c o m p a n ie s th ro u g h o u t the
United States, Canada, and South
ern Africa.
So how does she do it? Perhaps
the best way to understand the present
is to understand the past.
She teaches how the ancestors
and their struggles to survive cre
ated a set o f values that persist to this
day. The following example shows
DeGruy-Leary at work with a group
o f employees and their managers.
THE SET UP
It’s a typical Monday morning.
An Hispanic secretary is upset be
cause her boss sped by her desk
without a greeting. A slight? De
pends on a person’s temperament,
one might say. DeGruy-Leary has
this take. “The boss is operating
from a"m an toobject value system,"
while the offended secretary works
from a “man to relationship" value
system,” she said. So how does the
problem get solved?
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
One o f the tools she uses is the
research done by Dr. Edwin Nichols,
a former researcher and author of
“ Prehistoric A griculture." In her
«essions she explains value systems
people bring to the workplace that
were worked out some 5,000 to 8,000
years ago. The time was the end of
the Ice Age when small groups o f
people roamed cold lands o f north
ern and eastern Europe. These no
madic groups carved out an exist
ence with tenacity and fierce plan
ning.
They were glacial hunters and
used prehistoric agriculture systems
such as calculating when the nine-
month winter ended and the three
month planting season began.
The highest value was “man to
object because a prem ium was placed
on accurate counting and measur
ing. This is extremely impor.ant for
people who live in rigid cold cli
mates with short planting seasons
and long winters.
You Don’t Work, You C an’t Fat
Knowing the time for planting
became deeply rooted in the psyche
and culture o f European people.
Hence today popular adages like “a
penny saved is a penny earned.”
This can be attributed to what these
people worked out thousands o f years
ago. For people who have this at the
base o f their thinking “ It’s not per
sonal,” D eG ruy-Leary said, “ its
about survival.”
FEED THE VILLAGE
On the other hand people of color
typically operate from a "man to
relationship” model. That’s because
they come from tropical climates
which meant a longer and predict
able planting season.
The chess game with nature is not
nearly as severe. Food is more plen
tiful in warmer parts o f the planet.
So more time was spent nurturing
kinship relationships. Folks tended
to be more stationary, rather than
roaming. Building community was
emphasized Filings like child rear
ing and social organization was
easier. This may explain why the
secretary in the earlier exam ple
needed positive feed back from her
boss. He was fixed on the bottom
line, get the job done, not much time
to waste.
Stand up today, tomorrow is too late
Letter to the Editor:
Curfews, mandatory sentencing,
welfare reform, gang violence, youth
on youth crime, drug houses in the
community, babies having babies,
homeless children (street children)
and the list goes on What is really
going on in America? In every city,
both large and small, across America
all you need to do is pick up the
morning paper and the newspaper
reads the same.
The ever increasing crime statis
tics across the country are indeed
alarming. Truly, people are afraid to
leave their homes for fear of being
hurt or killed by a stray bullet or
having their property for which they
have struggled so hard to obtain
stolen. But, the answers to the prob
lem are even more alarming.
The political establishment is say
ing tougher laws are the answer but,
are they? Let us take a serious look at
what is being proposed Curfews for
the teenagers seem to be at the fore
front of the agenda This supposedly
will curtail the gang violence and
youth on youth crime that is affect
ing our society However, the perpe
trators which commit these crimes
would not honor a curfew anyway.
The only persons which will be af
fected will be the youth which are
attempting to live an upright lifestyle
and obey the law So. what if the
curfew fails, what next? Will we
resort to institutionalizing all the
offenders or maybe even penalizing
the parents for allowing their chil
dren to be caught out on the streets
after their curfew?
Penalizing parents which are al
ready low income and not able to
make ends meet as a family. Let us
look at mandatory sentencing, a law
that is already being enforced. This
is surely an answer to the problem. It
will take all of the gang members
and juvenile offenders off the streets
for a minimum o f five years. Lock
ing them away in adult institutions
with hardened criminals will allevi
ate society’s ills. This will teach
them a valuable lesson that they
need to learn; when problems seem
too big to handle, turn your back on
the problem and it will disappear
(out o f sight, out o f mind, right). In
doing this, has society actually solved
the problem which it (society) for
hundreds o f years helped to create?
On the other hand, who has the
largest percentage o f juvenile offend
ers neatly locked away from society?'
What happens if this doesn't work?
Maybe mandatory life sentencing or
even mandatory death sentences are
the answers to society’s ills.
Next, we will look at another one
o f the problems that society is faced
with, babies having babies. The po
litical establishm ent proposes to
solve this problem by welfare re
form. Yes, I must agree that some
thing must be done about the bil
lions o f tax dollars being spent on
taking care o f unwed mothers and
their illegitimate children but, must
we starve these children and deny
them proper medical attention just
to prove a point. Did the children
ask to be bom? Are there really
enough jobs to employ every mother
on welfare? Maybe forced abortion
is an alternative to illegitimacy.
Afterall, low income persons don’t
need children right? Certainly, that
would cost taxpayers less money, or
will it?
It seems as though we, as a society,
are looking for a quick cure to a
problem that goes much deeper than
we care to go. We will be treating the
symptoms of the problems, but, what
about the problems themselves. I he
answers are not in reforms, manda
tory prison sentencing or curfews but,
the answer is pure and simple; com
munity involvement “A community
involved in the rearingofthe children
is a community which raises a quality
o f children that it an be proud of.”
Time is out for A merica’s Black
citizens to look to the political estab
lishment to solve their problems.
Afterall, just look at the Federal
G overnm ent's involvement in drugs
entering into the Black community.
What about the senseless shootings
and attacks on our young men by our
so called law enforcement officers.
How can a society that breeds preju
dice. distrust, hatred and overall dis
contentment for its citizens o f color
be expected to lend a helping hand to
the same youth which it has aided in
corrupting? People, correct yourown
problems. Stop expecting the gov
ernment and the status quo to help
you raise intelligent, strong, inde
pendent, educated young people
Stop looking for a handout.
Lome together as the strong com
munity that you are and raise and
educate your own children. Lend a
helping hand to one another. We, as
a strong Black community, have the
skills, knowledge and wisdom within
our com m unities to produce the
young men and women that will
make us proud as a people. The laws
b ein g in tro d u c e d to a lle v ia te
soc lety' s i I Is are directed at our young
people. We must stop the impending
genocide o f our young people by
coming together as one and stand
ing up for our young people. Society
will continue to have it’s ills. There
will always be those who sill con
tinue to point a crooked finger at
others and blamethem fortheir prob
lems But, if the Black community
will take care o f it's problems and
begin to raise competent, respectful,
law abiding young people, that
crooked finger can only point back
at themselves This is a tall order to
fill and I must admit a difficult one
If we stand together as a community
of one, treat each young person the
way we desire for our own children
to be treated, it is a task that can be
accomplished
Ms. B. Jackson,
Northeast Portland Resident