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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (April 9, 1997)
P age A2 A prii . 9, 1997 • T he P orti and O bserver Editorial articles do not necessarily reflect or represent the views o f 7C/1JAL R jilibd W (Ttjc |JortIanh ©hsrruer now 29 years since they” took Dr. King away from us. 29 years since his leadership was stolen away from the progressive move ment. 29 years since the day an assassin’s bullet changed the course of history. (The ^îartlanh ® bsm w r | 31 (USPS 959-680) Established in 1970 Mark Washington Charles Washington Publisher & Editor Distsribution Manager Gary Ann Taylor Business Manager Larry J Jackson, Sr. Director o f Operation Gary Washington Paul Neufeldt Public Relations Production & Design Contributing Writers: Professor McKinley Burt, Lee Perlman, Neal Heilpern, Eugene Rashad 4747 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Portland, Oregon 97211 503-288-0033 • Fax 503-288-0015 Email: Pdxobserv@aol.com Deadline for all submitted materials: Articles:Friday, 5:00 pm Ads: Monday, 12:00pm POSTMASTER: Send Address Changes To: Portland Observer, P.O. Box 3137, Portland, OR 97208. Periodicals postage paid at Portland, Oregon. Subscriptions: $50.00 per year The Portland Observer welcomes freelance submissions. Manu scripts and photographs should be clearly labeled and will be returned 11 accompanied by a sel (addressed envelope. All created design display ads become the sole property of the newspaper and cannot be used in other publications or personal usage without the written consent of the general manager, unless the client has purchased the composition of such ad. © 1996 I HE PORTLAND OBSERVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITH OUT PERMISSION IS PROHIBITED. I'he Portland Observer--Oregon’s Oldest Multicultural Publica tion- is a member of 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. SUBSCRIBE TO (Ebr $nrtlanb ©hscruer (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 or i land O bserver ; PO B ox P or i land , O regon 97208 3137 Name: + __ _ . -------- ----------- Address:__________________ '_______________________________ - City, State: ______________________________________ _______ Z i p-Code: __ _____________________________________________ — T h an k Yot F or R eading T he P ortland O bserver Don’t Abandon Oregon’s Schools! Y our h ig h blood PRESSURE MEDICATION IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE THINGS YOU LOVE AND THE THINGS YOU’LL MISS. I f you 're not treating your high blood pressure every day, you 're not treating it right. For more inform ation on high blood pressure, call 1.800.57S.W E L L National High Bl««*i Prewire Education Program N atio n a l H e a rt, Lung, A and Klootl Institute Since 1992, Oregon schools have suffered service cuts equiva lent to over $230 million. This has meant increased class sizes, shortages of materials, deferred maintenance, and other damage to Oregon’s children’s education and future. That is why The Coa lition for School Funding Now! was organized to work for equi table and adequate funding for Oregon's K-12 public schools. The minimum necessary to achieve that goal for the 1997-99 biennium is $5.75 billion: $4.012 billion from the state plus $1.738 billion in local revenues. That works out to an annual per pupil figure of $4.656 (ADMw). This figure also represents the removal from the formula of $272 million in ESD funding and $26.1 million in Portland PERS costs. One of the most important prin ciples of the Coalition is that all Oregon children deserve a decent education. School funding that funds some schools at the expense of others is no solution. Pitting one Oregon child against another is not only bad policy - it is wrong. Unfortunately, that is just what thecurrent legislative school fund ing proposals do. We have returned to the State Capitol to make three key points to legislators on school funding, and to ask that you promise not to abandon Oregon’s schools. Point#l: Don’t Rush to Pass the “Cut the Schools Budget” Point#2: Dedicate All Addi tional May Forecast Revenues to K-12 Schools Point#3: The Money is There to Get to $5.75 Billion - Where is the Will? — The Coalition fo r School Fund ing Now! Think of it-M artin Luther King. Jr., would still be only 68 years old. Younger than Reagan. Youngerthan I )ole. The assassin’s bullet took away three decades of his voice, his wis dom, his energy. When the histori ans look back on America in the second half of this century, one of the conclusions they will have to draw is that the right wing took power at least in part because our progressive leadership was gunned down--in November of ’63, and in April and June of ’68. The Rainbow/PUSH Public Policy Institute is meeting in Memphis this week, to honor the life of Dr. King. Our goal is to consider the lessons of his life, as we reconstruct our vision and our politics for the 21st century. We remember that Dr. King was an apostle of nonviolence, a prophet of social change, a radical. We remember that Dr. King died as he struggled side-by-side with p e r N A T IO N A L M IA C O A L IT IO N Taking Stock Memories of Memphis garbage workers, organizing a union. We know him as a man of peace, who look on a president and an FBI, trying to end a war. We believe Dr. King was killed not because he was a “dreamer,” but—as Reverend Jackson always reminds us-because he was "a drum major for justice.” We do not yet know who killed him, really. So, we support the King family in their quest for a new trial for James Earl Ray. It is a lasting stain upon our nation that so many questions about his death remain unanswered. We understand that the Lorraine Motel is the place where the mo mentum shifted from our side of history to the right-wing version. And though we have had our victo s p e ries in the hard days and nights since April 4, 1968—including the Jack- son campaigns of ’84 and ‘88—we have yet to regain the initiative. We understand that Dr. King was a strong believer in Jesus as an advo cate for "the least of these;” in the promise of America; and in the right to vote for change. As he wrote in the famous letter he composed in his jail cell in Bir mingham: "One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality stand ing up for the best in the American dream and the most sacred values in the Judeo-Christian heritage, and thusly, carrying our whole nation back to those great wells of democ racy which were dug deep by the e t founding fathers.” They did not kill our freedom and justice movement when they assas sinated Dr King, but they certainly did set it back some. We miss him still Our mission is to continue his struggle, until his dream becomes reality. i Reverend Jackson last week led a group o f 30 stockholders into the R.R Donnelly & Sons Company board meeting while 300 pickets marched outside. The action was in support o f the $500 million class action law suit filed on behalf of more than 600 Black Donnelly work ers. "Racism, ageism, and sexism must end,” Jackson said. “ We in tend to stand up and fight back. From LaSalle Street to Wall Street, our presence will be felt.” The picket line was set up as part of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition’s Wall Street Project, which has just opened its office. The project will establish a rating system for corpo rate responsibility, which will in clude company policies towards Af rican American employees, Hispanic and female employees, stockhold ers, vendors, consumers, and pen sion funds. r e S Doing Small Business On A Small Planet ’ve done everything but ‘shrink the kids’, right? O" Well, not quite. It is true th a t I made a pitch for Schumacher's “Small Is Beauti ful" and that I later cited a "Small lending” trend to match. But now it is time to kick back and reflect. What next? 31 r Not for long, mind you, for several dark horses’ are coming up fast on the outside—no pun intended, that’s a horseracing metaphor. I intimated the possibility at close of my article of March 26, “..will the powerful eco nomic giants created by the buyouts and urge-to-merge move quickly to sop up any commerce they may have m issed?” Y ou may find that the ‘Amal gamated International Corp.' also has discovered that your idea for door-to- door deliveries is very profitable. While you’re idling your motor at the starting line for the great new ‘entrepreneurship 500’-visualizing a beautiful new web page that Michelangelo, himself would have been proud of, or pricing that IPO (Initial Public Offering)—consider the follow ing before you move out of yourbasement office and warehouse. First off, there is a ‘business in form ation g lu t’ the likes of which has not been seen since the Califor nia gold strike of ’49, or the Yukon Gold Rush. Keep in mind that in both these cases those who reaped the big steady stream of profits—and never got cold, hungry, or dirty— were the ‘Information Entrepre neurs’, where to find it, how to pan it, where to sell it (“and oh, by the way, we were a full service outfit, supplies, equipment ant repairs”). Believe me, nothing has changed, this century or this year, except for the prices, options or the size and glitz of the seminars. When I was a naive young accountant many years ago, I thought I needed all the pre- mier information services available in order to be competitive. I ended up with both Prentice hall and Com- merceClearing House Tax Services- -and lost six hours a week of produc- in tive time trying to ,’ roi essor keep up with the M( KIM.EV almost daily ar Bl Rl rival o f “Critical” loose leaf insert sheets. Thanks to many years of experi ence in business and industry, in cluding office management and sys tems design, I’ve been able to visit several friends with home offices (or offices away from home) who, though surrounded by computers, etc., are victims of the same trap. Chagrined is hardly the word for it as I point out that yes, their system capacity and capabilities have seen a dramatic increase over the short time that I visiting. But for whose benefit? What has happened, they soon real ize, is that ‘their’ system has ex- panded to accomodate the business of ‘others'. A time-wasting mass of new files, bulletin boards, objects, data paths, instructions, commands, etc. Market persons will love you. Such data labyrinths are a reflec tion of all the solicited and unsolicited inputs one drowns in as soon as it is even hinted that a new enterprise is underway. And a computer assisted enterprise is just as susceptible to these disinformation onslaughts I suf fered at the hands of those tax service companies. Input and output along the Byzantine convolutions of ever- evolving information corridors slyly steals time that would better be used in actual marketing and in intelligent networking. “The Medium Is The Message’, Marshall McLuhan’s truism, has more meaning that ever, but the small business person has more than an electronic Gutenberg Galaxy’ to worry about. Next week we will explore more of the new commercial landscape. Civil Rights Journal. Honoring Paul Robeson by B ernice P owell jackson pril 8 was the 100th an- niversary of the birth of Paul Robeson, another of our nation’s nearly-unknown heroes. Now there is a way to help educate many Americans about this American Renais sance man and to honor him at the same time. Despite great obstacles and facing much racial prejudice, Paul Robeson entered Rutgers University in New Jersey in 1915 and graduated|s a Phi Beta Kappa scholar and an A Il-Ameri can football player for two consecu tive years. He was the second African American to graduate from Colum bia University Law School. But Paul Robeson was more than a scholar and athlete. As an actor, his portrayal of Othello on Broadway re ceived great acclaim. His deep bass voice singing folk songs and spiritu als such as “Old Man River” was known around the world. He was beloved in Russia, India, England and Japan and eastern Europe be cause he sang the songs of the peoples of the world in the language of those people and touched their hearts. For thirty years, from World War I until after World War II, Robeson’s ex traordinary achievements kept him in the world spotlight. But Paul Robeson was more that an outstanding scholar, athlete and performer. Paul Robeson was a man deeply committed to the struggle for justice and peace in the world. Robeson, however, paid a high price for his outspokenness against racism and on behalf of peace. Dur ing the 1950’s he found himself a target of Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American ActivitiesCom- mittee, which declared almost any one a “communist” who espoused views which they disagreed with. Robeson was never charged with a crime and never arrested or put on trial. But Robeson’s love of the Rus sian people and their culture and his deeply-felt commitment to peace made him a natural target. Branded a communist, Robeson found it impossible to get work any where in the U.S. and he was denied a passport. He was not even allowed to leave the country for travel not requiring a passport-to Canada, the West Indies and Mexico. All doors to stage, screen, concert hall, radio. TV and recording studio were locked to him. Paul Robeson was a man who bowed to no one. When summoned before the House Un-American Ac tivities Committee and asked why, if he liked Russia so much, he had not stayed there, Robeson replied, “Be cause my father was a slave and my people died to build this country and I’m going to stay right here and have a part of it, just like you. And no fascist-minded people like you will drive me from it. Is that clear?” Because of his stand against the Congressional witch hunt, Robeson became a “persona non grata” and his name is almost unknown to young people. But his is a name, his is a voice, both singing and speaking, that the world needs to remember. This Way for Black Empowerment: The End of Mobutu Its I) k . 1. 1 N O R \ El I \N I ^7^ I years after the end of the Cold War, people in the so-called Third World-where the superpowers fought most of their battles by proxy-are still digging them selves out of the rubble. In most of these “hot spots” the precarious path to peace, rule of law, and democracy has been made bit terly difficult by these countries’ devastated infrastructures, fractured societies, and by the failure of the U.S. government to support democ racy with the same enthusiasm (and money) with which it “fought com munism". But lately there have been signs that the ordinary people in these countries have had enough of the transition to democracy. They want democracy now. Last week’s electoral victory in El Salvador by a democratic coalition opposing the fascist-leaning ARENA Party is one hopeful example. The imminent demise of the Mobutu dictatorship in Zaire is another. With Laurent Desire Kabila’s rebel forces in control of eastern Zaire—and extending their control over new territory each day-the end of President Mobutu Sese Seko's 3 1 year reign of terror is no longer in question. The question being dis cussed in Zaire's nervous capital city, Kinshasa, these days is this: will the cancer-stricken President- for-Life die first, or live long enough to see himself overthrown by the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation o f C ongo-Zaire (ADFL)? Many Kinshasa residents are holding out for the latter sce nario, and make no effort to hide their pro-Kabila sentiment, even as Mobutu's security forces take down their names. Making a virtue of necessity, many in the U.S. foreign policy establish ment are beginning to say that the ADFL’s blitz against Mobutu's thug- gish and sorry excuse for any army is a “welcome” development. Not the whole foreign policy establishment, by any means. Those still ensconced in the State Department must stifle themselves and hang tough with Mobutu, since that agency’s Africa policy runs on automatic, and hasn't been adjusted since the 1980’s “Congo Crisis.” But many influential organizations and individuals are now releasing eloquent statements bout “Mobutuist tyranny.” This month of April marks seven years since the beginning of Zaire’s “ dem ocratic tran sitio n ” , when Mobutu was scared enough by the collapse of the Berlin Wall to permit some limited political freedoms to his people. Zairians rushed into this narrow opening and en larged it. Two years after Mobutu’s 1990 announce ment that he would “permit” two additional parties to exist in addi tion to his ruling party, Zairians had forced the convening of a 2800 del egate Sovereign National Confer ence, the goal of which was none other than the drafting of a new constitution, the formation of a new transitional government, and the election of a new transitional parlia ment, all with the mandate o f guid ing the country to free elections by 1994. The “war” in Zaire did not start with Kabila's uprising last fall; riv ers of blood have been shed for years by Zaire’s brave
