Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (May 14, 1997)
•♦ v K V . P age A2 M ay Attention Readers! 14, 1997 • T he P ortland O bserver RAINBOW PUSH 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 appreci ated. We take criticism well! Get your powerful pens out NOW and address your letters to: Editor, Reader Response. I’ O. Bux 3137,1’vrtlaud. OR i»72W. C O A L IT IO N (L lje | J o r t l a n i » © b s e r u e r Deja Vu All Over Again (USPS 959-680) Established in 1970 Charles Washington Publisher Mark Washington Distsribution Manager Danny Bell, Yvonne Lerch Account Executives Larry J. Jackson, Sr. Director o f Operations Paul Neul'eldt Jim Bennett Production & GraphicDesign Paratrooper Bush must have been laughing to himself, as 1,000 media “points o f I ight" I it up the City o f Brotherly love. As current and former presidents painted over graffiti - what are these guys running for. mayor?- it was, in Yogi Berra's immortal words, deja vu all overagain. I here is not hi ng wrong with volunteerism - it isessential to a healthy, democratic society. But it is as clear as day to us that it is a supplement - not a substitute - for public programs, for government assistance and funding, fortheenforcem entofcivil rights laws, forthe reconstruction o f urban America. George Bush proposed 1,000 points o f light because he didn't want to pay for concentrated government action against poverty, rac ism, and urban decline. Powell and Clinton should have know better. After all, did General Powell win the Gulf War with unpaid, untrained, part-time volunteers? And didn't president Clinton just dedicate FD R's memorial, the man who invented WPA, C'CC. SSI, and the New Deal? (Isn't politics great? Clinton gets to praise FDR, after dynamiting the social safety net Roosevelt created...) It's time for the 2nd Clinton Administration to turn the lights back on in the White House. Let’s consider one example, civil rights: *there is more focus on balancing the budget than on balancing opportunity; Gary Ann Taylor Business Manager Michael Leighton Copy Editor Contributing Writers: Professor McKinley Burt, Lee Perlman, Neal Hcilpern, 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 :0 0 pm Ads: Monday, 12:00pm POSTM ASTER: Send Address Changes To: Portland Observer, P.O. Box 3137, Portland, OR 97208. Periodicals postage paid 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 self 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 THE PORTLAND OBSERVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITH OUT PERMISSION IS PROHIBITED The 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. S ubscribe to p r s p e c t i v e s Wrapping it up, if th at’s possible by P rofessor M c K inley B urt don't know why I should find it difficult to wind up our recent excursion into 'new ' entrepreneurial territory (Busi pess Information You Can Trust,’’ four parts). But, then, I’ve always had that ‘could-have-done-more’ feel ing about aii my projects, no matter how successful. In the case at hand, I’ve been dealing with a tried and true Commercial data base, and the mode o f interpretation for either the new or veteran business person has equally well proven to be effective in either my university teaching experience or in on-the-job corporate mentoring. What is new, of course, is my structuring of these stand-alone federal and state data bases into an integrated format that enables the entrepreneur to gain fresh insights. The commentary of Portland Observer readers indicates that this approach does indeed work very well; this placing of possibly unconnected business, occupations, machines, materials, services and commercial organizations, machines, materials, services and commercial organiza tions into new and revealing relationships. And as a reader remarks, “ I se ‘for-profit’ possibilities of all kinds in other than those ‘commercial organizations’. They all have certain stan dard and basic needs.” (Gale’s Encyclopedia of Associations). And, by the same token, another reader says he used the Gale’s manual in the same manner that I did in setting up Union Avenue Finance Company for the used car dealers. “I hear what you’re saying. If it worked back then, it will work now, because nothing has changed about how people come together to advance a common interest. I contacted a commercial organization formed by firms engaged in my area of interest— but where there were not how-to books’ or college courses.” The reader went on to detail that just as I had done a number ofyears ago, he obtained all the tools-of-the-trade, as if it were; accounting, office and tax forms specific to the particular enterprise. And then description o f support materials and functions relating to I $ o r ti a n b ® b » m ie r The Portland Observer can be sent directly to your home for only $30.00 per year. Please f ill out. enclose check or money order, and m ail to: T he e *forthe first time since Eisenhower, no civil rights liaison sits in the White House inner circle; "■there is currently no Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights; *the EEOC is looking at a backlog of 100,000 cases; *the Office o f Contract Compliance is frozen in place; *and with Prop. 209, Pete Wilson has launched what is essentially a states' rights challenge to the Federal government, with no serious response from the Clinton/Gore Administration. W ilson's challenge has gone largely unanswered by the Feds. Dr. King did not give his life marching for unstaffed, unenforced, unfunded mandates. He did not win the Nobel Peace Prize fighting on behalf o f volunteerism, critical as it was to the success o f his own movement. He kept his eyes on the prize. He fought forcivil rights. Hedemanded new public laws, with tough enforcement. He demanded real funding, to equalize centuries of segregation and slavery. He demanded new Federal programs and agenc ies, with staff and support adequate to the task o f promoting equal opportunity. He demanded a one big tent America, with equal opportunity and equal access for all. With all the sleepwalking at the White House these days, they’ve forgotten his dream. S ubscriptions P ortland O bserver ; PO B ox 3137 P ortland , O regon 97208 Name:___________ __________________________________________ Address: _______________________________________ City, State:_______________________________ _________________ Zip-Code:________ _________________________________________ T hank Yot F or R eading T he P ortland O bserver b etter 'Ua TStie (SCditor Send your letters to the Editor to: Editor, PO Box 3137, Portland, OR 97208 This Way for Black Empowerment marketing, advertising, personnel, training, continuing education, equip ment, materials shipping, etc.—even invitations to visit, to get hands-on orientation. Nothing changes but the name of the game. I think it obvious here that good communication skills are an invaluable help once you’ve learned ‘ where- its-at’. I always impressed this in my students as a key skill, without which all else may fall apart—no matter how gifted and capable one might be in other areas. Work at it! Another reader says “ I like your approach— where you craft a real-time curriculum out of the realities o f the world around us; somehow it’s academic and experience-based at the same time, and it works.” Well, thank you dear, kind reader, I try. And another thing, your public library is a gold mine. I’ve gotten so much there and have worked for major corporate owners who got all academics there. I would not close this business series without emphasizing that even when I recite my experiences in large corporate enterprises, part of me is remembering earlier experiences at much smaller enterprise— and the many times of doing my own thing in the world of commerce, car wash, laundromats, short-haul, real estate, public accountant, advertising spe cialties, you name it. My point being, there is a lot to be found out about small business while working for big business, they contract and otherwise interface with the smaller enterprises— right down to the one-person shop. Obviously, by the same token, that individual (or small partnership) entrepreneur enjoys a similar learning experience suitable for growth and expansion if so desired. School is going on all around you everyday and in every way. Don’t drop out. Well, that wraps it up, for this time only. By Dr. Lenora Fulani Malcolm X: People’s Philosopher There is much talk in liberal circles nowadays about the need for a new public philosophy, the need to reshape how we, as Americans, talk about, think about and enact social policy. I agree with the concern expressed by many of these liberal intellectuals. The problem is that they have nothing to recommend. Often these conversations — on talk shows or in magazine “think" pieces — focus on how liberalism abandoned its vision of humanism, stopped addressing moral issues and left a vacuum into which the right wing has moved. This is, of course, true But the liberals have been mak ing this pint for close to 20 years. They want to lament the lack of a progressive vision But they don’t seem to want to do anything about it. They view a new public philoso phy as something waiting to be dis covered, rather than something that must be created. I reflect on this state of affairs as we get ready to mark what would have been M alcolm X’s 72nd birth day on May 19 Some of Malcolm's most brilliant and cutting remarks come to my mind. “You put the Democrats first, but the Democrats put you last.” True enough in 1964, when he said it. But shockingly accurate as a predication of where we, as Black people, have come to more than 30 years later This ap pears nowhere in the liberals' con temporary analysis of the decline of progressivism and humanism. That remark about the Demo cratic Party’s disregard for Black interests was part of his brilliant and famous speech "the Ballot or the Bullet,” in which he described how the choices for Black America had come down to effective elec toral political power or violence. Today, we have virtually no politi cal power. And we have uncondoned violence The "bullet” did not turn out to be part of an armed political revolution, but rather the violent destruction that Black people — in desperation and deprivation — often inflict upon one another. The pow erlessness of Black America is also unmentioned in the liberals’ call for a new public philosophy. I believe that America needs a public philosophy that not only takes into account the state of Black America, but which is co-created by Black America, together with the millions of white Americans who have come to believe that they have been putting the two parties and the government first, but the two par ties and the government now put them last. If there is to be a new public philosophy. Black and white America will build it in the context of building a new political party and new political culture that promotes democracy and development for all Justice Denied: Police rutality And Us C ivil R ig h ts J o u rn a l B> B ernice P owell J ackson In New York City two Hispanic men are killed when they are shot from behind 28 tim es and another Hispanic man is choked to death after his football hits a police car. In Pittsburgh an African Am erican businessm an is choked to death after being stopped for a traffic violation. A St. Petersburg FI African American m otorist is shot to death also after a traffic stop. A New Haven CT African Am erican man suffers the same fate. In each case the killing occurred w hile the men were in police custody or in the course o f a police actions. These are ju st a few o f the stories which were heard at the N ational Em ergency Conference on Police Brutality held in New York City recently. Sponsored by the C enter for Constitutional Rights, this conference brought together people who had experi enced police brutality from across the nation, including Kentucky, G eorgia, O hio, Florida, New York, and New Jersey. Indeed, crim inal ju stice is the issue which seem s to show the greatest racial divide in this nation. Most people o f color would characterize the system as the crim inal injustice system and most European A m ericans would not. A New York Times colum nist recently w rote how, in the course o f writing a book, he has asked African A m erican men across the nation whether they have ever been hassled by police. Most o f them can tell a story o f being stopped in a store or in their car while driving in a white neighbor hood. Som e may have been questioned sim ply because they were at a phone booth or in a mall. It d o e sn 't m atter whether they are w ell-dressed or what their occupation. Even off-duty or plain clothes police officers have been stopped, or occasionally even shot w hile on duty. Few European Am erican men have had this < experience. Not only are hundreds, perhaps thousands o f people of color victim s o f police brutality every year, but they seldom find justice in the courts. Take the case o f Johnny Gam m age, an African Am erican businessm an and the cousin o f Pittsburgh Steelers player Ray Seals. Mr. G am m age was choked to death after a routine traffic stop outside Pittsburgh in 1995. Last month the judge in the case dism issed charges against the police officers accused in his killing, saying that prosecutors unfairly singled them out. Or take the case o f Anthony Baez, the young New Yorker who was choked by police after his football hit a patrol car. The officer accused in his m urder was acquitted o f all charges in a non-jury trial. It is im portant to note that while police brutality disproportion ately impacts com m unities o f color that the num ber o f European A m erican victim s is growing. A recent Montel W illiam s show focused on white victim s, for instance. And it is also important to note that while m o sto fth e police officers are European American, there are officers o f color who occasionally have been found to be violent. Finally it should be noted that brutality isn o tju st found in police officers It is also present in corrections officers, imm igration officers and others in the crim inal justice system . And its victim s are also women, often those who are incarcerated. What are the reasons for the increase in police brutality cases and what can we do about it? Next week I will turn to those issues. i i
