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The W o rs t (III)
This town has been full o f praise for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, much of
it from politicians who voted last year to butcher Aid to Families with
Dependent Children, one o f FDR’s real legacies.
It’s too bad they d id n ’t remember what FDR said, before they voted to
repeal welfare:
“The test o f our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of
those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have
too little.”
In that same vein, we continue our series o f excerpts from Peter Edelman s
recent Atlantic Monthly article about welfare repeal. The article was entitled,
“The Worst Thing Bill Clinton Has Done,” and reveals in detail just how
much damage was done to FDR’s safety net.
"The basic issue is jobs. There simply are not enough jobs now.
“Four million adults are receiving AFDC. H alf o f them are long-term
recipients. In city after city around America the number o f people who will
have to find jobs will quickly dw arf the number o f new jobs created in recent
years...
“The fact is that there are not enough appropriate private-sector jobs in
appropriate locations even now, when unemployment is about as low as it
ever gets in this country.”
’’When the time limits take effect, the realities occasioned by the meeting
o f a bottom-line-based labor market with so many o f our society’s last hired
and first fired will come into focus. O f course, a considerable number will
have obtained jobs along the way...
“ But there will be suffering. Some o f the damage will be obvious-m ore
homelessness, for example, with more demand on already strapped shelters
and soup kitchens.
“The ensuing problems will also appear as increases in the incidence of
other problems, directly but perhaps not probably owing to the impact o f the
welfare bill. There will be more malnutrition and more crime, increased
infant mortality, and increased alcohol and drug abuse.
“There will be increased family violence and abuse against children and
Contributing Writers:
Professor McKinley Burt, Lee í’erlman
Neal Heilpern, Eugene Rashad
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by Prof. McKinley Burt
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A New Kind of School
For Training Youth Leaders
L ast week I brought 15 young
men and women from New York
City to Washington, D. C. They
are the first graduating class of The
Development School for Youth, a
new leadership training program for
young people between the ages of
15 and 21 which I co-direct along
with Pam Lewis. Pam is the national
p ro d u cer o f the All Stars T alent
Show Network, a highly successful
anti-violence program for inner city
youth. Both the All Stars and The
Development School for Youth are
sponsored by the non-profit C om ­
munity Literacy Research Project,
which creates and funds programs
that are based on a performatory ap­
proach to human development.
Our two-day sojourn in W ashing­
ton was no o rd in a ry c la ss trip .
R ather, the train ees — a d iverse
group which includes a young Asian
American women, a recent im m i­
grant from Eastern Europe, an Ital­
ian-American, young man, 2 teen­
agers who came to this country as
children from the Caribbean, and 10
African Americans - were learning
to perform as leaders.
We met with four m em bers of
Congress, a mix of Democrats and
Republicans including several C on­
gressional Black Caucus members
as well as a spokesperson for the Re­
form Party and a representative of
U S. Term L im its. T he tra in e e s
asked in terestin g q u e stio n s and
raised important issues of concern
to young people. For example, they
w anted to know why neither the
media nor any elected officials have
acknow ledged that young people
deserve some of the credit for the
widely reported downturn in crime
in som e o f New Y ork’s toughest
neighborhoods; when the statistics
go in the o th e r d ire c tio n , they
pointed out, young people are often
the first to be blamed.
T h e ir re sp o n se s to q u e stio n s
about the program were forthright,
intelligent and to the point. For ex­
ample, when an aide to one of the
C o n g re ssm e n a sk e d w h at they
meant by “performance,” one young
man said: “Sir, w e’re perform ing
right now!”
The Washington trip was simply
one “act” of a “play” which includes
hands-on training in such practical
skills as computer proficiency, re­
sume writing, and dressing for suc­
cess, and several other h o riz o n ­
broadening trips. One of these was
a visit to the ABC television studio
complex, where our host was Claire
Labine, a head writer of the daytime
soap opera “One Life to Live.” An­
other was a tour of the New York
Stock Exchange conducted by Jo­
seph Forgione, the retired managing
director o f a prestigious Wall Street
firm. The final “act” of this “play,”
a paid summer internship in a cor­
porate setting, will be yet another
opportunity for our young trainees
to create (rather than go through)
stages where they can continue to
perform their lives. Bravo!
Lenora B. Fulani twice ran for
president of the U.S. as an indepen­
dent, making history in 1988 when
she became the first woman and A f­
rican American to get on the ballot
in all fifty states. Dr. Fulani in cur­
rently a leading activist in the Re­
form Party and chairs the Com m it­
tee for a Unified Independent Party.
She can be reached at 800-288-3201
or at www.Fulani.org.
I
i
»
r l k 0 4
Is Science Scientific - Are Scientists Ethical?
Serving Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington.
by Dr. Lenora Fulani
} 4 p &
women, and a consequent spillover o f the problem into the already over­
loaded child-welfare system and battered-w om en’s shelters.”
” 1 am amazed by the number o f people who have bought the line that the
bill was some little set o f adjustments that could easily be done away with
“Congress and the President have dynam ited a structure that was in place
for six decades.”
” If there is going to be a short-term fix o f the new law, it will be not in the
fundamentals o f the new structure but in some o fth e details. It might include
the following, although I hasten to say that even this list stretches credulity.
“Jobs. Congress could make extra funds available to the states for jo b
creation, wage subsidies, training, placement, support and retention ser­
vices....
“Time limits. The Democrats tried very hard to create a voucher covering
basic necessities for children in families that had run up against the time limit.
The idea failed by a narrow margin in the Senate, and is worth pursuing...
“ Work requirements...It would help a little if people were perm itted to
receive vocational training for longer than 12 months...
“ Limits on state flexibility in the use o f funds...
“ Data It is vitally important that adequate data be gathered and reported
on what happens under the new legislation.
“ If reliable and affordable health care and child care were added to this list,
and were available beyond a transitional period, it would help a lot. However,
my crystal ball tells me that w hatever is enacted in these areas will be modest
at best, and the new structure will remain substantially in place.
“And of course not even these adjustments would solve the fundamental
problems created when the previous structure was dynamited: the disappearance
o f the national definition of eligibility and ofthe guarantee that federal funds will
be available for all eligible children ”
Would it really be so hard to move a wheelchair into the new FDR Memorial?
Isn’t that the least we could do for the disabled community?
After all, as Reverend Jackson said many times on the 1988 campaign trail,
“ I’d take Roosevelt in his wheelchair any day, over Reagan on his horse!”
Years ago, we ordinary citizens,
or laypersons as they like to term us,
would not dare make such an inquiry.
Today, we dare not fail to question
the purposes and objectives of such
erudite disciplines with a reach from
the sublime to the ridiculous - from
halting epidemics to the base immo­
rality o f the notorious “Tuskegee
Syphilis Experiments.”
But before we raised our culture-
driven expectations in the age of high
technology, should we not have bet­
ter defined and examined the practi­
tioners of sometimes arcane arts - or
the hallowed institutions and com ­
munities from which they operate:
Academic, corporate or federal. O f
course, our naivete and artlessness
might be (might be) forgiven if we
consider the breathless haste and
push of those who promise their tech­
nology will lead mankind to a qual­
ity of life even greater than that as­
sured by established religions. We
seem along for the ride.
Now, many more are compelled
to put some critical questions to those
with whom we have entrusted our
health, environment, national secu­
rity and our welfare in general. And
we realize that we deal with a pow­
erful and well-oiled machine with
which the media has a rather torrid
love affair. It is no longer the case
that we interface with a tribe of dod­
dering old graybeards (if that were
ever a good example), but what we
have, rather, is close to a syndicate
o f an the augus champions o f ever­
lasting good life (nirvana).
This is a new arena where new
gladiators, arm ored in expensive
suits and equipped with computers,
cell phones and degrees from the al-
legedly-best universities battle it out
for the funds revealed in the Federal
Register or in state budgets. In this
situation the health and welfare of the
average citizen is neither certain nor
predictable. Black men with syphi­
lis are given placebos instead of
available treatment; hemophiliacs are
transfused with tainted blood, greed
(don’t forget U.S. atomic tests on
humans).
So how does science fit into such
an immoral world! All of the swirl­
ing com batants for dollars, power
and prestige - Public Health Admin­
istration, Food and Drug Adminis­
tration, (and their state counterparts).
P h a rm a c e u tic a l m a n u fa c tu re rs,
medical associations and think tanks'
- boast a roster of the most com pe­
tent and reputable scientists known
to mankind. For how long have so
many with whom w e’ve endowed
our most basic respect ignored the
fu n d a m e n ta l
te n e ts
o f the
Hippocrates Oath or the Ten Com ­
mandments?
Perhaps we have to get back to
basics here - as it seems we must
today where there are vital issues that
concern our welfare - over very sur­
vival! What science? What are eth­
ics? Is morality only seen how in the
context of sex? Most of the practi­
tioners of the arts and sciences un­
der discussion would seem by me­
dia attribution to have solid religious
and fraternal affiliation.
Webster says “science is a state of
knowing — a systematic study” . We
have it that “Ethics is the discipline
of dealing with what is good and bad
and w ith m oral duty and o b liga­
tions... values.” All well and good,
except that we have people, systems
and philosophies that value “good
and bad” on their own terms. Do
you?
Roget’s Thesaurus says, “Science
is a field of concern, of inquiry, a
branch or discipline of knowledge;
it is technology, it is natural’, or
a p p lie d p u re.” T h anks a lot old
buddy, and I happen to know that
there is an entire discipline in the
field o f philosophy called, “episte­
m ology” which is about determining
the ’validity’ of knowledge.
As usual everything seems to get
up an walk away when those smart
folks try to describe the nature of
things. But where does that leave us
laymen, the people in the neighbor­
hoods who daily are frightened and
traum atized by the discoveries or
conduct of the scientific community.
Was Humpty Dumpty right? “Things
are what I say they are.”
Continued next week.
Police Brutality: What Can We Do About It?
by Bernice Powell Jackson
L ast w eek I w rote about what
seems to be the rise o f cases of po­
lice brutality across the nation. A re­
cent National Emergency Confer­
ence on Police Brutality was held by
the Center for Constitutional Rights
(CCR) in New York City to look at
the growing number of complaints.
Conference participants came from
50 cities and 16 states to share their
stories and examine this phenom­
enon.
In the week since 1 wrote that
column Atlanta PoliceChief Beverly
Harvard has announced that she will
study how to discipline two Atlanta
officers, one o f whom is a sergeant,
who beat an Atlanta man repeatedly
with a baton and who was caught on
videotape by a passer-by. The At­
lanta man, carrying his wife and two
children in his car, was attempting to
fill a prescription for his sick child
and exited an interstate, only
to be told to get back on the high­
way by police officers w ho had
closed the exit because of Black Col­
lege Spring break activities. What is
causing this epidemic of police bru­
tality? As more and more middle
class Americans move to the suburbs
and to gated communities with pri­
vate police forces, they cut them ­
selves off from people in the cities
and they seem to care less how the
police keep the peace.
Then, as more and more city resi­
dents are losing their jobs as facto­
ries move out of the country or be­
come obsolete, there is growing eco­
nomic pressure on poor, unskilled
and poorly-educated m en, som e­
times causing them to turn to crime.
As we as a nation continue to deny
the existence of racism, we do not
take on police officers or others who
exhibit racist behavior.
“It feels as if America is at war
against itself and that there is a mili­
tary occupying force targeted against
citizens to many people in our cit­
ies, “said Richie Perez of the N a­
tional C ongress for Puerto Rican
Rights, an organization which has
worked with many families of police
brutality victims. “It almost feels as
if w e’ve adjusted to police brutality
and corruption and to inferior edu­
cation in our cities,” said Rev. Jesse
Jackson, another speaker at the con­
ference.
W hat can we do about law en ­
forcement official brutality? First,
mayors and police chiefs must make
it known that such brutality will not
be condoned and will be punished.
Only if these officials understand that
the public will not tolerate police
brutality will they take steps to end
it because of the power of police
unions and the code of silence which
is prevalent in police forces.
Secondly, the Center for Consti­
tutional Rights is working with Con­
gressman John Conyers from M ichi­
gan on this issue. It is hoped that
Congressional hearings will be held
on police brutality since it is so wide­
spread and that the Congressional
Black Caucus will hold a workshop
on this critical issue at their annual
fall meeting.
In addition, CCR is working to set
up a national network for parents and
families of victims of domestic vio­
lence. This is critical, especially, for
those families where the victim was
killed.
Finally, CCR is hoping to set up a
national clearinghouse to collect data
on police and other law enforcement
official brutality. Right now there is
much anecdotal information show­
ing that this phenomenon is on the
rise, but no one is collecting statis­
tics to prove it.
(For more information, call the
Center for Constitutional Rights at
1-800-764-0235.
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