P age J une A2 4, 1997 • T he P ortland O bserver Editorial Articles Do Not Necessarily Reflect Or Represent The Views Of 7171» - a J ^ lo rtlan h (©bsertier (USPS 959-680) Established in 1970 Charles Washington Mark Washington Publisher Distsribution Manager Danny Bell, Yvonne Lerch Larry J. Jackson, Sr. Account Executives Director o f Operations Micheál Leighton Gary Ann Taylor Copy Editor Business Manager Contributing Writers: Professor McKinley Burt, Lee Perlman, Neal Heilpem 4747 NE M artin L u th e r King, J r . Blvd., P o rtlan d , O regon 97211 503-288-0033 • Fax 503-288-0015 Em ail: Pdxobserv@ aol.com Deadline for all submitted materials: A rtic le s .F rid a y , 5 :0 0 p m A ds: M onday, 12:00pm PO ST M A ST E R : Send A ddress C hanges To: P o rtland O bserver, P.O . Box 3137, P o rtlan d , O R 97208. Periodicals postage p a id at Portland, Oregon Subscriptions: $30.00 p er year The Portland Observer welcomes freelance submissions. 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SUBSCRIBE TO J lo r t la n it (© bseruer The 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 ortland O bserver ; PO B ox 3137, P ortland , O R 97208 N am e:_______________________ — — ------------------------------------------ A ddre s s:____________ ____________ — ------------------------------------------- City, State:_________ _______ _____________________________________ Zip-Code: ______________________________________________________ T hank Y ou F or R eading T he P ortland O bserver Tyco layoffs unjust e learned that M attel Inc. plans to lay off 80% of the workers at /co Toys Inc.-115 at the Port land Distribution Center and 2 85 at the Beaverton factory. The reason for this brutal deci sion has been explained by the great critic and historian Eli Siegel, founder o f the Education Aesthetic Realism. Eli Siegel saw what no other economist has seen- -that the Ameri can economy, the profit system, has failed because it is unethical. The profit motive, he showed, comes from the ugliest purpose in a person, con tempt, which Mr. Siegel defined as “the lessening o f what is different from oneself as a means o f self increase as one sees it.” It is con tempt that is inconsequential to a person's well being, his or her right to make a decent living. With tremendous feeling for people Mr. Siegel said: "...Man was not made to be used by man for money." That's all there is to it. It is a corruption, it is artifice. It was seen as necessary by people, but it is against the nature of man. (Goodbye Profit System Update:, Definition Press, New York, 1982) What does a man-a husband and father feel—in Beaverton, for in stance, knowing that he will be los ing his job at Tyco, worried about feeding his family, paying the rent and health insurance? And what does a single mother feel as she looks into the eyes o f her two children, distressed thinking about how she will support them? As profit is thirsted after, the owners o f Mattel have to make the feelings o f these men and women utterly unreal. Meanwhile, it is the labor o f these very same persons that have made it possible for the CEO and stockholders to live in such com fort and luxury. As parents, ourselves, who have seen the joy and thnll on our son’s face playing with his Tyco racing car, we are outraged to leam that the people whose hard work went into making toys which have given chil dren so much pleasure are being treated so brutally themselves. It is a horrible fact that as Tyco is throw ing so many people out of work, they are callously announcing: that they will be increasing their quar terly dividend to its shareholders by 17%, shareholders who most likely never stepped one foot into a Tyco Factory. Ellen Reiss, the Class Chair man o f Aesthetic Realism explains what is happening all over America as she writes in the international periodical, The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known: "Various people have tned to save...profit economics by getting rid of. decent sa la rie s fo r p eo p le; firing people;...The American people.. .are b ein g m ade to en dure this misery...because some persons will not gracefully accept the kind, re ally irreversible, historical fact that ethics has put an end to the using of one’s fellow human beings for pri vate profit...The lie that somehow the only way productivity can go on in this nation is through certain persons’ making big profits from the lives o f others, is both ridiculous and an insult to America - her Dec laration o f Independence, her his tory, her earth. For America to have a just economy, for every person to be guaranteed decent living, and feel the pride dignity they have a right to, this beautiful, ethical ques tion which Eli Siegel asked must be discussed honestly being a person?” When this occurs America will be truly kind and have an economy that will thrive. For more information you can call the Aesthetic Realism Founda tion not-for-profit educational foun dation in New York City, 212-777- 4490. Sincerely, Lauren Phillips Blaustein Bruce Blaustein Victims o f the Press. We sign our names this way because,despite notable exceptions, the press and media in boycotting Eli Siegel and Aesthetic Realism have hurt the lives o f ev ery American. ...... e finish excerpting Peter Edelman’s Atlan ■tic Monthly essay on welfare repeal. Edelman, a former Clinton appointee and an expert on welfare & poverty issues, entitled his article, “The Worst Thing Bill Clinton Has Done. We remind our readers-and the Clinton Administration-that solemn promises were made last year, dur ing the campaign, that the welfare bill would be “ fixed.” Most impor tant, there was a pledge to create one million new jobs for welfare recipi ents, a crucial reform if we are to avoid social disaster in the next few years. It is the Rainbow/Push Coalition’s job to make sure that promise is not forgotten. A m erica’s poor children deserve no less. >”A real fix would involve, first, jobs, jobs, jobs-preferably and as a first priority in the private sector, where there is real work to be done. “And then everything that en ables people to be productive citi zens. Schools that teach every child as well as they teach every other child. Safe neighborhoods. Healthy communities. “Continuing health-care and day care coverage, so that people can not p e RAINBOW PUSH C O A L IT IO N The Worst (IV) only go to work bu, also keep on working. “Ending the racial and ethnic dis crimination that plagues too many young people who try to enter thejob market for the first time.” >”Many o f the jobs that welfare recipients and other low-incom e people get do not pay enough to pull them out o f poverty. Continuing at tention to the minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit will be necessary. “States should insist, as the City o f Baltimore has, that all their con tractors pay all their workers a suffi cient wage to keep them out o f poverty...and should fund their con tracts accordingly. “Current child-care and health care policies are insufficient to al low low-wage workers to stay out of poverty even if transitional subsi dies let them escape temporarily r s p e when they leave the welfare rolls. > ”Federal and state child-care subsidies should help all workers who would otherwise be poor, not just those who have recently left the welfare rolls. >”And at the end o f the day we still have 40 m illion Americans, including 10 million children, who do not have health coverage. We still have to deal with that as part o f a real antipoverty strategy.” >’’Welfare is what we do when everything else fails. It is what we do for people who can’t make it after a genuine attempt has been mounted to help the maximum possible num ber o f people to make it. In fact, much o f what we do in the name o f welfare is more appropriately a sub ject for disability policy. “The debate over welfare misses the point when all it seeks to do is tinker with welfare eligibility, re c t i v quirements, and sanction. The 1996 welfare law misses the point.” >”To do what needs to be done is going to take a lo, o f work - organiz ing, engaging in public education, broadening the base o f people who believe that real action to reduce poverty and promote self-suffic iency in America is important and pos sible. “We need to watch very carefully, and we need to document and publi cize, the impact o f the 1996 welfare legislation on children and families across America. “We need to do everything we can to influence the choices the states have to make under the new law. “We can ultimately come out in a better place. We should not want to go back to what we had. It was not good social policy. We want people to be able to hold up their heads and raise their children in dignity. “The best that can be said about this terrible legislation is that per haps we will leam from it and even tually arrive at a better approach. I am afraid, though, that along the way we will do some serious injury to American children, who should not have had to suffer from our national backlash.” e s Is science scientific, are scientists ethical? s we often do in these columns we begin by --•» \ .d 1 efin in g our te rm s - freely admitting that this ap proach can lead to confusion as well as enlightenment. Especially, when we consider today’s acrimonious arenas where it is a toss up whether to give weight to either words or deeds — seldom dar ing to trust either category. If we take W ebster at his ‘w ord,’ “Ethics is the discipline dealing with what is good and bad, and with moral duty and obligation.” All well and good, but it would seem that as is usually the case in the affairs o f man, there are ‘different strokes for different folks’ -for dif ferent professions, different nations, different religions and there is even dissension among the practitioners, philosophers and ‘true dissension among the practitioners, philoso phers and ‘true believers’. I took sort o f an “unscientific” poll among my friends and associ ates (cross-generational), “As young people what was it that inspired so much respect and admiration for the scientific community - a ' reverence’ you might say?.” Most o f us reflected on the phe nomenal num ber o f high school classmates who sought an opportu nity to become scientists or physi cians. Black or white, there could be no more reward ing goal. O ur pantheon of honored bene factors o f m an kind included Dr. George W ashing ton Carver (that ironic place Tuskegee looms again); Dr. Charles Drew o f blood plasma fame; Dr. Daniel Hale W illiams, pioneer in heart surgery; Dr. Louis Wright, first to apply the new antibi otic, aureomycin, to human afflic tions - and there were many other o f these dedicated savants who con tributed so much to remedy and cure the ills o f mankind, Dr. Percy Julian who developed cortisone for the ar thritic and a drug to relieve glau coma, and infinitum; black heroes among others. We were all o f us in agreement about the early structure o f our dreams, ambitions and almost uni- versai admiration and respect for what the world ‘seemed’ to view as m ankind’s most hallowed institu tions. What no one seemed sure about was, “just when did the Philistines enter the temple?” Just when did those horrors be g in, the d o c u i in m e n te d e x p e r i j P rofessor m ents cited last J M ( K IM F \ week? So we be Bi rt gan to ask o u r selves, “Must there always be an ‘illu sion’ before there can be disillusion m ent.” The preponderance o f opinion among our group was no, we had not deceived ourselves, had not been deluded by the conscious efforts o f entire professions and their support ing institutions - something pro found had happened between then and now. A gradual change, true enough but always provoking a rude awakening. So it is with those o f us who were taught so early on that, “a scientist is a searcher for truth” and that re corded organized medicine began in Africa with Imhopteps, chief vizer and physician to king Narmer. This genius, a product o f the sophisti cated support structure o f Egyptian Temple Schools left his prescription on papyri where they meet favorable professional opinion yet today. Ag ricultural endowments were the sup port. How proud we were when our teachers described this dedicated and honorable medical practice that was in full flower several thousand years before the ‘borrow ing’ Greeks and Hippocrates - an honorable institu tion that dispatched its dedicated physicians all over the known world and which gave us the universal medical symbol, the caduceus with its intertwining snakes. So what has happened to institu tions which were the epitome of hope, inspiration and respect? To the “Hippocratic Oath” and adm o nitions like “Do no harm.” Is our “rude awakening” due to a newly vigilant and assertive media — or has it indeed been a “gradual change” from a hallowed, humanistic insti tution to market place; from profes sional to entrepreneur? Or from pre scriptions to drug and gene patents? Civil Rights Journal: More signs of hope by B ernice P owell J ackson f you only watch televl »4 | slon uncritically and only I know the stereotypes of young African American men, you might believe they are all gang members and criminals. But there are millions of young black men who are making posi tive contributions not only to their own communities, but to the whole nation. LeAlan Jones and LloydNewman, two Chicago 18 year-olds are two o f them. Jones and Newman have received a host o f awards for their journalistic work which tells the story o f their neighborhood. Newman live in the notorious Ida B. W ells housing project. Their radio docum entary, Re morse: The 14 Stories o f Eric Morse, was aired on National Public Radio and told the story o f Eric Morse, the 5 year-old who was pushed out a window by two boys, 10 and 11 years old, when he refused to steal candy for them. For this outstanding story Jones and Newman received the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, mak ing them the youngest ever to re ceive the prestigious award and the first radio documentary to win the prize. Working with journalist David Isay, Jones and Newman won the grand prize over eight other journal ists. The two young men were not out looking for journalism prizes when they made the documentary. “We were trying to help the community so that this w on’t happen again,” said Newman in a recent jet maga zine article. “To throw a 5 year-old out the window...makes no sense,” he added. While they were happy to win the award, they believe that the cost was too high. “I’m, still looking at the death o f a 5 year-old, and for me to win an award, I can’t forget that,” said Jones, adding, “If I could give that award back to bring Eric back, I would.” Jones and Newman interviewed their friends and neighbors about Eric M orse’s death. They also talked to relatives o f the victim and the suspects. Eric M orse’s mother gave her only interview to the young men. “She felt comfortable with us be cause she knew we would under stand what she was going through. We come from the same environ ment,” Newman explained. The two boys who killed Eric were convicted and were sentenced to a m axim um security juvenile prison, becoming the nation’s young est children to be so sentenced. In addition to the Robert Kennedy prize, Jones and Newman have also won a Peabody Award and a Hillman Foundation award for their docu mentary. Their first radio documen tary, Ghetto Life 101, done when they were 14 year-olds, won more than a dozen national and interna tional awards. They have recently written a book, Our America: Life and Death on the south side o f Chi cago. A portrait of inequality in America M arian W right E delman , 3200 13 th S treet , NW , (202) 588-8764 by Ithough th e United State» is the richest, most technologically advanced nation In the world, far too many American chlldren- -Black, white, and Hlspanic-are struggling to live, leam, thrive, and contribute In America. Black children, despite signifi cant progress since legal segrega tion began to crumble, still fare worse than other children in America. For example: *78 percent of white children live with both parents, but only 39 per- cent o f Black children do “A •63 percentofw hitechildren live in homes their parents own, but only 28 percent o f Black children do 23 percent o f white children have both a father at work and a mother at home, but only eight per cent o f Black children do. • Some 30 percent o f white chil dren have a parent who completed college, but only 13 percent o f Black children do. • 71 percent o f white children are covered by private health insurance, ’ but ‘ only 44 percent ‘ o - r f m „ i . _u.i Black chil dren are. • 16 percent o f white children are poor, but more than 41 percent of Black children are. _ 19 percent o f white children live in central cities, but more than 48 percent o f Black children do. • 7 o f every 1,000 white infants die in the first year o f life, but 16 o f every 1,000 Black infants do. • 6 percent o f white infants are bom at low birthweight better TSc ^Che (SLïïtlor Send your letters to the Editor to: Editor, PO Box 3137, Portland, OR 97208 IS M S S M M Black a m — high school graduate is nearly one and a half times more likely to be unemployed than a white high school dropout, and a Black college graduate is more likely to be unemployed than a white high school graduate with no college. If a Black adult does find work, he or she brings home $ 168 a week less. The Black community cannot wait for anyone to solve its prob lems. We must all get involved to improve the life chances for Black children. Yes, the Federal, state, and local govemements do have a responsi bility to protect all o f their citizens in a fair manner, and all children need protection today.