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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 10, 1997)
1 HI Hk. B I i ! 1 i ’ B H I^ xx “A H ■.rs / J r,. / i C Please >“k*1 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- 1,«.^ We take criticism well! Get your powerful pens out NOW and address your letters to: Editor. Reader Respoofic. P .0 , Box 3 1 37. Port l a n d. OR 91 2 S& (© b s e ru e r (USPS 959-680) Established in 1970 Charles W ashington Publisher A Editor Mark W ashington Distsribution M anager Gary Ann Taylor Business M anager Larry J. Jackson, Sr. D irector o f Operation Mike Leighton Copy Editor Contributing Writers: Professor M cKinley Burt, Lee Perlman, Neal Heilpem 4747 NE M artin L uther K ing, Jr. B lvd., P ortland, O regon 97211 503-288-0033 • Fax 503-288-0015 Em ail: P dxob serv@ aol.com Deadline for all submitted materials: Articles .Friday, 5:00 pm Ads: Monday, 12:00pm PO ST M A ST E R : Send A ddress C h a n g es To: P ortland O bserver, P.O . Box 3137, P ortlan d, O R 97208. Periodicals postage p a id 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 o f the newspaper and cannot be used in other publications or personal usage w ithout the written consent of the general manager, unless the client has purchased the composition o f such ad. © 1996 THE PORTLAND OBSERVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, REPRODUCTION IN W HOLE OR IN PART W ITH OUT PERM ISSION IS PROHIBITED. The Portland O b serv er-O reg on’s Oldest Multicultural Publica tio n - ^ a member o f the National Newspaper A ssociation-Founded in 1885, and The National Advertising Representative Amalgamated Publishers, Inc, New York, NY, and The W est Coast Black Publishers Association • Serving Portland and Vancouver. S ubscribe to ' ^ o r t l a n h (iD b s e ru e r T h e P o rtlan d O b se rv e r can be sent directly to yo u r hom e for only $ 3 0 .0 0 p e r year. P lease fill out, en clo se check or m oney order, and m ail to: S ubscriptions T he P ortland O bser v er ; P O B ox 3 1 3 7 P ortland , O regon 9 7 2 0 8 Name: ____________________________________ A ddress:__________________________ City, S ta te :____ _______________ ___—.— Zip-Code:_________________________________ T hank Y ou F or R eading T he P ortland O bserver J l th a t the 20th Century civil rights movement neglected the economic needs o f African Americans, that its leaders devoted little effort to gain ing for black Americans a secure eco nomic foothold in American society. In fact, such claims c a n 't survive the slightest scrutiny. One can look, for example, at the pictures o f the 1963 March on W ash- ington and read what the sea o f plac ards that punctuated its landscape proclaimed: “for Jobs and Freedom.” That was no accident. All o f the placards in the march had to be ap proved by its sponsoring coalition. Furthermore, the “Official Call” to the March, issued by the civil rights groups on July 12, 1963 contained demands for both civil rights and for a comprehensive jobs effort. That Editorial Articles Do Not Necessarily Reflect Or Represent The Views Oj \ / Civil Rights Journol The Language of Racism: Has It Turned On Those it Once Oppressed? he word “racism” often con lawn jockey. jures up negative stereotypes Curry stands by his m agazine’s o f words and images used by bigoted coverage o f Thomas and accompa Whites or hate groups such as the nying artwork, stating: “You put one Klu Klux Kian toward Blacks. person up there who has benefitted Now, decades after the civil rights from affirmative action. victories of the 60’s and 70’s, racism Then, once he gets there, (he) within the Black community has wants to deny it to everyone else? I emerged into the mainstream. This have a problem with that.” week on America ’ s Black Forum, three Taylor agrees. Although she does media leaders-Emerge magazine Edi not condone name-calling, she says tor-in-chief George Curry, Essence criticism o f black leaders was often magazine Editor-in-chief Susan T ay- done behind closed doors. lor, and Vibe magazine president and “It’s not O.K. to have any Su CEO Keith Clinkscales-share their preme Court Justice who will sweep views on “Racism from W ithin” and away the gains that African-Ameri the role o f Black media. cans have made, and w e’ve got to O klahom a C ongressm an J.C. speak about it. It’s the role o f Black W atts’ reference to Jesse Jackson media,” she says. and other Black leaders as “race-hus O ne area o f B lack cu ltu re that tling poverty pimps” was but one has had its share o f c ritic ism is illustration o f what many African- the m usic in d u stry , in p a rtic u la r, Americans refer to as “Black-on-Black rap m usic. C lin k sc a le s says i t ’s racism.” Another was the November tim e to stop m aking rap m usic, ' 96 issue o f Emerge magazine, which w hich is “ a sliv e r” o f the in d u s featured Suprem e C ourt Justice try, a scap eg o at for e v e ry th in g Clarence Thomas on the cover as a th a t’s w rong. T c r s p Retraction: Perdue Farms Incorporated On February 10,1997, the Commis sion distributed Civil Rights Journal #0160- Chicken Rights V. Human Rights, which 1 wrote. In that article, we mistakenly and wrongly identi fied Perdue Farms as the owner o f a poultry plant in Hamlet, North Caro lina where 25 workers, mostly Afri can-American women were killed ma fire. Perdue Farms was not the owner o f the Hamlet poultry plant and had no connection with the fire at that plant. Our mistake occurred as a re sult o f an incorrect reading o f a report produced and distributed by the Fel lowship o f Reconciliation. We now wish to state categorically that we were in error. * Perdue Farms was not associ ated with the plant where this tragedy occurred. * Perdue Farms does not own a plant in Hamlet, North Carolina. In short, Perdue Farms has no involve ment whatsoever in the Hamlet, North Carolina tragedy. As to the article o f February 10, 1997, we suggested that our readers c c write Harry Payne, North Carolina s Commissioner o f Labor and Occupa tional Safety and Health, to protest Perdue Farms’ supposed misconduct. M r. P ayne re sp o n d e d to M rs. Jackson’s article and admonished; “I regret that your article has sev eral inaccuracies which have misled readers. The horrible fire which took place in Hamlet, N.C. was at Imperial Foods Products, Inc., and the owner o f the plant is now in jail for man slaughter. Perdue Farms had no rela tionship to the plant. The accusation that Perdue was somehow associ ated with the fire reflects poor re search and challenges credibility. Certainly you have a great responsi bility to make sure that your facts are correct before you accuse an indi vidual or organization o f wrongdo ing.” The United Church o f Christ, the Commission for Racial Justice and Bernice Powell Jackson apologize to Perdue Farms and express our sin cere regret for the inaccuracy in our February 10,1997 article. t i r c s Confusion Abounds In the land in I’ roi : M( K im i \ Bi r I correspondents that this earth-shak ing bulletin was prepared and issued by the academic fortress ofone, Ward Connerly, the Proposition 209 Guru say that because in touching who says, “the rhetoric about affir bases with a number o f my mative action being essential to the correspondents - here and in black middle class has become a ' self- other parts o f the country - our com fulfilling prophecy’. But before we munications have revealed a wide deal with that well-worn phraseol and increasingly divergent assess ogy, note this. ment o f matters considered extremely Several writers cited the ambigu important to African Americans. And ity in the second paragraph, “ ...the this year, 1997, in particular. average for white and’ Asian stu We seem to have hit a peak (I dents...” If it is meant that the scores hope) with a “chilling” report from o f the two races are lumped together, the University o f California which then the results are drastically skewed has provoked reactions ranging from because the A sian’ scores in most terror to more marches to court ac districts are appreciably higher than tion. A syndicated columnist quotes the whites. It is as though they oper the University system as follows: “the ate in an academic republic’ o f their average black student in a California own. family earning more than $60,000 in I pointed this out in an earlier ar 1985 scored lower on SAT tests than ticle where I analyzed a substantiat the average for white and’ Asian ing Study in the respected Scientific students from families earning below American Magazine. The perfor $20,000.” mance o f immigrant Indonesian stu It was immediately noticed by most dents was examined - parents speak I ing little, poor or no English: the chil dren were being raised in a motiva tional and educational incubator the likes o f which (I can attest) have not been seen in minority homes since before W orld War II. Today, it is exceptional to find this type o f cultural matrix among other minorities except in exceptional cir cumstances — individual households with committed parents or exceptional schools viz a viz those like Father Clement’s school in Chicago, Harlem Academy, etc. With this type o f tute lage (and demand placed on parents) there is no difficulty with IQ or SAT tests. Generally speaking, I would say for the black student in families earn ing more than $60,000 per year, he would experience a similar perfor mance deficit relative to his white income peer as would the $20,000- black-student in respect to his white peer (except o f course in the circum stances described in the previous paragraph). I never argue about it any more, I noticed this as a youth. I found it later to be true on the job whether as an employer or administrator hiring, giv ing tests or supervising. And later, nothing occurred to disabuse me o f this notion as a university professor or when tutoring within or without the system, black kids or white, as o f now. It is as with that Indonesian home. It is all about culture and language, not about brain power, as I so often write. I call the problem the “Jeopardy Syndrome” and have often asked black youths or parents o f the so- called “middle class” do you think you could compete in this ABC show. Most angrily reply “that w ouldn’t prove anything” and I retort, “it al ready had, your economics and fu ture. Then I hand them a copy of my 8/ 8/90 Observer article, “Is It To Be Cultural Literacy or European Lit eracy?” Do we have a choice? (C ont’d next week) F o r J o b s A nd F reed o m economic focus was furthered un derscored in several o f the speeches o f that day notably by A. Philip Randolph, the venerable civil rights leader, and by W alter Reuther, presi dent of the United Automobile W ork- ers and a stalwart ally o f the move ment. Or, one can look at the “Domestic Marshall Plan,” Whitney M. Young, Jr., then executive director o f the U r ban L e a g u e , p ro p o se d at the League’s 1963 national conference, which was held shortly before the march. Young put forward specific proposals to encourage America to tap the potential that lay unrealized in Black America, and he warned that a failure to do so would bring the so cially destructive consequences in stunted lives and ruined communi ties that we are dealing with today. Or, one can examine the compre hensive national Freedom Budget that the civil rights coalition proposed in 1966. Or, one can study the trajectory of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s activism during the last five years ofhis life: it led him to Memphis that fateful Apnl o f 1968 to march with black sanitation workers seeking higher wages and better working conditions. Or, one can read an important new book, The Dual Agenda: the African- Amencan Struggle for Civil and Eco nomic Equality, by Dona Cooper Hamilton and Charles V. Hamilton, a husband and wife duo o f distin guished scholars. Clearly-written and studded with details from the civil rights groups’ position papers, congressional testi mony, and the speeches o f their lead- Civil Rights Journal B y B ernice P owell J ackson he first time I visited an indian reservation I was horrified, thrilled and overcome. Horrified at the poverty, the unemployment, the housing, the sense o f aimlessness in so many. Thrilled at the deep-seeded culture, the understanding o f con nection between creation and Cre ator and the beauty o f the people. Overcome with a new understanding o f the shame that this nation should feel if we were to admit our role in the destruction o f Indian people and the taking o f their land. Yet only two years before a new millennium we find the United States Senate, our nation’s highest legisla tive body, trying to renege on our ^ o r t l a n h ® b se ru e r j B y H ugh B. P rice P resident N ational U rban L eague T t ’ s become fashionable to claim . 11 Attention Readers! T SEPT. 10, 1997 (Cfyc |}ortlanò ^iWserwr Page A4 treaties with Indians, this time with out even the benefit o f public discus sion or debate. It does not bode well for the 21st century or our nation’s role in it. It seems that Senator S lade Gorton o f W ashington tacked two riders which threaten two centuries o f treaty law and understandings onto a $ 13 billion spending bill — without any consultation with the tribes or even other parts o f the Federal govern ment. These riders would force tribes to waive their rights as sovereign nations in exchange for some $700 million that they receive from the government and would require the tribes to undergo means testing to receive these Federal dollars. As information about the legisla tion has surfaced, Indian leaders have attacked these riders loudly. “They are a total departure from the govem- ment-to-govemment relationship the tribes always had with Washington,” said John Blackhawk, chairman of the W inebago tribe. “Solemn immunity and basic Federal operating funds are not subject to shifting political w in d s... but are the result o f solemn promises made by the United States to tribal governments in exchange for Indian lands,” wrote Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell to Sen. Gorton. “We gave up vast amounts o f land in return for sovereignty and certain ers, the book recounts their consis tent fight to gain civil rights for Afri can Americans and social welfare policies for all o f the poor. Indeed, the H am iltons cite the founding o f both the N ational A s sociation for the A dvancem ent o f C olored People and the N ational U rban League in the first decade of the century as evidence that the “C ivil rights groups have alw ays understood that (civil rights victo ries alone) were insufficient to alle viate the socioeconom ic problem s that stretched over decades o f ne glect or parsim ony .” They go on to say that, “Begin ning in the early 1960s (when it was clear that the days o f legal segrega tion were numbered), “virtually ev ery major plan o f action and policy statement included concerns for both a fight against segregation and dis crimination on the one hand, and, on the other, for effective programs to deal with socioeconomic problems for all Americans, not just for blacks.” So it was then. So it is today. Contrary to the claim s some have m ade, A m erica has not entered a “post-civil rights era.” The head lines o f last w eek, and yesterday, and today m ake all too clear that A fric a n A m e ric a n s and o th e r people o f color still have to all too often fight for the right to be treated in a non-discrim inatory fashion. but it is true that the im portance o f A frican A m ericans, as individu als and as a group, securing a strong econom ic foundation is even more critical than in the past. In the first decade o f the 20th C entury, A frican A m ericans and their allies coalesced to fight for jobs and freedom . The placards o f the 1963 m arch on W ashington p re se n te d th at m essage to the A m erican people and the w orld in the m ost dram atic way. Now, as A frican A m ericans turn tow ard a new century, they are better situated than they w ere ju st thirty years ago, w ith a grow ing cohort o f individuals w hose large and sm all c o n trib u tio n s to the health o f the A m erican econom y and A merican life in general cannot be denied. Yet, for all the progress, there is m uch work yet to be done, by A fri can A m ericans and by the larger society. Yes, we still have those placards in our hands: For Jobs and F ree dom. Threatening Indian Rights obligations.. .Now they want to throw that out... yet, we aren’t even con sulted,” said Debra Doxtator, chair of the Oneida tribe. Indian leaders p o int to Sen. Gorton’s two decades o f work against Indian sovereignty as the real reason behind these surreptitious riders. In addition, they blame the incorrect public perception that Indian reser vations are prospering because o f casino gambling. In actuality two-thirds o f reserva tions do not have casinos and only 10 tribes took in more than half o f the gambling revenues. Some Indian folk do not see gaming as the solution to economic development. Unemploy ment on reservations is more than three times the national average (on some, it is up to 85%) and Indian children are more than twice as likely to be poor. Then there is the alcoholism and drug abuse which plagues most In dian families, as well as a variety o f other social problems. To o u r sham e, we have a h is tory o f co n v en ien tly ignoring our tre a tie s w ith In d ia n trib es. We have a h isto ry o f not a c k n o w l e d g in g th at w e ow e the very e x iste n c e o f this n atio n to our n a tiv e A m erican b ro th e rs and s is ters. M r. G o rto n ’s cruel b u dget tric k only takes us b ackw ard. B ut, we have an o p p o rtu n ity to b eg in the fu ture w ith a new m ind set and a new com m itm ent to h o n o rin g all o f the p eo p les w ho have c o n trib u te d so m uch to th is n a tion. T he first step m ust be to h o n o r those tre a tie s in the past and to tre a t n a tiv e A m erican n a tio n s w ith the re sp e c t they so d eserv e. (Y ou c a n w rite to P re s id e n t Clinton asking him to veto such legislation at 1600 Pennsylvania A venue, N W , W ashington, DC 20500 or write to your Senator voic ing your concern about this legis lation at U nited States Senate, W ashington, DC 20510.)
