Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 14, 1998)
. * • ’ *■ X r« . .< ijJtK.NÍ* « *• , { ’. . /r ■ -x »z»Tz» * • JAN. 14, 1998 Hie Çortlanb (fibscruer Page A4 Editorial Articles Do Not Necessarily Reflect Or Represent The Views ( >J (Ehc $lortlani> © bseruer p e e l Attention Readers! , better pep«-.»1 »•<•" > ■ * in I’ koi i I SSI IK M< R is s i fa ®he ^ o rtla n h (©bseruer Bi kt a b Lli.,1___ IU*7(t (U S P S 9 ___ 5 9 ____ -6 8 0 _ ) . ». E s ta lis h e d I in 1970 Mark Washington Distsribution Manager Charles Washington Publisher & Editor Larry J. Jackson, Sr. Director o f Operation Gary Ann Taylor Business Manager Tony Washington lesha Williams Associate Editor Graphic Design Contributing Writers: Professor McKinley Burt, Lee Perlman, Neil Heilpern Joy Ramos 4747 NE Martin Luther King, Jr- Blvd., Portland, Oregon 97211 503-288-6033 • 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: $30.00 per year The Portland Observer welcomes freelance submissions. Manu scripts and photographs should be clearly labeled and will be returned tf~;com paniedbyaself addressed envelope. Allcre».eddes.gnd.spay ads become the sole properly of the newspaper and cannot be used X publications or personal usage without the written consen„ 1 ,h en e,:“ manage,, unless the cbcnl has purchased the - rf i u ,,i <o 1096 THE PORTLAND OBSERVER. ALL Klein in RESERVED, REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITH- As usual we find that it is not sufficient to rely upon a d efin i tion from W ebster, "A chrono lo g ical reco rd of sig n ific a n t events...affecting a nation or in stitution, often including an e x planation of their causes." This is certainly true as we approach the month of F ebruary, the critical lime for Black His tory presentations. That period when, n ation wide, a goodly num ber of us - mostly black, and some whites - make a determ ined effort to fur ther reveal to the world the m ag nificent contributions ol people of color to the arts, sciences and hum anities. When we turn to the mind- expanding’ categories given by R oget’s International 1 hesaurus for assessing the human co ndi tion, we f'nd many sufficient as well as necessary expansions of W ebster’s lim iting definition ot a “chronological record. The entry “history" in the d ic tionary section of Rogets o tters us a p a le tte of d e s c rip to r s . “R ecord” (class eight, language) T PERMISSION IS PROHIBITED The Portland Observer-Oregon’s Oldest Multicultural Publ.ca- I tion--is a member of tfte National Newspaper Association-Founded! 1885 and The National Advertising Representative Amalgamated P u b th ers. Inc. New York. NY. and The West Coast Black Pubhshers I Association • Serving Portland and Vancouver^ $ o r t i a « b o ftb e m w i The Portland Observer can be sent directly to your home: forr o n ly $30<*> per year. Please fill out, enclose check or money order, and mail to. S ubscriptions T he P ortland O bserver ; P O B ox 3137 P ortland , O regon 9 7 2 9 8 Name: Address: City, State: Zip-Code. T hank Y ou F o ^ ^ su ccin ctly cites under 549,1. "record, recording, docum enta tion. written word, chronicle, his tory, story, roll." Other items under this class are "archives, public records, h isto rical d o cu m en ts, b io g ra phies, ad infinitum . “The same exercise also leads us to “ H istory (class eleven, arts).” Item 719.1 “ . the investi gation of the past, the story ol m ankind, cliom etrics, narrative history, oral history, survivor s or w itnesses’ account, biography, m emoirs, etc.” And, then, entries through 719.8 provide additional param eters from “ story, yarn, saga, to chronicle, narrative or anecdote.” U nder these circu m stan ces, one might well ask, "given the availability of precise directive and techniques tor the accurate recovery of the history of any peoples upon the w orld’s stage, how can there be such a recur ring difficulty in assem bling and dissem inating the marvelous (and w ell-docum ented) history of A f rican and A frican A m erican J ' 1^ I^ R T laj ^ sfkvf . k RAINBOW PUSH c O A L I T 1 O N ‘So now it is C hristm as, And what have you done? Another year older, and a new one's just begun...” John Lennon The ending of the old year, and the start of the new. is al ways a time for reflection, reso lution, renewal, and rebirth It s a time to rededicate ourselves to the ideals and principles by which we live. Those of us in the Rainbow/ Push C oalition have long la bored to be “ promise keepers - because we all, from R ever end Jackson on down, made our own prom ises to Dr. King, to struggle nonviolently tor peace and justice, and to open up the freedom train to all our people. Marshall Frady made a sim i lar point, in his book Jesse: "He is now about the only fig ure rem aining from the classic days of the civil rights move- m ent-the last survivor-who is still actively at it , who has not wandered off into other occu pations. In the same way, he has become one of the few re maining voices ot any force in the land still unabashedly cam paigning. like the Last Believer, for the old. liberal conscience in Am erican politics... It is not an easy time to be a progressive in American poli- We have had our victo- ries, but the basic agenda is set éSstttT by corporate elites, by the rich and pow erful, am plified by m o nopoly forces in the m edia, and carried out by right-w ing func tionaries with m anifest destiny in their eyes, hot rhetoric on their tongues, and ice in then h e a rts . (T o b o rro w from A le x a n d e r Pope “ b ra in s o feathers, hearts ot lead. ) Our job is to be ready to move when the wheel turns again, when the next econom ic down turn com es, when the air goes out of Wall Street, as it will. Our role is to sow the seeds of change tor the com ing gen erations. Our task is to keep fighting to hold the hallow ed ground won by our ancestors struggles, and to develop the resources and ideas the next gen eration of activists will need to build a better world for our de scendants. Never forget what Dr. King taught us: “The arc ol the uni verse is long, but it bends to wards ju stic e .’ Or the words ol Henry David Thoreau: “any man (or woman) more right than his (her) neigh bors, constitutes a m ajority ot one." Or Abe Lincoln: "Why should there not be patient confidence in the ultim ate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?" Our job is to keep hope alive ‘Tfìit’ iS-fittdr Send your letters to the Editor, PO Box 3137, Portland, OR 97208 e s people?" How indeed, unless one is ter rib ly n aiv e and c o m p le te ly oblivious to the controlling pa ram eters of racism - or more to the class and dem ographic order of this world - unm indful ol the pernicious cultural warfare. Such naivety is frequently reflected in an uncritical acceptance ol the p o n tifical pron o u n cem en ts ot ad m ired lead e rs, p o litic ia n s , scholars, or teachers. It is essential to understand exactly how much falsification, distortion and om ission ol his tory is/was driven by economic factors. In the United States, but not exclusive to this nation, the driv ing force behind the evil, ex ecrab le e ffo rts to vilify and dehum anize the black race is still the existence of a m assive insti tution of chattel slavery on this continent. One hundred and thirty five years after the “Em ancipation Proclam ation”, this horrendous fact still whips the American con science and. to further the di- chotom y. pains its “C hristian Ethic.” So it is that we have the refu tation of common sense, clear evidence and docum entation, as well as intellectual and academic standards when it com es to the retrieval, recording and assess ment of the h istory of black people. And so it is that each year we have a “’’Black History Month" when the more knowledged ot citizens and educators alike (or bravest) dare challenge the es tablishment. There are the direct attacks upon the intellectual capabilities of non-whites by the vaudeville sector of academ ia e g Jensen and Shockley ( I Q and genet- But we need not go ‘abroad for the denigrating rejection of docum ented accom plishm ents ot Africans and African Americans. Some of the most scurrilous attacks of this nature were those m ounted by some local educa tors against the Portland School D istrict’s “ Base Line Essays Where Was The Amistad Before Spielberg? B y E arl O fari H utchinson S ubscribe to r What Is History? The Countdown » ' l.omedandpppeect.lrf.We Hr Fill it“r- Byader Response. I’ < >, Pox i Steven Spielberg recently told an interviewer that he wouldn't have made the film Amistad, it he couldn t tell it as the story ot Joseph C inque, the reputed leader of the shipboard slave revolt, he felt that the story would only make sense if moviegoers had some one they could identify with. This approach points to a sad. but painful truth about African-Ameri can history, while there are scores ot heroes and heroic acts in Black his tory, many African Americans don't know about them. I don’t exclude myself.l have written and researched numerous articles and several books on the Black experience, yet I was only faintly familiar with the Amistad story. I remember that during the early 1970s, San Quentin prison activist, Ruchell Magee, and Black ex-con vict, Donald DeFreeze, the leader ot ill-fated the Symbionese Liberation Army, styled themselves as rebels and adopted the name of Cinque. Beyond that distant recollection the Amistad story seemed to me to be lost in the shadows of history. This is inexcusable, the story is straightforward enough. In 1839, 53 . ,IU. Black slaves were transported ille gally form West Africa on a Spanish schooner from one Cuban port to another. Led by Cinque, the slaves revolted at mid-sea, commandeered the ship, and attempted to sail it back to Africa. They never made it. I he ship floundered for two months at sea, was captured by a U S. navy cruiser and towed to Connecticut. In a bitter two-year court battle, the case became a cause celebre for abo litionists, drew much national and international attention and stirred political intrigue and controversy. Eventually the Amistad captives were freed in a landmark Supreme Court decision, and repatriated back to their African homeland. But why did it take top gun Holly wood film maker Spielberg to make million of Americans aware of this magnificent tale of triumph and hero ism. One answer is that Spielberg has the money and the muscle of Holly wood behind him. The other is that many Black scholars, activists, writ ers, filmmakers didn’t do their job. they failed to chronicle the vents of the Amistad for generations of Afri can-American students. Even many Afrocentrists, who have turned the artists, writers, and musicians gave «tiidv study of Africa and Egypt into a America its most distinctive cultural political fashion statement, have art forms. This should be a pint of mostly ignored the Amistad story. pride and self-esteem for young Af Despite the current hoopla over rican Americans, and Americans ot the film, there are still only three all colors, instead much of this is books on the Amistad saga, "Black barely known by them. Mutiny” by William Puffins, "Black My great fear is that the Amistad Odyssey" by Mary Cables, and "Mu story again may be lost in the tie-in tiny on the Amistad" by Howard stampede to cash in on the height Jones. Although these books have ened public interest and curiosity been hastily reissued to capitalize on that the film has stimulated. This the film, they were out of print tor happened with Spike Lee’s tilm on nearly a decade. The public igno Malcolm X. Hordes ol fast-buck art rance about the Amistad story tells ists blitzed the market with parapher just how much ol African-American nalia, t-shirts, caps and poorly re history has been lost, stolen, ignored searched books. They turned and deliberately distorted. In the study Malcolm, the man, into a franchise. guide for students accompanying the When the buzz died, so did public film Amistad producer, Debbie Allen interest in Malcolm. got it right, "Whether you’re talking If the Amistad saga is reduced to about art, or literature, or music, the loads of caps, t-shirts, and images of real history has just been castrated- super action heroes, it will do noth left out.” ing to promote and everything to The Amistad story, of course, is discourage serious on-going study of only the tip of the rich Black histori the case’s importance to American cal iceberg in america. Black inven history and the Black struggle. Ig tors, explorers, scientists, architects, noring African-American history is and trade unionists helped construct bad enough, but commercializing or the foundation of American indus romanticizing it is even worse. Let’s try Black abolitionists, religious and hope the Amistad story won't suffer civil rights leaders helped shape law, that fate. politics, and ethics in America. Black M a rv e lo u s M in d Our Moods Color Our View Of Reality ............................... „ „ .v n .e d u,o„d ,oul. depressing, aggravated mood B y M ichael A. G rant , J.I). but we can deliberately come out of Listen to you internal conversa it You see, our moods are nothing lion. Become aware of the dialogue more than barometers of our most that goes on non-stop inside your persistent thoughts. If our heads are own head If you pay close attention, filled with negative, reactive, exag you will be able to identify your gerated, “making-the-world-a-night- mood. mare” thoughts, our moods will re Have you observed that when you lied our self-defeating evaluation. If are feeling unappreciated or unloved on the other hand, we decide to ig by your spouse, you are probably also nore a barrage of hypercritical, judg finding fault with y our job. your friend m ental, and anger-provoking ships and your immediate prospects thoughts, replacing them with more for improving your financial status ’ truthful or hopeful ones, we will no It is nothing but a mood. Moods tice an evaluation in our moods. come and moods go. They are an Forexample, in our very material inescapable feature of the human istic culture, no matter how much we predicament They color our view of acquire, we are never satisfied. Like reality. They determine whether we hungry ghosts, we are haunted by an are satisfied or discontent with those obsessive need to always want some important aspects ot our lives Bui thing other than what our present our moods change so fast that a reality is offering us. We tell our morning’s glowing description ot selves that we will be happy when we one’s love mate can by evening dete get anotherjob.orlose lOpounds.or riorate into a litany of accusations find another love mate, or buy a new and misunderstandings. car. or move into a different house or Here’s the good news We may apartment, on and on ad nauseam. not consciously place ourselves in a ness. You will know irw » « I d silence sdenee those those n noisy, o ,,,. ness V,>u»dlk n o » » when h e n your ,; mood If we . would has changed because you tocus less troublesome, hungry ghosts inside our on what’s wrong in your life and heads, we would soon discover (as more on what is right in it. one brilliant mind once wrote) that Some other obvious mood enhanc happy people are not those who get ers are: Exercising, deep-breathing, everything they want, they have got. laughing, dancing, listening to mu You can always add something later. sic, praying, meditating or just plain The secret, however, is to stop and relaxing your mind and body. genuinely focus with an attitude ot The final and most powerful strat gratitude on that which you already egy for lifting oneself out of an ill- have. An attitude of gratitude guaran tempered mood is found in this simple tees and elevation of your mood admission: Whatever I am going Here's another proven method to through at this moment in my rela lift your mood. Transcend yourself tionships, with my finances, with my and focus on love. Love of God, love health or with my attitude about life of family, love of strangers, love of in general, 1 subconsciously created life, love even of your enemies. Fo it. If I will take full responsibility for cus on love. Consciously transmit it my situation and chart a more desir to others. able course. 1 will begin to see the Visualize yourself receiving the lesson in all my dilemmas and the love and concern of others Remem solutions to all my problems. ber all emotions are rooted in either Life has some wonderful moments love or fear. When love dominates to offer, but only those who ascend to our thoughts and subsequently our loftier moods will be present toenjoy feelings, our moods are buoyed ef them. fortlessly. We return to that state of God bless! emotional equilibrium called happi
