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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (March 18, 1998)
•f*0 ■$• < 4 < / #4^ * "* .- .? • /. « ú 7. 4 -, i ’ *4lwc4Y- Page A6 MARCH 18, 1998 (C lip »1 I ? w fl M ■ f j ..4 i / / T i 54ortl:tnh (îi)bserüer Editorial Articles Do Not Necessarily Reflect Or Represent The Views O f (Fife IJo rtlan h (Obscrucr , , ¡ Attention Readers! r I lease lake a ntinule Io 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 appreciated. We take critic ism well! Get your powerful pens out N O W and address your letters to; Ltfrlur. R G ltk j K tsuvnse, P.O, Box 3137. Portland. O R 97208. (Tlje ^Jnrtlanb © bscruvr P u o i essor M l MSI i \ Bi r i (USES 959-6X0) Established in 1970 Charles Washington Publisher & Editor Mark Washington Distsribution Manager Gary Ann Taylor Business Manager Larry J. Jackson, Sr. Director o f Operatimi lesha Williams Graphic Design Tony Washington Associate Editor Contributing Writers: Professor McKinley Burt, Lee Perlman, Neil Heilpern Joy Ramos 4747 N E M a r tin L u th e r K in g , J r. B lvd .. P o rtla n d , O re g o n 97211 50 3-2 8 8 -0 0 3 3 • F a x 5 0 3 -2 8 8 -0 0 1 5 E m a il: Pdxo bserv@ aol.co m Deadline for all submitted materials: Articles:Friday, 5:00pm Ads: Monday, 12:00pm Send Address Changes T o : P o rtla n d O b s e rv e r, P.O. Box 3137, P o rtla n d , O R 97208. Subscriptions: $60.00 per year I he Portland Observer welcomes freelance submissions Manu scripts and photographs should be clearly labeled and w ill be returned it accompanied by a self addressed envelope. All created design display ads become the sole properly 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 ol such ad © 1996 I HE PORTLAND OBSERVER ALL RICH I S RESERVED, REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PAR I WITH OUT PERMISSION IS PROHIBITED. I lie Portland Observer-Oregon’s Oldest Multicultural Public,i- tio n -isa member of the National Newspaper Association-Founded in ‘885, and The National Advertising Representative Amalgamated Publishers. Inc, New York. NY. Oregon Federation of Advertising. American Minorites Media, and The West Coast Black Publishers Association • Serving Portland and Vancouver. SUBSCRIBE K) (Llic P o r t l a n f t (O liB e ru c r The Portland Observer can he sent directly to your home l o r only $60.00 per year Please till out, enclose cheek or money o rd e i. and mail to: S ubscriptions I’m: P ortland O bserver ; PO B ox 3137 P ortland , O regon 9720X Name. Address: ________ C ity , Stale: Zip-Code: I ' ‘ ank You F or R eading T he P ortland O bserver B y P rof . M ckinley B urt A reader says, “thanks for that “little short-form reenforcement o f our history last week. We always take copies o f your articles to work and pin them on the bulletin board. And no matter how easily most o f your revelations can be proven, the hard core racists at our plant never give up.” Through the years old buddy, through the years ! “ I he truth and the whole truth" are there. Though some our country’s most erudite scholars and the cultural elite - who control o f our communications and school cur riculums - insist on suborning per jury when it comes to African and African American history. It is said that “power corrupts and absolute power absolutely corrupts.” The guardians at the gate’ whom I have just described ignore or pretend that there are no such key sources for research and documentation as the s p e c t i v “The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth,” II British Colonial Office, Archives o f the Spanish and Portuguese nations. The Vatican Library, and urban cen ters, and ¿‘Lloyds o f London” files. There are European publications ofcollections o f letters sent home by immigrants in America - what really went on in ante helium society and on those plantations where blacks per formed every skilled craft and inno vated technology (I have several o f these). And then there are the de tailed military records o f the ‘occu pying’ Union armies during the ‘re construction Period’ following the Civil War (some 1 found in the ar chives o f the O regon N ational Guard). That Military described the former slaves as using the very technical skills and necessary interaction ex ploited by their greedy masters to “promptly set up their own schools, road systems and other elements o f county governm ent." That doesn’t quite sound like the bungling, grin ning, artless darky’ (sic) o f our eon ventional historians who write to sly ly justify the terror and rape o f the mur derous Ku Klux Kian as they took back the land from the newly freed’ blacks (see Geonovese, Meier and Rudwick, W.E.B. Dubois, Booker T. Washington on black technology). And if one were really seeking truth, certainly A m erica’s state and county historical societies would not be ignored - or their records cen sored before publication, as I have found to be the case. For instance, when lecturing on black contribu tions to technology before a U.S. Forest Service personnel group, I was often interrupted by a member o f the audience who had his own story to tell. Typically, this person would be a w hitesouthem er(99ora 100% white audience) who would ask to talk to me after the seminar because he or she knew a black inventor. I rem em ber one encounter in Eastern Oregon where my account ofthe invention o f the most practical o f the railroad You d o n ’t have to look far to find a g ro u p o f teen -ag ers sm o k ing a c ig a re tte . T h e y ’re outside the m alls and fast-fo o d places, and sta n d in g around on street co rn ers all o v er O regon. T w e n ty - f iv e p e rc e n t o f O re g o n ’s y outh co n sid e r th e m selves sm okers. T h a t’s 3% higher than the ad u lt p o p u latio n . And sm oking rates am ong youth are increasing. T hat sta tistic is ju s t one o f m any th at sh o u ld concern us all. T o b acco alone k ills m ore than 7,000 O re g o n ia n s each y ear. I t’s o u r lead in g cau se o f p rev en tab le d eath , ac c o u n tin g for m ore than four tim es the num b er o f d eath s from m o to r v eh ic le a c c id e n ts, s u ic id e , A ID S , and h o m ic id e com bined. Ih e n u m b er o f you n g p eo p le who sm oke and chew fo re te lls a possible fu tu re o f even h ig h er levels o f p re v e n ta b le d eath and su fferin g , and te lls us that we need to do m o re to c o n v in c e young p eo p le th at sm o k in g and chew in g to b acco are w rong. To co n v in ce te e n -a g e rs not to do so m e th in g o r change d e stru c tive b eh av io rs are daun tin g tasks. H ollyw ood sta rs are seen sm o k ing in p o p u lar m o v ies, peers c o n vin ce th e ir teen frie n d s that sm o k in g o r ch e w in g is “c o o l,” and the to b acco in d u stry sp en d s m illio n s o f d o lla rs every day p ro m oting its pro d u cts. A d v e rtisin g m essag es appeal p a rtic u la rly to te e n -a g e rs, and they are effective. S m oking rates nearly doubled am ong adolescent fem ales fo llo w in g in tro d u ctio n o f V irginia slim s advertising, and sm o k e le ss to b a c c o use am ong adolescent m ales doubled follow ing h eavy p ro m o tio n o f a special pro d u ct for “ b e g in n e rs.” So w hat can w e do? O ne w eapon in the fight is re ducin g young p e o p le ’s access to to b acco products. In co o p eratio n w ith O regon S tate Police, my office c o o rd i n a te s r e g u la r in s p e c tio n s , or “stin g s,” at retail stores th ro u g h out the state. In the insp ectio n s, a te e n -a g e r 16 or yo u n g er, a c c o m p an ied by a p la in -c lo th e s p o lice o fficer, attem pts to buy to b a c c o at su p e rm a rk e ts and m ini-m arts. M y o f f ic e k e e p s tra c k o f w h eth er sto re clerks check the c u sto m e rs id e n tific a tio n , how often tobacco is sold and other sta tistic s. C lerks w ho sell to the m inors are cited and can be fined up to $500. T here is good new s. In the m o s t r e c e n t in s p e c tio n s in R P o ic r B y H fircii ugh B. P rice President, National Urban League In, Practicing History, the emi nent historian, Barbara W. T uchman, describes the cardinal sin o f her field this way: “Leaving things out be cause they do not fit is writing fic tion, not history.” You don t have to be a scholar to realize that in the past many Ameri can history textbooks as well as gen eral-interest history books were in tact partly fictionalized accounts o f the real American history: they left certain things out because they did not “fit” the prevailing notion that, among other things, American his tory should be seen as the history o f white Americans and as free o f sig nificant blemishes. That invariably meant that in nearly all o f the history texts pub lished before the I970’s-college as well as primary and secondary school- ________ no people o f color had an American history worth learning about. Such distortions o f American his tory still continue. In Lies M y Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, writ ten in 1995, James W. Leowen pre sents a detailed, devastating exam i nation ofthe “mis-history” o f a dozen secondary school history texts which are currently widely used. These books, he writes at one point, present “distorted and indefeasible incom - a ............................................ ramifications o f this false scholarship: the tellingof the American past largelyas a story of the triumphs of whites over other peoples, the pretense that other peoples havesimply been passive actors in the building ofthe United States; the obscuring ofthe fact that in American history as that o f other nations, some times wrong has triumphed; and the de priving young minds o f the awareness that potential role models for good exist amongst all those who havebeen Ameri cans. None have fought more vigorously to amend that warped view ofthe American past than African Americans. It is the primary reason the historian Carter G. Woodson, whose parents had been bom plete accounts of our past,” and goes on to add that “our textbooks are so Anglocentric that they might be con sidered Protestant history.” Loewen also identifies some o f the M arion and Lane co u n tie s, it w as harder to buy to b acco than it w as last tim e w e cond u cted in sp e c tions. T he overall sta te w id e rate o f sales to m inors is ab o u t 27% . T h a t’s im proving, but still u n a c cep ta b ly high. O re g o n ’s goal is to reduce sales to m in o rs to no m ore than 5%. W e c o n tin u e to see th a t c lerk s frequently sell to b acco to m inors even a fte r c h e c k in g id e n tific a tion. W e’re w o rk in g to im p ro v e the system so th at c le rk s can e a s ily d e te rm in e a c u s to m e r’s age and m ake th e c o rre c t d ecisio n ab o u t w h e th e r to sell o r not sell. O u r o ffic e and o th e rs from the federal to the local level also spend a lot o f m oney, tim e and e n erg y d ev e lo p in g a n ti-to b a c c o a d v e rtisin g and pro g ram s. But no p rogram w ill su cceed w ith o u t one m a jo r in g re d ie n t: P arents. P aren ts w ho ed u c a te th e ir ch ild re n ab o u t the dan g ers o f sm o k in g and ch e w in g a re our m ost p o te n t a llie s in the w ar a g a in st tobacco. I urge p a re n ts to help us m ake a n ti-to b a c c o m essag es a re g u la r topic o f c o n v e rsa tio n . A lso, urge paren ts w ho use to b a c c o to quit, not only fo rth e iro w n health but to serve as a good role m odel for th e ir ch ildren, to g e th e r we can m ake a d ifferen ce. better fffo Tfhe (SLflitor into slavery, began the celebration of Negro History Week (now Black His tory Month) in February of 1926. This year we at the National Urban League have celebrated the occasion by devot- ingan issueof ournewly-revived Oppor tunity Journal to a multifaceted discus sion of African American history. ’That such a discussion is still neces sary was underscored for me recently by the letter a parent who is also a teacher, wrote to the Boston Globe newspaper after seeing the movie “Amistad.” “As a parent and teacher, I find it discouraging that before (the movie), tew ot us knew about this important event from our nation's history,” she wrote. T h e W E A T H E R M A N s a id n o t t o c o o u t unless IT W A S ABSOLUTELY A A Pacific Power, we’ve been supplying and delivering safe, reliable electricity for more than 85 years. We know the job. We know the area. And we know there are some things you’d rather not have to think about. The reliability of your electric service is one of them, j semaphores by Richard B. Spikes elicited the information that “a even more practical semaphore had been invented by a southern black man in Iowa.” (Read it within the engine” ). The only details I was given were that the inventor was originally from Alabama, the time was the early 1920’s on (or less) with so many o f these black innovators. Too make a long story short, I found a historical society in the same county as Buxton, and in the coop erative m anner o f most o f these groups they went to work, polling members, citing many query in their newsletter. Within a month I learned that a large number o f blacks had come to that area from Alabama when coal veins were discovered in Iowa. In another few weeks an elderly resi dent called who knew ofthe inventor and a remaining family member. I was able to take it from there, finding the patent in the downtown Portland library. C o n t’d next week. A m e n d in g A m e r ic a n H is t o r y I t W AS. Bv B arbara C im a g l io e s th a t’s where we come in — no matter what the weather's like. Send your letters to the Editor to: Editor, PO Box 3137, Portland, OR 97208 # PACIFIC POWER /I /’//< /7z( orp Company necessary .
