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MARCH 18, 1998
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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
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