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Page A4
February 15. 2(X)6
BLACK HISTORY MONTH and the American Experience
Opinion articles do not
necessarily reflect or represent the
views o f The Portland Observer
O pinion
Honor Coretta Scott King by Continuing Her Legacy
Bush critics at
funeral were not
out of line
M athis
In stark contrast to her
h u s b a n d ’s
f u n e ra l,
C o re tta S cott K in g ’s
h o m e g o in g s e rv ic e s
w ere extravagant. Dr.
M artin L uther K in g ’s
services were held at Ebenezer Bap
tist, an A tlanta church that is much
sm aller and older than New Birth
M issionary Baptist in suburban
Atlanta, where Mrs. K ing’s ser
vices were held. Then-president
Lyndon B. Johnson didn’t attend
Dr. K ing’s services; the current and
three former presidents attended
Mrs. K ings.’ This is not to say Mrs.
It is more than hypocritical for
President Bush to laud someone
with values so very different from
his own without acknowledging
those differences.
£
by J udge G reg
King d id n ’t deserve the
King’s funeral drew outside criti
ceremonies awomanof cism for being too ‘political.’ Inside,
her stature and grace,
with her legacy, most certainly does.
But, as yet another icon o f the Civil
Rights M ovem ent passes on, we
must do more than honor them with
lavish funeral services. A truer, and
much more fitting, tribute would be
to ensure that Mrs. K ing’s com m it
ment to social justice and nonvio
lence lives on.
Several o f the speakers at Mrs.
however, 1 witnessed rousing ova
tions after each political remark. What
was Mrs. King if she w asn’t politi
cal? She didn’t serve as an elected
official, but she worked within and
against the political system, along
with Dr. King, to tear down racist Jim
Crow laws and, after his assassina
tion, to have his birthday declared a
national holiday.
The Rev. Joseph Lowery, who
co-founded the Southern Christian
Leadership Council with Dr. King,
was not out o f line for criticizing the
war in Iraq and A m erica's treatment
o f the poorduring his remarks. Mrs.
King was a w om an w ho firm ly be
lieved in nonviolent protest. She
worked tirelessly on behalf o f the
p o o r an d u n d e r s e rv e d . R ev .
L ow ery’s com m ents served to re
mind everyone ju st w ho Mrs. King
w as and w hat she believed in.
W hen form er President Jim m y
C arter spoke o f H urricane Katrina
an d th e w ay th e g o v e rn m e n t
handled the disaster, he meant no
disrespect. And, when he pointed
out that the King family was once
secretly w iretapped by the govern
ment, he d id n ’t intend to be rude.
Hurricane Katrina shined a much-
needed light on the state o f race
and poverty in this country and
Living Up to America’s Ideals
Coretta Scott King
and a call to action
A nisha D esai
Every politician, news anchor and new spa
per eulogized C oretta Scott King after her Jan.
30 death, praising her commitment tocivil rights.
But how much attention did we pay to Mrs.
K ing’s w ords and actions w hen she was alive?
M ust it only be upon the passing o f our
iconic leaders that we pause to grasp the depths
o f racial inequality around us — a real and
present danger w hic|| we ignore at
our own peril?
Mrs. King’scommitment was not
ju st to a narrow definition o f civil
rights as legal freedom from dis
crim ination. She spoke up for eco
nomic justice and peace, both be
fore she met her late husband Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. and after hir>
death.
In June 1968, she called upon
American women to fight the three
evils o f racism, poverty and war. In
1974, she formed the Full Em ploy
ment Action Council, a broad coalition that
advocated full em ploym ent and equal opportu
nity. Recently, she urged President Bush to ask
American corporations to put their resources
behind the effort to help the poor. She recog
nized the econom ic consequences o f m ilitarism
and considered money spent on w eapons,
rather than education and health care, money
wasted.
How sad that she did not live to see her
vision becom e reality! At the tim e o f her pass
ing, the African American unem ploym ent rate
was more than double that o f whites; the jo b
by
less recovery has been m ore jobless for some
races than others. The m assive layoffs in the
auto industry and the overall decline in m anu
facturing have affected black w orkers espe
cially hard. Black fam ilies who had painstak
ingly risen from poverty through education
and hard w ork are falling backw ards, losing
health coverage and losing hom es to foreclo
sure. Federal program s that have boosted prior
generations into the middle class, such as Pell
grants and housing subsidies, are being cut to
pay for war and for tax cuts for the rich. And
despite President B u sh 's lip service to narrow-
Though more and more jo b s are located in
the suburbs, beyond the reach o f public trans
portation, one in four black fam ilies ow ns no
car, compared with one in 14 white families. This
disparity was tragically obvious during Hurri
cane Katrina, as those left behind were over
whelm ingly black and poor.
Mrs. King’sdeathcom esrightafterD r. King’s
national holiday, one w hich she fought so hard
to achieve, and right before Black History
Month. This brief reflective time o f the country's
calendar sparks a variety o f valuable national
forum s about civil rights. But too often our
------------- focus is on a few great historical
figures, w hich obscures the need
for all o f us to call on our country to
live up to its ideals.
All too often we w ait blindly for
the one or two golden leaders to
lead us from the storm. W e spend
too much ti me lam enting the loss o f
charism atic leaders o f the past. But
as a Hopi teaching rem inds us, “We
are the ones we have been waiting
_
for.’’O ureveryday interactions and
A observations are enough o f a rudi
mentary tool kit to begin the work of
spotlighting racial injustice.
Everyday people made possible the victo
ries o f the Civil Rights m ovem ent, and every
day people can take the lead today. W e can best
honor the memory o f C oretta Scott King, Dr.
King and Rosa Parks by com m itting ourselves
to challenge and close the racial w ealth divide.
Everyday people made
possible the victories of
the Civil Rights movement,
and everyday people can
take the lead today.
ing the divide after H urricane K atrina, he once
again proposed cuts to the ladder o f opportu
nity in his recent budget proposal.
How sad that the last five years o f C oretta
Scott K ing’s life were years o f backsliding on
the progress she worked for all her life. W hile
median incom e has fallen since 2000 for every
racial group, it has fallen fastest for African
Americans. W hile the typical white family
gained six percent in net worth from 2001 to
2004, rising to $ 136,000, the typical black family
gained not at all, rem aining at a dism al $20,(XX),
according to the Federal Reserve.
Anisha Desai is program director at United
for a Fair Economy, a non-profit group that
shows how concentrated wealth and power
undermines the economy, corrupts democracy,
deepens the racial divide and tears communi
ties apart..
President B ush’s illegal dom estic
spying program has com e under
fire in recent months. C arter was
simply pointing out how much more
work rem ains to be done in the fight
for social equality:
If there is anyone w ho should
apologize fortheirrem arks, perhaps
it is President Bush him self. He
stood before thousands o f m ourn
ers and praised Mrs. King for her
com m itm ent to social justice and
equality. The com m ents are well-
deserved, but it is more than hypo
critical for President Bush to laud
som eone with values so very dif
ferent from his own w ithout ac
know ledging those differences.
Though her public appearances
declined in recent years, it would be
safe to say that Mrs. King did not
approve o f the war in Iraq; she was
appalled at the way so many A fri
As I w atched TV , suddenly the
flash “Drive by shooting at Benson
High S chool” cam e across the
screen. I found m yself beginning
to shake and my heart beating at a
fast pace. W hy, because not only
did a friend o f my daughter attend
Benson, she was a cheerleader
and w as at the school’s basketball
game with Jefferson on the night
o f the shooting. I w aited 20 m in
utes until the news cam e on, hop
ing that I w ould not hear that 10 or
more children have been shot, as
has happened to oth er schools
across the nation. If I w as going
through this, I could only imagine
w hat som e parents were going
through.
With summ er coming, will there
be more shootings? W hat can we
do as people o f the com m unity to
stop this m adness? Som ething
must be done to stop youth on a
killing rage. W e cannot spank a
child. Yet we live in a system that
will beat our children, lock our
children up, or talk our children
into going to war to kill other people
over a lie by President Bush.
The youth cannot find w ork in
the com m unity they live. They want
to dress nice, have a nice car and
w ant love and respect. So they get
caught up in the drug gam e and
with that com es jail, killing or death.
I feel that we live in a system that
cares less about the youth, espe
cially with cuts for education and
schools closing down. W hat can a
youth do? If you have a business,
adopt a youth and teach the child
yourtrade. If the system really cared
about youth, you w ould receive a
tax w rite-off for doing this.
W e must become self-dependent
when it com es to our youth. Par
ents, you should know if your child
is talking gang talk or wearing gang
colors. D on’t w ait until its too late
and you end up looking at your son
or daughter in a casket. If you do
find your child representing the so-
called hood, teach them that a bet
ter alternative w ould be becom ing
a law yer or doctor, som ething the
hood needs. Let there be peace.
Gary Clay Sr.
Northeast Portland
No Care for Our Own
Last night I w atched a PBS pro
gram that detailed the devastation
on the G u lf Coast, specifically fo
cusing on the shortage o f basic
health care. The video was graphic
<1, Ä * W-
m eth becomes
your d o tte d lin ç .
«
l i e s , you d e c id e .
If y o u k n o w s o m e o n e w ith a m e th
p ro b le m call 1 -800-923-H E L P .
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Judge Gheg Mathis is national
vice president o f Rainbow PUSH
and a national board member o f
the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference.
Shooting at Benson
■ > ;
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can-A m ericans were forgotten in
New O rleans as the flood w ater
rushed in after H urricane Katrina
and that she was opposed to the
P resident’s dom estic spying pro
gram. By speaking as if he and Mrs.
King had shared ideals and a co m
mon vision for A m erica, President
Bush, in effect, insulted all she
w orked for.
As w e celebrate Black History
M onth, let’s take tim e to not only
rem em ber but honor - through our
actions -M rs. King and all o f the
soldiers from the Freedom M ove
ment, past and present. True he
roes should continue to live on .
long after they are gone.
in my mind - throngs o f people
m illing around on a dusty lot, w ait
ing their turn to have their most
basic health care needs met.
W hile I w atched, a mixture of
anger and disgust w elled up in me
in a way I cannot fully express. The
experience these people are living
through is so pathetic and wrought
with sham e that I hurt for them.
W hat struck me m ost is these are
A m ericans, our people, being sub
jected to such a com plete disregard
that it is utterly unfathomable. While
billions o f dollars are pum ped into
the M iddle East, little is being done
to care for our own people. W hile
billions o f dollars fill the pockets of
the President’s friends on w hat I
believe to be suspect contracts, my
so n ’s education suffers.
It is no longer the dirt poor people
who feel the brunt of our President’s
foolishness - it is all o f us w ho
choose to look. I am a m iddle-class,
college educated business ow ner
and I am disgusted beyond belief.
I can afford health care and could
rem ove my son from public school,
if I so chose. But th at’s not really
the point.
The President budget proposal
is not only a slap in the face to
A m ericans, is not only laughable in
it’s care and concern for all o f us -
rich, poor and in between, it is the
derailing o f the Am erica that as a
child I thought o f as great, ju st and
true.
There is nothing great, true or
ju st about a country that allow s its
children to ge, lost in the poorly
funded public school system or its
elderly to suffer because they can
not afford their m edication or it’s
citizens to stand in the hot, dusty
heat, sham ed and defeated as they
w ait to get the care o f a doctor. That
is not my America, Mr. President.
Nicole Maust
Northeast Portland