Opinion
Business: No Success Without Risk
“Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now”
B ERNIE F OSTER
Founder/Publisher
B OBBIE D ORE F OSTER
Executive Editor
J ERRY F OSTER
Advertising Manager
L ISA L OVING
News Editor
H ELEN S ILVIS
Multimedia Editor
D AVID K IDD
Graphic Designer
M ONICA J. F OSTER
Seattle Office Coordinator
Bernie Foster, Publisher
Of The Skanner News
You may have heard
already: After just over a year
in operation, Quartet Restau-
rant has closed.
From all the fuss that’s been
made over Quartet’s financial
woes, you’d think the Titanic
had sunk again for the second
time – not just a restaurant.
According to Ohio State
researcher
H.G.
Parsa,
around 60 percent of restau-
rants fail in the first three
years. In fact, only about half
of all small businesses are
still alive after five years.
That’s
how
capitalism
works. And it’s how life works.
For most of us failure is a nec-
essary step on the road to
success. That’s not just some-
EDITORIAL
The Skanner News
thing motivational speakers
say to make losers feel better
What if Vincent van Gogh
had given up because his
work didn’t sell? What if
Steven Spielberg had quit
movies after getting multiple
rejections from film school?
What if Bill Gates had got out
of the computer business
when his first product
bombed?
As an investor you always
‘Quartet’s founder and co-owner Frank
Taylor brought to town people like
Stevie Wonder, Spike Lee and Michael
Jordan, to name a few’
about themselves. It’s a stone
cold fact.
hope your investment will
become successful. Some-
times you need to have
patience and wait to see that
success. But if profits never
show up, you have nobody to
blame but yourself. Nobody
twisted your arm; you took a
gamble and lost… this time
around.
Quartet has given Port-
landers some truly good
times. Quartet’s founder and
co-owner
Frank
Taylor
brought to town people like
Stevie Wonder, Spike Lee and
Michael Jordan, to name a
few. Without Taylor’s willing-
ness to take a risk, we’d have
fewer good memories of
happy times. Taylor is still
delivering great food and
service at Portland Prime. We
wish him success.
What do you think?
J ULIE K EEFE
S USAN F RIED
Photographers
Can We Make It To The ‘Promised Land?’
F
The Skanner Newspaper, established
in October 1975, is a weekly publica-
tion, published each Wednesday by
IMM Publications Inc.,
415 N. Killingsworth St.,
riday, April 4, marks the
46th anniversary of Dr. Mar-
tin Luther King Jr’s
assassination on a balcony in
Memphis. Black America and
people of goodwill in the nation
and the world were stricken by
grief, frustration and anger at the
murder of this great man of justice
and peace. Indeed, rebellions
erupted in urban centers across the
nation by people who could not
fathom how an apostle of non-vio-
lence could be struck down so
V ANTAGE
P OINT
Ron
Daniels
referenced “we as a people.” But
given his fervent belief in the
promise of the Declaration of
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ation and West Coast Black Pub lishers
“In the most memorable part of his
oration [Dr. Martin Luther King] took the
audience to the ‘mountaintop’ with
him and declared that he had ‘seen
the promised land.’”
Association.
All photos submitted become the
property of The Skanner. We are not re -
spon sible for lost or damaged photos
either solicited or unsolicited.
© 2014 The Skanner. ALL RIGHTS RE SERVED.
REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART
WITHOUT PERMISSION PROHIBITED.
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Page 2 The Portland and Seattle Skanner April 2, 2014
Independence and Constitution,
there is little doubt that he also
believed that one day America as a
nation must arrive at the Promised
Land. King also knew that for the
“promise” to be realized Black
people and people of good will in
the “beloved community” would
have to struggle to achieve its ful-
fillment. There would be trials and
tribulations because there were
“To get to the Promised Land, King
also warned that the people, those
who aspired to create the change
must themselves undergo a change,
a personal ‘revolution’ that would
translate into creating a just and
humane society.”
forces deeply committed to
restricting economic and political
democracy to an elite “few” to the
exclusion of the “many” in this
society.
As Dr. King peered over into the
Promised Land, he saw a nation
materialism and militarism are
incapable of being conquered.”
The people must create a “moral
movement” to get to the Promised
Land and that movement cannot
countenance a system incompati-
ble
with
“person-oriented”
values. Therefore, those who
would get to the Promised Land
must challenge and change sys-
tems
of
oppression
and
exploitation; they must advance a
politics of social transformation.
As King put it, “True compassion
is more than flinging a coin to a
beggar; it comes to see that the
edifice which produces beggars
needs restructuring.”
As we witness the calculated,
mean-spirited assault on Blacks,
labor, women and poor and work-
ing
people
by
rightwing
extremists, the explosive growth
in mass incarceration within the
prison-jail industrial complex and
the ever increasing concentration
of wealth in the hands of the few,
we must continue to be inspired by
King’s view from the mountain-
top. Black people in particular
must be dedicated to leading our-
selves
and
the
downtrodden/dispossessed to the
Promised Land.
Ron Daniels is President of the
Institute of the Black World
21st Century and Distinguished
Lecturer at York College City Uni-
versity of New York.
Please send your news tips
to info@theskanner.com
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viciously and violently. It was
clear that America was at yet
another cross-road in the quest to
achieve racial, economic and
social justice.
Despite constant death threats,
Dr. King never flinched in his
determination that this nation
should be made to live up to its
creed. The night before he was
murdered, he reluctantly mounted
the podium at the Mason Temple
Church in Memphis and seemed to
have a premonition of his impend-
ing demise. Yet, he proclaimed
that he was not afraid of dying. In
the most memorable part of his
oration he took the audience to the
“mountaintop” with him and
declared that he had “seen the
promised land.” Sensing that his
life would be cut short he said, “I
may not get there with you. But I
want you to know tonight, that we,
as a people, will get to the Prom-
ised Land.”
As we reflect on King’s courage
and optimism in the shadow of
death, the question is: Can we
make it to the Promised Land?
Clearly Dr. King was speaking to
the long suffering sons and daugh-
ters of Africa in America when he
that embraced his concept of
an Economic Bill of Rights mod-
eled
after
Franklin
D.
Roosevelt’s
“Four
Freedoms,” where every human
being would have a decent stan-
dard of living: a land where
no-one would lack for a job with a
living wage or guaranteed annual
income, quality affordable hous-
ing, healthcare and education.
To get to the Promised Land, Dr.
King was preparing a Poor Peo-
ple’s Campaign to galvanize the
“many” to struggle for an Eco-
nomic Bill of Rights even in the
face of the fierce resistance of the
“few” at the commanding heights
of capital and finance. To get to
the Promised Land, King also
warned that the people, those who
aspired to create the change must
themselves undergo a change, a
personal “revolution” that would
translate into creating a just and
humane society.
Hence he proclaimed, “I am
convinced that if we are to get on
the right side of the world revolu-
tion, we as a nation must undergo
a radical revolution of values. We
must rapidly begin the shift from a
‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘per-
son-oriented’ society. When
machines and computers, profit
motives and property rights are
considered more important than
people, the giant triplets of racism,