Newspapers / The Carolina Times (Durham, … / Jan. 24, 1981, edition 1 / Page 14
Part of The Carolina Times (Durham, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
14 THE CAROLINA TIMES SAT., JANUARY 24, 1881 jjj3- UNITE f( nil1 n i i Lii , I .nil i injiHi To Be Equal Civil Rights Issues Coming v, ) Ui - ; ; By Vernon E. Jordan, Jr.l? A new Administration and a new Con gress face a lot of unfinished business in the i weeks ahead. Several civil rights-related measures will be on the agenda. One issue left unresolved by the last Con gress was the long-overdue amendments to the Fair Housing Law that would give the government the enforcement powers needed to make the law work. We've had a fair housing law on the books for over ten years, but discrimination in the sale and rental of housing is still rampant. That has: been proved time and again by large-scale research programs and by simple anecdotes that can be related by every black person who has ever tried to move out of a gheHo. . Part of the reason discrimination in hous ing is so powerful is that the law has no teeth discriminators need not fear fines or license suspensions. Under the present law 'the Department of Housing and Urban Development can only mediate disputes, while the Justice Department can only sue in situations where a pattern of discrimination is evident. The House of Representatives and the Senate Judiciary Committee both backed bills that would let HUD bring lawsuits against those charged with discrimination in housing. But it died in Congress' rush to ad journ, even (hough supporters made impor tant compromises. Fair housing supporters will bring it up again. But we will start out with two strikes against us. Some of the Bill's Congressional supporters were defeated last November and their replacements may be less sympathetic to civil rights. And the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose chairman Senator Ed ward Kennedy led the fight for the bill, wil now be chaired by Senator Strom Thur mond, a virulent foe of civil rights. But that does not mean th effort to en force the law is doomed. President Reagan can use this as an opportunity to send signals to the nation that he finds housing dicrimination as abhorrent as do its victims. He can get behind the effort to work out a fair housing enforcement bill that puts the government squarely on the side of ending discrimination. Another issue Mr. Reagan can capitalize on is one that he muffed last month. Then, he said he supported restrictions on busing. At the time the Congress had passed a rider to an appropriations bill that wuld have prevented the Justice Department from tak-. ing part in school desegregation cftWti involv ing busing. President Carter was able to kill that bla tant attempt to restrict the executive bran ch's duty to enforce the Constitution by ve-, toing the bill. But the anti-busing crowd has promised to come back with it ll new Congress, hopeful the new Pr- :i will sign it. Mr. "Reagan can disabuse them of that no tion. Even if he's not a fan of busing, and even if he doesn't understand the need for busing in some cases, he should understand the threat tq ihe powers of the presidency posed by such a restriction on a federal Department to enforce laws and const it u: tional rights .it is sworn to uphold. Another endangered piece of civil rights legislation is the Voting Rights Act. Senator Thurmond, the former Dixiecrat, wants lo kill it either directly or by making it ap plicable to all fifty states instead of those that have a proven history of restricting the right to1 vote. Making the Act apply to all the states would effectively doom it. Even if such a move passed the Congress it would mean a statute almost impossible to enforce. It a back-door way to steal the vole away frqm many blacks. , Other issues too, are on the horin. The new President will have to decide early on whelher he will aid and abet vicious attempts to deprive black people of their constitu tional rights, in issues of key importance, or whether he will fulfill his promise to be presi dent of all of the people. The President swears to uphold the laws of the land, of which none are higher than the Constitution that protects our rights. I . hope he will be true to that oath and demonstrate his support for civil rights. Whose "Improvement 3 3 Durham's city fathers are at.it again. 1 It appears that they are hell bent on destroying another black neighborhood. This time its the St. Theresa area to be "improved" with the straighten ing of South Roxboro from Pied mont to Umstead Street as it curves around the former school building. Lets give credit to City Coun cilmen Adrienne Fox and Ralph Hunt who voted against the plan Monday night. At least some on that council don't go along with the city continuing to walk roughshod over the people least been revealed to the masses. Durham has found ways to use Community Development funds to do everything but improve con ditions of those who need it most. There appear to be no intentions in this city to right what have been some grievous wrongs perpetrated against hundreds of minority and poor citizens. Who is to benefit from the widening of South Roxboro? Probably tjie road builders, city planners andor somebody whose got his eyes on some long range money-making scheme for the area. Certainly not the people who live and work in the area. Affirmative Action: Black Conservatives And Black Reality By Gerald C. Home, Esquire Like flies chasing a garbage truck oppor tunists of all stripes (and colors) are scrambl ing to align themselves with the new Reagan Administration. They perceive some sort of conservative drift, as they proclaim solemn ly, "The 60's are over." They advocate "free enterprise zones" to drag the black community out of the current economic crisis." But with an obtuse blind ness that knows no apparent bounds, they ignore the fact that it was "free enterprise" that helped to bring on this crisis. For exam-; pie, two study groups, one initiated by Presi dent Carter and the other by President-elect Reagan, have suggested that rent controls should be dropped so that "private developers." will be encourfgla bujjd qw,. iJut. . .t i .... i. ..j- il. . u ,. ,i. ,... . - a. smmi-wm a. t .-1,1. i. . it nBL.nur.fl "renewal" and "improvement" that Durham has' done over the , . ... . . . v ac tniAnfu Iran. ama tinn ti.4 . look: at the weed fields which have been "renewed' irif what were once . thriving ; black neighborhoods and business areas to realize that the totality of the secret master plan has not yet and widening of the South Rox boro? Its not there; Is the in sistence on this "improvement" necessary t6 some fat cat's plans?! Only time will tell. Oh, how refreshing a little "live and let live? and mutual respect by and for everybody would be in Durham. Let Us Learn All freedom loving people everywhere shared a feeling of relief, thankfulness' and hap piness as : the 5 American hostages held in Iran for the past 444 days were freed on Tuesday. It is our hope that Americans will not gloat or become indig nant and punitive as, a result of this experience. It could have,' quite justifiably, Jurned out negatively; We must not forget that America perpetrated the first wrong in this scenario some 26 years ago by interfering in Iran's internal affairs when we over threw the Iranians' duly elected; government and installed one of our choosing, the despised Shah. Let us -pray that all Americans have recognized that might is not , always right and have learned the lesson that even the big boys can't mistreat the little people and expect to get away with it unmar ked forever. Carles It! '. WOOD 1870- B. Ju i -'"' aft Vi; if $ mm such housing. Whatever housing such developers have built since then has required many kinds of government support tax abatement, outright subsidy and the like. In short, "free enterprise" could not make a profit on new housing for low and middle in come tenants and left the field to go govern ment or "public enterprise," This trend in housing can also be seen in other areas that free enterprise has abandoned such as rapid transit and passenger-rail service. Given these irrefutable facts, it is well to wonder what were so-called "Black Conser vatives" doing in San Francisco recently meeting and preaching the new conservative gospel. This conference sponsored by the right-wing Institute for Contemporary Studies was attended by 100 economists, academicians and executives. Not only did these black conservatives (query: What do they have to conserve?) back elimination of rent control so. as to unleash private enter prise to re-build the black community but they had the cheek to also advocate a reduc tion in the minimum wage and out-right gut ting of other government programs that are the life-line for millions of black citizens. For example, Prof. Walter Williams spoke out strongly for lowering the minimum wage from $3.10 an hour to $2.00 an hour for those under (age) twentyon the unproven premise that this would curb the spiralling unemployment rates among black youth; he ignored studies to the contrary showing that the more likely result would be the firing of black fathers and the hiring of black sons at the lower rate. , Dr. Thomas Sowell of the notorious Hoover Institute, who has opposed busing, affirmative action and other pro-black civil rights measures, spoke like a latter-day PUA.A Booker T. Washington as he called for more "self-reliance" in the black community. Maria Johnson, an attorney from Washington, D.C. specializing in real estate law, blasted rent control as an impediment .to improved housing for blacks. In a perhaps not unrelated comment, Ed win Meese (the director of Reagan's transi tion team) promised that these and other like-minded blacks would receive jobs in the new administration "at the highest executive and managerial levels." This recent love-in at San Francisco was in marked contrast to the meeting recently held with President-elect Reagan in Washington attended by Benajmin Hooks of the vernon joraan, Mayor Kicnard attther.afcliiaru.ilnaiai owery of SCLC captured best the feeling of the participants when he complained that Reagan's views were 'often "out of touch with reality in terms of the black ex perience." How "out of touch" this new "conservative" view is can also be gleaned from a recent well-publicized memo submit ted to Reagan by two of his chief economic advisors, Congressman Jack Kemp (Rep.-NY) and David Stockman (Rep.-Mich.). Provocatively entitled "Avoiding a GOP Economic Dunkirk," their plan if enacted would be the biggest disaster for the black community since the Fugitive Slave Law. They not only call for tens of billions of dollars in cutbacks in such key programs as food stamps, unemploy ment compensation, disability insurance, etc., but they also call for wiping out the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), which has spelled the dif ference between life and death for thousands of black families. They advocate decontrol of oil prices which will inevitably lead to a rise in home heating costs and prices at the gas pump; they score the vital Medicaid pro gram as a "coast-to-coast soup line." Their views should not be dismissed lightly as Stockman has been named already as head of the crucial Office of Management and Budget while Kemp is given a better than even chance of becoming Governor of New York in 1982 and a presidential nominee in '84 or '88. Needless to say, implementation of this billionaire's dream would spell catastrophe for a black community already reeling from one of the most severe economic downturns since the 1930's But the figures and statistics, no matter how many are cited, cannot even begin to portray the depressed condition of ihe black community. Affirmative action, which during its brief tenure, has been an Immeajjfjlble aid for blacks, has been under special1 Attack. One need only return to the case and medical schools which thrust affirmative ac tion into the national limelight. The Associa tion of American Medical College reports that the ratio of blacks among the nation's 65,189 medical students is 5.7 down from 6.2 in 1975. What these statistics don't reveal are the black students harmed psychologically because they are refused en trance to a profession solely because of their race or the black infant who dies premature ly because of a shortage of skilled medical t a "personnel in nrsher commumtv nr. the. black pfflde me same reason. Perversely enough, affirmative action is being destroyed for blacks at the same time it is being revived for others. For example, whites in Hawaii have just won a major law suit challenging the dental licensing ex amination there. They contend that they were discriminated against and Asian Americans (especially those of Japanese ancestry) were favored. The court accepted their contention and awarded them $325,000 and is considering awarding $330,000 more in legal, fees! And before it was reversed, Donald R. Waldrip, desegregation ad ministrator of Cleveland's schools had ruled that athletic teams must be at least twenty per cent "integrated" by next year which would have meant "clodhopping" whites added to the basketball team at some high schools and "smooth as silk" blacks cut. It is doubtful if the framers of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments had this in mind. This is the reality that these so-called black conservatives and those who are pulling their strings ignore. Milton Friedman, economist and advisor to the fascist Chilean junta and the Israeli regime which has engineered ar inflation rate of over 100, said at the Sar Francisco meeting that the views of Sowell, Williams, Johnson and others, would "come to represent a majority view in the black community." This is highly dubious, if not impossible, but it will take more organiza tion, agitation and education if Friedman and his ilk are to be proven wrong. tarn in Tennessee, he rose from a bootblack to a renowned scholar - a Shakespeare expert! A Graduate of the Saper School ' of Oratory, he held an A. D. from Beloit College, a B.D. ??mhlc8 Unlvewlty, an MA. from Columbia Universi ty! After a successful stage career, he was a minister; later bis term as instructor and publicity director for Tuskesee , was cut short - the government called him for public in formation work in Wy War I! V 1 . V v -Continental Features Letter To The President Dear President Reagan: I think it is a shame for you and your ad ministration to spend all tit those thousands of dollars for your inauguration as President of the United States when so much of it could have been used to help those '"WITHOUT" in our country. I do hope you will implement the words, "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal the land," that seem to be your choice. May God bless you in your new ad ministration. Clara A. Thompson Durham, N.C. If mete is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who pro pose togvor freedom and yet depreciate agitatiotare meru who want crops, without plowing up. the ground. ,They want rain without thunder and lighting. They Wtjhe oceans' ma jestic waves without ' the awful roar of iis waters.1 ' Frederick Douglass h Carolina fcw (USPS 091-380) L.E.AUSTIN Friitnr-Puhlishflr 1927-1971 Published every Inursaay mated Saturday) at Durham N.C! by United' Publishers, . Incor porated. Mailing Address: P.O. Box '3825, Durham, N.C. 27702. 'Office located at 923 Fayetteville Street, Durham, N.C. 27701. Second Class Postage paid at Durham North Carolina ' 27702. POSTMASTER: Send address Chande to THE CAROLINA TIMES, P.O. Box 3825, Durham. .MX, 27702. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: One. year, $12.00 (plus $0.48 sales tax for-North Carolina residents). Single copy $.30.,.Postal regulations REQUIRE advanced payment on subscriptions!, Address all communications and make all checks1 and money orders payable to: THE CAROLINA TIMES. .' NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE; Amalgamated Publishers, .Inc., 45 West 45th Street. New York, New York 10066. ' ) ' Member United Press International Photo'Ser vice, . National Newspaper Publisher? Associa tion, North Carolina Black Publishers. Associa tion; , . -: Opinions Expressed by columnists ; In thl nPwQnarw An nnt nAPjflrlltf rarimuint thfl policy of this newspapec . . this newspaper WILL NOT M responsible tor tne fefura of unsolicited pictures V " ,:
The Carolina Times (Durham, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Jan. 24, 1981, edition 1
14
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75