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1 Page A4-The Chronicle, Thursday, March 15, 1984 Wiqston-Salem Ctfr'oqicle Founded 1974 ERNEST H. PITT , PuMisher NDUB1SI EGEMONYE ALLEN JOHNSON Co-Founder Executivt Editor ELAINE L. PITT JOHN SLADE Office Manager ' Ass islam Editor A long road The campaign trail is not a turnpike. It twists and turns, dips and winds, and its hills and potholes can be treacherous. Travelers be warned: The road is long, too, and smooth straightaways can become wickfcd curves before you know it. Ask Jesse Jackson. In the span of a few days, the wunderkind of the '84 presidential campaign, whose charisma and catchy oratory kept us from yawning at Mondale and Glenn, went from political riches to rags. First, he still felt the repercussions of his "Hymietown" statements, which, no matter what perspective you put them in, don't bode well for a candidate who runs primarily on a civil rights, "rainbow coalition" platform. Noted Time magazine, Jackson's crusade on behalf of the nation's have-nots last week "had lost a good deal of its luster. Armearine deiected and dUtrartpd th#? nnrmallw - - r , D - J ??..????? ) ?"V iivtlliutlj upbeat Jackson stumped listlessly through New Hampshire in the closing days of the campaign and finished in a tie for fourth with only 5 percent of the vote.'' Jackson must also be puzzled at the tendency of so-called black leaders to snub his campaign. When Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King Sr. announced their endorsement of Mondale last week, Jackson, a former aide to Martin Luther King Jr. during the latter's civil rights crusades, wondered aloud why blacks have so much trouble supporting other blacks and can't understand why Jesse is running in the first place -- and, as they see it, "messing things up for the Democrats." "If every single black person registered and voted," says Roy Innis, who is chairman of the Congress for Racial Equality, and who ought to know better, "Jackson couldn't win dogcatcher in America." Then, there's the tale of the new kid on the block, Gary Hart, who has confounded the experts by forging into the front of the Democratic pack with a "New Ideas" campaign, though no one's quite sure what or where his new ideas are. Amid all the Hart hoopla and the fallout from his unfortunate comments, has Jesse Jackson's effervescence gone flat? Will he just fade into oblivion as the black man who c_ it i _ I 1 1 * ? iouowea a oiacn woman, bmriey Chisholm, in a Quixotic quest for the presidency? Probably not. As we said above, the road is long and there are hazards aplenty for all of the candidates. There are also smooth spots for those resilient enough to recover from their gaffes and weather the bad times. We believe Jackson is sufficiently resilient to pick up the pieces and continue the journey. And he is smart enough to drive a little more carefully the rest of the way. Crosswlnds Black polarization From the Louisana Weekly. There are more than enough statistics produced to demonstrate the gap in employment and income between blacks and whites, and on the heels of the 1982-83 reressinn ? ? ? ??? studies showing that kind of polorization have often made news. What has not been getting any attention is the evidence that American blacks are themselves becoming increasingly polorized economically. According to two researchers - sociology professor Reynolds W. Farley of the University of Michigan's Population Studies Center and Suzanne M. Banchi, a demographer with the Census Bureau ? blacks are gravitating into either an upwardly- mobile- eike or air impoverished andunemployed underclass. This polorization,-they write in the July issue of American Demographics, accounts for the fact that some experts find that blacks are making considerable progress toward equality with whites while others insist that we are slipping farther behind. Both views may be correct, they believe. Educational attainment has risen among both blacks and whites. Historically, many people never completed elementary shcool and only a small proportion graduated from college. But by 1981, some 70 percent of all Americans had a high school diploma and 32 percent went on to postCA^nnHorir ctn^tr D1 ACA -?J 1 AOA I x 1? ^wv/iiuuij ouliKAjf. u^iwtgn i7jv ?uiu i^ou, nowever, inc gap between the quarter of blacks with the most education and the quarter with the least education had narrowed from six years to four-and-a-half years. The difference in earnings between black men with a college degree and thdse with less schooling has also narrowed, report Farley and Bianchi, though they add that black men with college degrees are "almost as likely to be unemployed as those who only Finished elementary school." "But among those who are employed, the gap between those at the top and at the bottom of the occupational ladder has grown much larger," they say. "In the 1940s, almost all employed blacks worked as farm laborers, unskilled factory workers or domestic help." say the researchers. "As blacks became better educated and Please see page A5 f Ufcy may WMF fxpeueo Gop fqoia oue PUBUC SCHOOLS... X KNOW I WUf I HMmrSB The deficit: By JOHN JACOB Syndicated Columnist All the discussion about the administration's proposed 1985 budget revolves around the huge deficit and the continuing deficits of unprecedented size that are projected far into the future. There's no question that such large deficits are going to spell big trouble sooner or later. For the present, the deficits helped fuel, the recovery and will most likely keep it alive for some time. But the debate about the deficit is pre-empting the debate that ought to be taking place about the budget itself. A federal budget is supposed to be more than just an account book -it is the means through which the government meets the nation's needs ~and sets priorities. Given the failure of this budget to meet national needs and to set reasonable national priorities, the debate ought to be shifted back to the essentials. If we do that ? restructur- . ing spending priorities and raising the revenues to meet them -- the deficit will largely take care of itself. Perhaps the most glaring failure of priorities is the continued slashing away at programs of proven worth that help poor and low-income people. Although David Stockman, the director of the Office Management and Budget, recently admitted in an interview that social programs had already been cut to the bone and that little remains to be cut, this budget aims to reduce appropriations for survival programs. For example, even though a presidential commission recently urg My daughte 3Y MANNING MARABLE Guest Columnist Like any devoted father, I am proud of my three children. My oldest daughter, Malaika, is only 6 years old. But her ideas on black politics and Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign are miles ahead of those black '4dmtbting Thomases" and Momiak:followers who keep insisting that blacks aren't ready to contest for the White House. A few weeks ago, she picked up one of the many newspapers on my desk and was a struck by a photo of an armed Nicaraguan woman and her two small children. Malaika asked why the woman was carrying a rifle, and I explained that the U.S. government and President Reagan were financing terrorists to attack her and her village. Malaika looked at the photo again and then cut through my complex explanation with accuracy: "You mean Ronald Reagan is trying to kill her children?" I thought for a second and nodded yes - that's exactly what's at stake in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Angola and Namibia. The Reaganites are, indeed, funding ilTteitesspetsr ATTACK ow TMe MAC\N? WAS A 96N OF OUC SUCCESS IW LFBANOW . but ^ IHM HE^ foo ^fip flACG Of fief k &eo*&e&usH ^ xS Monetary a\ ed a rise in outlays for food programs, the budget would cut food stamps by V00 million. It also wants to cut welfare by over $600 million. So there's about $1 billion coming out of two basic programs that allow poor people a bare survival .pxistence. For all programs for the poor ~ that is, means-tested programs open only to those making less than the inadequate poverty-line level that actually measures extreme deprivation ? the budget would cut almost $3 billion. Let's not forget that this is on top of already massive cuts made over the past three years ? cuts that eliminated some vital programs such as public ?> '*J?nr nil nrr\nmmc /V? ? M 1/f M?? //! l/g t UfMJ J l/f IffC grams open only to those mak poverty-line level that actually m the budget would cut almost S3 service jobs and crippled others, such as legal services,; while stripping surviving programs to the bone. So these fresh cuts can't be seen in isolation ? they are too often painted as "small" or "minor" but they are very major in relation to the small size of already shrunken programs and they are absolutely unconscionable after cuts that have already taken $110 billionout of food, welfare, job and other key programs over the past three years. They are even harder to swallow when the programs for the poor are about the only ones slated for cutting, and when the Pentagon is asking for $33 billion more than it got last year - an astounding 14.5 percent jump. In fact, the budget's increase for I ^1. - 71 _ r unu ine i\e % legal, racist wars to kill black and brown children. Several days passed, and 1 caught my daughter watching television. Jesse Jackson was on the screen, standing before an applauding audience of blacks and whites. Much to my amazement, Malaika looked up with a broad smile declaring* -/'That's 44eV the Wack-man who's running for president!" Stopping dead in my tracks, I asked my daughter why she liked Jesse. "Malaika summed it up: 'Reaga He has to go. A look of sharp surprise came to her face. "Why we've got to stop Ronald Reagan. Don't you know that?" Again, the truth from a child is so simple. Malaika summed it up: "Reagan is so mean to black people. He has to go." ? The polls now have Jesse tied for second place with Sen. John Glenn for the Democratic presidential nomination. He's raising the level of interest in the collective effort to purge Reaganites from public life. THE AKe*JCJE OF ACWfcTNJ& 1S DUB TO THB SOCCeSS OF OUR WUTACY BUILDUP ^ \ BUT... ifmA ' Jo REpoRT ^ I Q . > nd moral military spending in 1985 is larger than the total spending for food, welfare and jobs programs. Now that suggests upside-down priorities. A bloated Pentagon is vacuuming in federal resources at an unprecedented rate, resulting in cuts elsewhere that harm the economy and increase the sufferings of poor people. The MX missile is a good example ? the budget asks for $5 billion to buy 40 of them. Think about it: The administration wants to spend more on a useless nuclear weapon than it will on all federal job-training programs put together. The much-criticized B-l bomber is ? that is, means-tested pro ing less than the inadequate easures extreme deprivation -billion.99 another. The Air Force wants $8.2 billion to htlV nlanc or morn than - ? ?r ?r-T VI II1V1 V ill (U 1 the total cost of the federal welfare program for the poorest of the poor. The increase in the budget for the B-l this year is SI.3 billion over 1984's budget. That is more than the total cuts asked for in food, welfare and job programs. In effect, the hungry and poor are asked to make up the increase in spending for the bomber. So let's hear less about the monetary deficit in this budget and more about the moral deficit that occurs when federal priorities sabotage the vitality of the economy and the needs of its neediest. John Jacob is president of the National Urban League. v. Jackson His dramatic trip to Syria weeks ago illustrated the diplomatic touch which has eluded the current administration. Millions of blacks, now inspried by this black political challenge within the Democratic Party, will become part of a broader electorate. Perhaps the most important contribution of the Jackson race is the *ym&okc vdtt 't&-ir&teQk person running for national office. Jackson has brought into the political process black intellectual, religious and n is so mean to black people. political leaders whohave heretofore eschewed involvement in the electoral arena. He has also inspired a new generation of black youths to challenge the established barriers to our people's progress. One prime example is provided by Minister Louis Farrakhan, the _ i i? -c *i__ vr..:? - * wuai lMiiauw ictiuci ui mc ixauun oi Islam. Speaking before the Washington, D.C., branch of the NAACP at its annual Freedom Fund Please see page A5 THE SIZE Of THE DETOT SHOWS THE SOGCESS OF OUB TA*-CUTTW6r PRpeBMA 'l I Chronicle Letters Hauser for new districts To The Editor: I commend you for the objective manner in which your paper treats controversial matters and ask your support in setting the record straight on a recent development. It is being circulated that 1 oppose the plan of drawing singlemember (black) districts across the state. In response to a question on this issue while campaigning, 1 stated "that 1 heartily support the one-man, one-vote principle, and that 1 favor single-member districts for blacks where they have been denied the opportunity to register to vote and to run for office, and where they have no history of having elected blacks to office." In January, the courts ruled that submerging large black groups into IllUtll-lllVlllUVI UI9U1V19 TIVIOICU UIC Voting Rights Act. Consequently, our delegation recommended two single-member black majority districts for Forsyth County. The record will show that during the special session of the General .Assembly on House, Bill (H.B.) No. 1 drawing black majority single-member. House districts in Forsyth, Durham, Wake and Mecklenburg counties that the vote was 93-17 on second reading and 97-17 on third reading, and that 1 voted 4'aye" both times. On H.B. No. 2 creating a single-member , black majority House district in Edgecombe, Nash and Wilson counties, the vote on second reading was 90-24 and 88-26 on third reading. 1 voted with the majority both times. On Senate Bill (S.B.) No. 1 creating a black majority singlemember Senate district in eastern North Carolina, the vote was 96-8 on second reading and a voice vote on third reading. 1 voted with the majority each time. On S.B. No. 2 creating a black majority single member Senate district in Mecklenburg and Cabarrus counties, the vote was 104-1 on second reading and a voice vote on third reading. I voted "aye" both times. Although the new districts may satisfy the courts and are step in the right direction of fairness, with the percentages of blacks in the ne^ districts and their voting histories, I would not say that the new districts virtually guarantee the election of black representatives. Candidates must still be sensitive to their constituencies. We have a great deal of work to do. I wish to thank you for publishing this letter. Rep. C.B. Hauser Winston-Salem The Best Choice ta tl. *W ?HC LlUIIUI . (This is an open letter to Nick Jamieson, the city's director of recreation.) Dear Mr. Jamieson, I don't understand your statement in the Sunday, Feb. 19, stated that the Reynolds Park pro job may take sometime filling, and you gave some questionable reasons why. We now have one of the most experienced, most qualified golf pros in the country and he is looking for a job. He is a Class-A member of the PGA. His name is Harold Dunovant. He is a native of Winston-Salem, was a caddy at Reynolds Park at the age of 10 and has been a golf nrn fnr in r- ~ .v. ju ; vqi a. uunuvaiu uao worked in Los Angeles, Calif., Flushing, N.Y. New Orleans, La., Dayton, Ohio, and WinstonSalem. The city's Board of Aldermen instructed the city to try to find Please see page A5 VDU CAN'T >p VflTW ?0<X6SS
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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March 15, 1984, edition 1
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