Newspapers / Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.) / Nov. 29, 1984, edition 1 / Page 4
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Page A4-The Chronicle, Thursday, November 29, 1984 Winston-Salem Chronicle Founded 1974 ERNEST H. PITT, Phd/uArr NOUBISIIOIMONYI ALLEN JOHNSON Co-Founder Executive Editor ELAINE L. Pin ROBIN ADAMS MICHAEL Pin O/fkt Manager ^ Assistant Editor emulation Manager A state of terror -v Try to imagine sitting in your living room with your family one night when uniformed policemen and army officers suddenly surround several blocks around your home and begin the wholesale arrest and detention of the community's men without any legal charges filed. That's just what happened in one black South African township recently as the government there responded to a wave of black student boycotts and a rising black labor revolt. Such instances of state-supported terrorism demonstrate more clearly than mere words the moral bankruptcy and ineffectiveness of the United States' policy of "constructive engagement" with Pretoria's white minority government. In theory, "constructive engagement'*' should alleviate economic and social disparities between black and white South Africans by promoting American investment in that country and using those investments to persuade a frightened and recalcitrant white leadership to behave humanely and treat the majority black population with fairness. Central to the theory is American support for black labor unions. The development of the black labor movement there has been possible largely because black unions were tolerated and dealt with in negotiations ~ by American companies. American companies with financial interests in South Africa, on the other hand, saw support for the black labor movement as a means to forestall American "disinvestment," the withdraw! of American capital and expertise from the country - whether through Congressional mandate or pressure from their stockholders. But after two days of stay-away strikes which threatened to bring South African industry to its knees, the government there now sees the black labor movement as a serious threat to the status quo ? the only effective, nonviolent means available to blacks to exercise some control over their lives. The South African government recognizes the black labor movement as potentially another Polish-style Solidarity movement, and wary of the possible consequences, it has responded ilTfnuch the same way as the - ? ? V-tiV. _ Fonsn communist Farty Please see page A13 Crosswlnds Rejecting the hungry From The (Raleigh) News A Observer. Amidst ftJorth Carolina's reputed prosperity, the sallow, dull-eyed face of hunger stares out on a nation too satisfied by its own comfort to take notice of those whose tables are bare. In another day, the hungry could turn to a caring federal government. Now, however, a new report by a group of physicians documents how serious and pervasive hunger has become after four years of cutbacks in federal assistance. In 1982, the infant mortality rate ? a sure index of a society's progress * or stagnation ? increased in North Carolina for the first time in several years. In Raleigh and Durham, county social service agencies report a 100 percent increase in requests for food. In Halifax County, the mother of a two-year-old told doctors she had not had milk in the house for a week. An elementary school principal in Durham told the Physician Task Froce on Hunger in America: "In the past four years, ?---^wr'havc^sgeniTWteantl moic gfiBflrcn wlio manifest hunger, and malnourishment symptoms, with protruding stomachs and dry, dead-lookiong skin and eyes." Across North Carolina today, 18 percent of the population ? more than one person in six ? lives in poverty. Americans living in poverty have risen to 15 percent of the population. Privation is one thing. Scorn is another. Under President Reagan, the poor and hungry have suffered from the atmosphere of chilly disdain that the administration has ? intentionally or not ? created. One of the most shocking findings of the Physician Task Fnrpp ic thp cKift tah/o?/ ! mIamSam ???* ? - w.ww ?w wtv >?*?** * ivnaiu i wj^viiuii ui nit uuugi y uy tutu own federal government: Menacing posters in food stamp offices, a narrow obsession with welfare and food-stamp abuse, an arbitrary tightening of eligibility requirements ~ this despite evidence that food stamps and school lunches were two federal programs that had worked. They had curbed the instances of malnutrition as those programs were designed to do. The return of hunger refutes as nothing else the assumption that a lowering of inflation would automatically benefit the poor and near-poor. The spread of hunger demands a sense of emergency by the president and the Department of Agriculture. The hungry suffer, but it's an uncaring government and a nation that looks away that bear the shame. wwer's Eou* CHlLfe is (2oUND\n6 Up SouTW AG PicanS AEG Re* d@^ N dkf. Democra By TONY BROWN Syndicated Columnist Vanessa Williams, the exMiss America whose January Penthouse pictures will show her handcuffed in nude bondage, preceeded the massacre of Walter Mondale and the isolation of the black vote with her most recent demonstration of self-inflicted disrespect: "Every black girl wishes that they could have long, silky blond hair ? / mean, I do." Before the stomach could settle from her nausea of personal racial rejection, the results of the presidential election revealed a frightening public racial rejection. In fact, the election is over for everybody but blacks - who are still trying to figure out what's going on in America. 1 answered that concern some weeks ago when 1 explained that Afro-Americans were mired down in an economic depression and political exploitation and on Nov. 6 they would be officially isolated by the white electorate. It happened. And the media named the same phenomenon "racial polarization." What?vpr uaii /?all it Klo/^lrc T ? >l??v ? VI J V U * VIUI ll| l/IBVKJ are, to borrow from Jesse Jackson, 4'boats stuck at the bottom.* * Black Democrats are blaming everybody in sight. Jesse Attack 01 By CHARLES E. BELLE Syndicated Columnist On a "Black Tuesday,** Oct. 16, the "echo-well of the wealthy** newspaper conspicuously called the Wall Street Journal, regurgitated its covert racism in a column written by one Joseph Perkins. It is not known . whether Perkins is white or black. He is an enemy of the people. Printed under the title, 44Are Black Leaders Listening to Black America?", the column was a euphemism for slurring black American ^political ? power in present day America. I take pen in hand again to refute its racist remarks reported to the white American public. Painting a picture of prestigious people acting like prima donnas to 30 million predominantly poor black American people, Perkins practices patronizing poetry for the white press readers. "Black leaders explain away the incongruity of their public postures and the feelings of their constituencies by saying that their constituents ? however earnest and well intentioned ? are often unable to appreciate the complexities of certain issues,'* I LOVf 8U0Cr T TlM? - WC LEAtC Ntwt ABOOT fessisia ST?NWN6 cult / 4DUP? T^? 6< DISSIDENTS AND THE WEIL... "THAT'S JNDIN6 UP BLACKS its battle whi c Brown Jackson's rather oversimplified explanation was that the disaster was due to Mondale's "doom" and "deficit" message, as opposed to Ronald Reagan's "God, DrosDeritv. hoDe" and "na tional security" theme. Completely misleading was a black New York politician who said America had not abandoned traditional Democratic values. Reagan's avalanche, instead, was the result of "very slick packaging and selling of a personable man," he said. And these same black architects of defeat are prescribing the same potion that resulted in the present t leadership i hypothesizes Perkins. Perhaps Mr. Perkins believes that all people, black and white, are aware of all the surreptitious motives of the mnvm anH ctialrArc r*f c/~?r?iotu w ? w * <?% kiimnvi vJ VI J V/V1VIJ to see the treacherous effects of their enemies. Either he is an idiot or believes black American people to fill such shoes. Should he be black, then he is a traitor; if he is white ~ well, there it is. Perkins postulates that t(Deregulation of small busii tQ_b!o?k. Ameriai^ W^.^k -*?business. " ? black people are better off under the president than before his administration - a statement he does not dare to attempt to develop in his article, but only hints at in the most demeaning manner. "Make merry," is his description of the discourse of the Black Caucus four-day fundraising event in Washington, D.C. Mr. Perkins* naivete in the political arena is evident, for money is the "mother's ' milk nf rmlitirc " a fart anH factor that has failed black Americans in the past. Putting $1 million down, raised by three different naWD, Pl&HT ON CUE, WHOLE countcy w, HYS*<I\OSL JVfcSNNSNT IS WDUHtKHeup pcoTfesrecs... V ??*. ANCTHGB D*Y WTHOUT TAKeouec. fe ) 1 ite flight disgraceful rout: Register and vote again tor the Democrats. "Black voters," Jesse Jackson boasted, "have emerged as the backbone of the Democratic Party." But whatever black politicans say for public consumption, they have to know in their hearts that that kind of loyalty is misplaced. Dale Bumpers, a Democratic Party presidential hopeful, suggested that if blacks were going to play politics for keeps, some of them should leave his party and join the Republicans. A Washington Democratic lobbyist feels that blacks failed because they fail to understand that^ although they can "nominate someone, they can't get him elected." Walter Williams, a black conservative, believes that "the election highlights the bankrupt strategy of the black leadership that has delivered the entire black vote to Democrats with no discernible benefits. My guess is that the Democrats, in order to restructure their party, will have to dump blacks.'* Of course, the GOP already has. Rep. James Jones of Oklahoma is suggesting a slogan called "passionate conservatism" to renew his * party's appeal to the white majority that it lost in 1964. The Please see page A5 misguided tionwide functions for black American freedom, could be better described as "too little a bit late/' rather than a "host of frivolous activities" by an "ordinary group of conventioneers." The ^National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) damn near went out of busines a few year back trying to post bond' for that amount to the state of Alabama! It is especially hard ness means almost nothing to raise that kind of money when most black Americans are either out of business or going out of business due to the domestic economic policies of the president. Cnan tVia ? J ? 1 l, tvii hk pimuciu (tuininca this fact on national TV during the domestic debate. "Yes, some minorities are not benefiting from the recovery as well as others," according to the president. Perhaps Perkins is not aware that black America not only has higher unemployment figures than white America, but has higher unemployment figures now Please see page A5 tfNIOGS, CJVL SCOVAMTS, TlRf POCQ - lHty M-L Cwg M?OVHD KttMM** * Bishops: Poor need i attention By MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN Syndicated Columnist Former President Nixon's Secretary of the Treasury, William Simon, dismisses it as a "Santa Claus wish list.'! onservative columnist Michael Novak derides it as "whiney." And Jerry Falwell, leader of the self-proclaimed Moral Majority, warns us that it will lead to "socialism" and "shared poverty." What has provoked all this fury from the conservative establishment? The draft pastoral letter of the Roman Catholic bishops, which states simply that "society has a moral obligation to take the nM<MC9rv ctervc tr? ensure that no one among us is homeless, unemployed, or otherwise denied what is necessary to live with dignity.'* In the past four years, the Reagan administration and its conservative allies have tried to monopolize both morality and religion in pushing for their own narrow social and economic agenda. While some have faulted the bishops' timing or treatment of the poverty issue, the questions they've raised remind us of a valuable point: We must reclaim the cutting edge of morality from the Falwells and the Simons. It is highly fitting that the church should lead the way in calling public attention to the tragedy of poverty in America. As the bishops' letter points out, "to turn aside from those on the margins of society, the needy and the powerless, is to turn away from Jesus, who identifies Himself with them. . Such people present His face to the world." Poverty's "face can now be most plainly seen among the children of our nation, one out of five of whom now live below the poverty level. Since 1979, American children have been falling into poverty at a rate of 2,200 a day. Black children have been especially hard hit. A black baby today runs a one out of two risk of being bom into poverty, and has little hope of escaping it during childhood. A black child is more than two-andone-half times as likely as a white child to live in Please see page A5 Letters He likes our poetry To The Editor: This letter is to commend -^yeurpaperon your pubiica tion of poems in your Nov. 8th issue. The "Poetry Corner," that section of your paper by Jane Penn, and the selection of poems were particularly beautiful and touchingv As a visiting artist (I am an actor) from New York, I would like to add my encouragement and enthusiastic support to your newspaper and all the young poets whose poems were published in that issue. As an artist, I think it is very important to recognize and en courage young artists everywhere, so that he or she can be the best at whatever chosen medium they choose to Please see page A5 I kvjow- MS ki?C6T HS MUCH FUW TTfc MkCA&6U*M&
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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Nov. 29, 1984, edition 1
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