Newspapers / Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.) / June 13, 1985, edition 1 / Page 4
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Page A4-The Chronicle, Thursday, June 13, 1985 1 Winston-Salem Chronicle Founded 1974 ERNEST H. PITT, Publisher NDUBISI EGEMONYE Co-Founder ALLEN JOHNSON Executive Editor I ELAINE L. PITT • Office Manager ROBIN ADAMS Assistant Editor MICHAEL PITT Circulation Manager iOUR OPINION An homage to Rip ‘Rip’ * Make no bones about it, businessman Melvin ^ilkins knows how to have a good time. 2 When he and his buddies throw a party, they spare no expense, from food to limousines to champagne. His com- -pany’s lavish Christmas party at “The Velvet,’’ they say, us almost legendary, a But Wilkins also does a lot of good, f He founded the Minority Business League’s successful ^nd fast-growing Trade Fair. I What’s more, as this year’s fourth annual Trade Fair proceeded without a hitch, Wilkins was content to let "others take centerstage and much of the credit. He seemed quietly satisfied that things had gone well and something had been accomplished. Wilkins owns a painting and decorating service. He also ■is a partner in one of the city’s newest bakeries. Before that he was a truck driver. While he was out of work on strike, he worked as a bouncer at local night club and enrolled at Winsalm Business College on the GI Bill. Then he went to work for himself. But there’s much more. Wilkins is chairman of the board of the Sophisticated Gents, an organization whose sense of community service belies its name. The Gents sponsor Distinguished Citizens Awards each year as well as a number of activities that benefit the com munity. Say what you will about the Gents’ Jheri curls and flam boyance, they get the job done, turning people’s desires to have a good time on Friday and Saturday nights into something special. We guess the Gents’ philosophy is to party for a cause. They sponsor an annual “Kids’ Day’’ for local youth at Winston Lake Park “to let them know that the Gents do care,’’ says Rip. They also sponsor a benefit fashion show each year to raise money for sickle cell anemia research. As for Rip, that must not be enough. He also coaches in the Twin City Little League and is owner and manager of the Winston-Salem Indians semi- pro baseball team, which, by the way, has won two con secutive state titles and has qualified for the national semi- pro championship tournament two years in a row. He hires inmates on work-release to work at his business and helps train the students enrolled in the Urban League’s Women In Nontraditional Jobs program. And he is a member of the Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce’s Minority Task Force. Why does he do it? To be perfectly frank. Rip says, he initially became so involved simply because he thought the exposure would help his company. But now he’s addicted. “It’s just in me and it’s been there for the last seven years,” he says. “It’s been hard to stop.” So it seems the small businessman with the big dreams is afflicted with a heart of gold. We hope that it’s con tagious. Money talks Hart, bless his heart, has the right idea NEW YORK - While the Democratic Party is coming apart at the seams. Sen. Gary Hart seems to be finding himself a niche on the only friendly turf left to his party. Among blacks during last year’s primary season. Hart did not do well. He seemed unsure, ambivalent, afraid. He may not have known what to say because of Jesse Jackson’s lock on the black vote and the voters’ emotions. But Hart bounced back recently, making loads of sense. And what Hart said at Talladega College, a black school in the Alabama mountains, did not just depart from the massive confusion of Democratic Party reorganization attempts, but from the party’s philosophy of the last 50 years. Since Franklin Roosevelt won blacks from the Republican Party in the early 30s, the New Deal has been used to convince Afro- Americans to seek welfare assistance, but not power. Power would be best managed by the white party leaders who are liberals, and liberals like black people. When the word “liberal” became tainted in the last few years, they switched the name to “progressive. ” But a rose is a rose is a rose. New Dealers, liberals or pro gressives — they all adhere to the philosophy that power should TONY BROWN Syndicated Columnist reside with white people, and the Democratic Party will keep the welfare checks coming and the press releases flying on affir mative action, busing and quotas. In effect, the Democratic Party has instructed blacks to remain poor and powerless (one leads to the other, really) and to avoid beyond civil rights and the old social programs to launch a “new crusade” for economic freedom. The senator will be pleased to ktiow that some of us already have. We are very much aware of the exploitative nature of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party and the chang ed attitude of White America. Put those two together and you must get economic self development. “In effect, the Democratic Party has instructed blacks to remain poor and powerless (one leads to the other, really) and to avoid power because power is best understood by white liberals and progressives who know what’s best for you. ” power because power is best understood by white liberals and progressives who know what’s best for you. Hart, bless his heart, has avoided that exploitative party racism and the extreme welfare dependency of Jesse Jackson and made a case for black community self-determination. The Colorado senator, soun ding more and more like a Republican as are all other major Democrats these days, told his audience at Talladega that ‘the world has changed dramatically since Martin Luther King.” Democrats, he said, must move Sen. Hart, we call it “Buy Freedom Month,” starting this October. “If you want your freedom - buy it!” the Council for the Economic Development of Black Americans is telling our people. After all, with $200 billion a year, how can you be a minority or poor? And in a capitalistic system in which the only color of freedom is green, why, you might ask yourself, does black not equal white? Simple. Blacks spend their money with whites and whites spend their money with whites. Please see page A13 FCC tunes in to racism, radio-style There is a motto for a men’s clothing store in New York City which proclaims: “Money talks and nobody walks.” This haberdasher is merely saying that if you would like to stroll down Fifth Avenue in one of his finely-tailored suits, there is no substitute for the green stuff. That’s what he wants. Indeed, economic clout is a powerful incentive the world over. In recent history, money or the lack of it has been responsible for the rise and fall and resurgence of megacorporations like Chrysler and Lockheed. We are about to see if money, in the form of economic sanctions, can persuade the world’s undisputed champion racist regime, the government of the Union of South Africa, to lift its heel from the throats of 22 million black South Africans. This is the plan: If both houses of Congress agree with a proposal which passed the House of Representatives last week, new investment in South Africa would be banned, computer sales and bank loans would be prohibited and gold Kruggerand coins could no longer be imported. Established investment would not be affected, however. There are those, particularly in the Reagan administra tion, who say this is too much. They argue that, if they tweak the nose of the Pretoria government, the hardliners will be even more repressive. And there are those who say these measures just don’t go far enough. About 30 years ago, the black citizens of Montgomery, Ala., decided that they had ridden in the back of the Please see page All BALTIMORE, Md. - Imagine this: You are listening to the radio one evening when a sup posedly evangelical program comes on and offers the follow ing comments: “These blacks haven’t the capacity to rule and administer in your government. It is Christian to discriminate. You must choose right from bad, good from evil and black from white.” If you think it’s impossible to hear such trash over the public airwaves of this country, .read the transcripts of KTTL-FM in Dodge City, Kan. Such sermons were regularly broadcast by the station until 1983, when the Na tional Black Media Coalition fil ed a formal protest. Now, after sitting on this case for two years, the Federal Com munications Commission just an nounced - in a unanimous deci sion - that the station’s blatantly racist broadcasts were protected under the First Amendment right to free speech. The FCC stated that it was not clear that the station had denied access to opposing viewpoints, and it is now deciding whether to grant the station’s license renewal. FCC Chairman Mark Fowler further claimed that the racist and inflammatory broadcasts of KTTL were “protected ad vocacy” and posed “no clear and present danger.” Evidently Mr. Fowler did not read the station’s transcripts. During one regularly scheduled program, the speaker urged the audience to “get a .32-caliber gun THE GUEST COLUMN By CHARLES E. COBB and start pumping .... One way to get a nigger out of a tree (is to) cut the rope .... Don’t be peaceful; praise Jesus and take a two-sided sword in your hand.” But those associated with sta tion KTTL aren’t just inciting folks to violence; they are active ly participating in it. The owners of KTTL, Charlie and Nellie The real issue here is balance and the effect which such one sided stations have on their au dience. We all know how power ful the media is in impacting upon our thoughts and behavior — even in subliminal ways which we don’t understand. Yet, on the one hand the FCC commissioners, all of whom are Reagan appointees, look the other way as a private licensee spews forth violently racist venom on a regular basis. vje RUSSIANS wouLpiiKero THANK THe TWO 65N5RALS TDUNMIM^AiVIgR/OA'S J mRAimMics Babbs, are avowed followers of a dangerous and racist para military group called the Posse Comitatus. Mrs. Babbs proudly confirms that she received guerrilla train ing with the Posse. In fact, those sermons we quoted earlier were written by the self-styled evangelists of the Posse. It was Posse member Gordon Kahl, by the way, who killed two federal marshals in Wisconsin and later a county sheriff during a shoot-out in Arkansas. CHILDW^^fcfP Meal programs facing the axe By MARIAN W. EDELMAN Syndicated Columnist WASHINGTON - Last sun,.: met, a congressman on an of. ' ficial tour in Mississippi held a "■ startling conversation with twol girls he had met. When he asked! them whether they were happvL that school was out, to his sur f- prise they answered no. One ou' them explained: When they are in school, they get to eat lunch But m the summer they only get to eat supper. When school returns this fall many children like these may still have to go without their lunches and breakfasts. Whether or not they get three meals a day depends on some complicated and confusing maneuvering now going on in Washington concern, ing the federal budget. In early May, the Senate nar. rowly approved a devastating budget package that includes $1.2 billion in cuts in school lunch and other child nutrition programs over the next three years. The proposal will result in many disadvantaged youngsters like those girls being denied their' school lunches - this on top of the more than S5 billion that has been cut in school lunch and school breakfast programs since! President Reagan took office in 1981, cuts that have meant that some 3 million fewer children now receive school lunches. The Senate’s budget would also hurt family day care homes that depend heavily on the federal Child Care Food Pro. gram, which provides nutritious; meals and snacks every day to more than 300,000 children who are in home-based care. This pro gram would be severely affected/ by the proposed cuts. President Reagan and his Republican allies in the Senate prefer to fight their deficit reduc-, tion war by sending children to the front line. We know that the cost of this: battle is not falling equally on all. The Pentagon, for example, will not take a cut - its budget will receive a multi-billion-dollar cost-of-living increase under the Senate proposal. But this year’s budget battle is not yet over. There is still hope that the House of Representatives will restore the child nutrition cuts in its budget proposal. House Budget Committee Chair man William Gray (D-Pa.), a key player in this process, stron supports programs that beni disadvantaged youngsters. Please see page A14 LETTERS A new chapter forourYMCA To The Editor: And on the other hand, the Reagan Administration mer cilessly chops public broadcasting funds which would guarantee some balance to such programs. We must not allow the FCC to make violent racism acceptable on the public airwaves. While the FCC is hearing this case, let our voices be heard - loudly and clearly. For we have much to lose by our silence. I would like to take this oppor tunity to personally thank you and your staff for the outstan ding coverage that you have given the Winston Lake Family YMCA in your newspaper. The YMCA has had many bright moments and some dar moments in its history, but our new YMCA is beginning a new chapter, and the support it nee|^^ from our community is greatly needed in order to meet the many challenges we have ahead. The support we have gotten from the ff^in^'on-Saietn C^ cle is much appreciated by Board of Management and th staff of the Winston Lake » YMCA, and we are forward to you and yo becoming active participants assistance to you, contact us. This article is reprinted from The (Baltimore) Afro-American. Norman E.Joyner Executive Winston Lake VMCA
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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June 13, 1985, edition 1
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