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Page A4-The Chronicle, Thursday, August 7, 1986 Winston-Salem Chronicle Founded 1974 ERNEST H. PITT, Publisher NDUBISI EGEMONYE Co-Founder ALLEN H. JOHNSON Executive Editor ELAINE L. PITT Office Manager MICHAEL A. Pin Circulation Manager EDITORIALS The NAACP’s initiative Kudos to the city’s NAACP for approaching the academic problems of black students with resolve and substance. Instead of preaching what “they” ought to do about low scores among black county students on standardized tests “ which worsen with each grade level — the organiza tion has taken a “we” approach, forming an educational task force last April that in turn conceived an after-school tutorial program. The concept is sound, practical and well-planned. The NAACP proposes to set up “learning centers” in local churches and the Winston Lake Family YMCA. Beginning Sept. 16, volunteer tutors from Winston-Salem State University, Wake Forest University and elsewhere will aid students with their studies on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Sessions will be held at each location from 2:30 p.m. until 6 p.m. Already 10 churches have consented to participate in the program, and coordinators for each of the learning centers have been named. More should be forthcoming. In fact, nary a stone seems to have been left unturned in the Community Tutorial Education Program’s creation. For instance, the program is built on community in volvement, most noticeably from the black community itself. Ministers and churches play a part in it, as do retired teachers and college students. More importantly, the program will stress parental in volvement, a rare commodity in the city-county schools. Where PTAs and school board meetings have failed to ral ly significant involvement among black parents, maybe this program, with its grassroots tenor, will. NAACP President Walter Marshall put it best to a Chronicle reporter last week. “One of the philosophies of the NAACP is, if our children are to be educated, then we need to do it ourselves,” Marshall said. “The educational system is not going to do it. We are best equipped to educate our children. AIT groups, other than blacks, educate their own.” To its credit, the city-county school system, at the NAACP’s request, is organizing its own task force to study the problems of local students who fare poorly on standardized tests. Thus, “we” and “they” potentially could work together to help underachievers find their way. But there’s more. The NAACP also plans a Sept. 6 workshop at Winston-Salem State University’s Com munications Building that will focus on educational issues and will be aimed primarily at black parents. The sessions will cover test-taking skills, discipline in the schools, math anxiety, the role of the church in the educa tional process and political strategies for enhancing the education of black children, among others. Beverly Cole, national chairman of the NAACP’s Education Commit tee, will appear. Finally, amid all of our optimism, a word of warning: Neither the NAACP’s tutorials nor its workshop is a sure fire success. Although both look good on paper, both also require several key ingredients to work, foremost of which is the student who needs help. The best-organized program in the world won’t succeed without the presence of the one who needs the help. Which brings us back to square one: the parent, whose involvement is no luxury; it’s a necessity. ABOUT LETTERS The Chronicle welcomes letters from its readers, as well as columns. Letters should be as concise as possible and typed or printed legibly. They also should include the name, address and telephone number of the writer. Columns should follow the same guidelines and will be published if we feel they are of interest to our general readership. We reserve the right to edit letters for brevity and gram mar. Submit your letters and columns to Chronicle Mailbag, P.O. Box 3154, Winston-Salem, N.C. 27102. The New Right: Frightening intolerance W. LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The New Right and many religious fundamentalists distinguish themselves from an earlier generation of American conser vatives by their zealous advocacy of anti-intellectualism and educa tional intolerance of cultural and ideological diversity. Right-wing leader Phyllis Schlafly, for in stance, has condemned what she terms “descriptive classroom discussions of fornication, homosexuality, contraceptives and abortion as though they were FROM THE GRASSROOTS By DR. MANNING MARABLE wives into the labor force she wrote. “Who is then going to raise the children?” The Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, extends this traditional sexist logic to embrace a reactionary social policy that looks backward in all educational, economic and political areas. “It is easy for people today who are violating “In the Moral Majority Report, Schlafly has called for a restoration of the male-dominated workplace: ‘It should certainly not be our social policy to move wives into the labor force..., ’ she wrote. ‘Who is then going to raise the children?’ ” normal and acceptable practices.” The New Right demands that social history reverse itself ~ that any discussion of contemporary social problems and issues should be banned, especially in the public schools - and that the sterile, white-male-dominated culture of the early 20th century should be firmly restored. In the Moral Majority Report, Schlafly has called for a restora tion of the male-dominated workplace: “It should certainly not be our social policy to move God’s law and man’s law to ridicule those who oppose them by simply saying, ‘That fellow’s repressive; he is suggesting a return to where America was 50 years ago, morally,” Falwell says. “That is exactly what I am proposing, morally.” The logical culmination of this intellectual rigidity and social backwardness was on display several weeks ago in a U.S. District Court in Greenville, Tenn., where seven families sued a local school board for teaching “disrespect” for parents, the New York is coming -- unless you act NEW YORK - “Give Us Back Our City!” the headline in the New York Post screamed. “The people of New York have had it,” the story began. This white newspaper is now as alarm ed as New York’s black papers have been for months. The black press already has covered citizen marches against drug pushers and “crack,” co caine’s newest death form. When Dick Gregory, Ossie Davis and New York’s black preachers recaptured a few street corners recently, the general media got the message. There is another message in this if you don’t live in New York: New York’s drug problem is on its way to your city. Tradi tionally, drugs and drug empires get their foothold in New York and move across the country. But this epidemic of killer-cocaine and “skybasing” (PCP and crack) is different. “New Yorkers are crying out ~ in fear, but also anger,” the Post said. That’s the first phase your city will go through. “To say, ‘This is war,’ is no ex aggeration,” the Post added. When your local papers admit the drug epidemic, it will be phase two. Phase three will come when you read on the front page, as the Post reported, that your city is “at the threshold of an urban guerrilla war, as honest citizens fight to reclaim their city, block by block, schoolyard by schoolyard, building by building.” That’s where most of the American cities are now. That’s why its time to “Drop-A-Dime.” Since the various government TONY BROWN Syndicated Columnist agencies can’t help us, we’d bet ter help ourselves by turning our various communities into a net work of informers to root out the pushers. At the end of each show in my TV series in November, we will ask the viewers to call a local hotline and turn in a pusher or crack den. I got the idea from a Newsweek article on “Drop-A-Dime” in Suppose we can average 500 tips to local police in 100 cities; that would mean 50,000 tips and close to 20,000 arrests. Assuming, of course, the police are willing to be police. Wall and Watson had to fight the police in Boston first. The idea may not work in New York because the judges there, for example, rarely put a drug pusher away. However, if we turn enough dealers in, we may embarrass the system into action. The ultimate authority in any S0IW.,miZ 15 HAWA 0l!lNAtWS„«ff5£lS 6OT/W0 A mm an^itj wmn&m cw w mmcm, Boston. Bruce Wall, a preacher, and Georgette Watson, a com munity activist, warned a dope dealership to leave. The pushers refused. Wall and Watson then formed “Drop-A-Dime.” The name was copied from a street saying for tattling, born during the era of the 10-cent phone call. That was three years ago. society is the people and we need to begin to exercise that authori ty. “Drop-A-Dime” with us in November. Tune in for the local phone number. Remember, New York is coming. Stop it now! Now, the phone line records about 500 tips a month. More than a third have led to arrests. Tony Brown is a syndicated columnist and television host whose series, “Tony Brown’s Journal,” can be seen Sun days locally at 1:30 p.m. on channels 4 and 26. CHILOWATCiif The real story on U.S. hunge By MARIAN W. EDELMA Syndicated Columnist 5 WASHINGTON - Duii^ natonally televised press ic ference in June, Presij Reagan made some statei* about hunger in America, | about government effortti combat it. The preside remarks, some of which n partially correct but incon^ or misleading, and some of were just plain wrong, may h confused you about this u| problem in our nation. a Fortunately, a knowledg|| source on nutrition issues (i Washington-based Centeht Budget and Policy Priorities^' provided the following ani| to help us sift truth from fia in the president’s statements! “theory of evolution,” “magic” and other “un-Christian” themes. One self-proclaimed “born- Again Christian” plaintiff, Vicki Frost, specifically criticized a tex tbook which discussed Renaissance art. The objec tionable sentence in the text was the following: “A central idea of the Renaissance was a belief in the dignity and worth of human beings.” Frost claimed that this passage was a form of un- Christian “humanism” which “specifically denies God as the Creator.” Frost then attacked texts for their description of the global nature of air and water as a form of dangerous “international ism.” She condemned a story about a boy who cooked at home as a negative sex role reversal, and termed a simple picture of “Jack and Jill” dancing as a possible depiction of “Satanic rites.” Frost also refused to accept the presentation of non-Christian “religious views” in class tex tbooks on an “equal (basis) to our own” religion. Finally, she echoed Schlafly and Falwell, in spirit if not in words: “Our Please see page A16 • The president: “Ifindil ficult to find any cases of stal tion and undernourishment.!’ Fact: There is very little stal tion in the United States -;i undernutrition is widespre The medical and reseSI literature abounds w documented cases of undernu tion, especially among childi Most recently, the Massachusi Nutrition Survey, conducted the Massachusetts Departmeii Public Health in 1983, foundl ween 10,(XX) and 17,500 p children in Massachusetts to stunted, due largely to chro malnutrition. A study at C( County Hospital in Chici found a 24-percent increase ft 1981 to 1983 in the number young children admitted for c ditions often linked to inadeqti nutrition. A follow-up sti found that 30 percent of young children admitted ttk hospital’s emergency roomfl abnormally low growth, andf nearly half (47 percent) of th low-growth children had inal quate diets. • President Reagan: “We spending more on nutrition tl has ever been spent before i more than $3 billion over w! was spent in 1981.” FacUThe president has fai to take into account two key f tors - inflation and the rise in^ number of people in poverty.| best way to evaluate the imp that changes in federal spend on food programs are having] hunger is to examine the cha) per poor person, after adjusf for inflation. Only such a t parison can determine if p purchasing power per poor p son, as provided by federal p grams, is up or down. Such an analysis was a ducted by the Congressioi Research Service and issued'i the House Ways and Mei Committee in 1984. It found tl federal food assistance spend! per poor person dropped fn 1980 to 1983, after adjustmi for inflation. An updated analysis, comd iilg fiscal years 1981 and 19851 the president did) shows tl simply adjusting for inflati wipes out all the increase in sp ding referred to by the presidd When an adjustment also is mt for the increase in the number poor people, the result is tl there has been a decrease in fo assistance spending per poor p son, as adjusted for inflation. • The president: “... 1 federal government is providil I think, 93 million meals a day Fact: For the large majority these meals, the federal gova ment pays only a fraction. 1 president is counting 60 miUi meals a day for 20 million fo stamp recipients - but t average food stamp benefit is t ly 49 cents per person per m* This does not buy a full meaj| In the school lunch progra the president is counting! million lunches provided to tw poor children where the govj ment subsidizes one-sixth to ot seventh the cost of the meal.J Please see page A16 .
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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Aug. 14, 1986, edition 1
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