Page A4-The Chronicle, Thursday, Winston-Salen tAj. IRNKST H. Pin, F NDUBISI IOIMONYI Co-Foundot ILAINI L PITT Office Manager EDITORIALS The NAACP j. INTERNAL WOUNDS cut When a faction supporting f Benjamin Hooks outmuscle Margaret Bush Wilson, ultimat the organization's board in 1< have ended, but the rumblinj Hooks' leadership style contin "He has been called pett: respected black journalist Eth< column last week, "conce aggrandizement than carrying -association." Money matters r High on the list of concern: former Federal Communicati makes $120,000 a year plus a ?housing, medical benefits andthe-latfc Roy Wilkins, never mi nually, noted Payne, an elder reporters who for years serve respondent for the nation's bis Still, Mrs. Wilson complaint if not publicly, that Hooks is ought to be when it comes to I What's more, Mrs. Payne p Hooks' contract with the NAj serve as the pastor of a churc directorship. Yet he is the past Memphis, the other in Detroit. A wobbly stance The NAACP also has recti I eluding among the corporate < in Baltimore 19 firms that do b practice diametrically opposed economic sanctions. The contention from some organization cannot afford to t exhibitors seems lame at best. In a matter with local repei claimed to have hammered 01 with the Food Lion grocery st< 198S. But Food Lion noted th been signed. Hooks appeared ir dramatic, llth-hour "pact" 1 demonstration at Food Lion's I A matter of mistiming ! And in still another example and Hooks' pettiness, the org brace Jesse Jackson's 1984 pre endorsing Walter Mondale. IThe time had not arrived hopeful, Hooks said, as if ther appropriate dates for such thii Then -Hooks -turned -aroun might run himself in 1988. The key to survival Of course, it's easy to poi NAACP's survival is more sup us ? and a concerted effort on works with the organization a If that means a little housed so be it. If it means modifications hierarchy operates, so be it. t If it means challenging pi proached, so be it. "Part of the problem with structure," wrote Payne. "It with the board perpetuating it! policy." She suggested some means o membership, including life me I how the organization is run. .. . ' Clearly something must be mavhft th# NA APP k immmwmj ww| M iivvvtw* If it fails, so do we. ! , ' . - ' ' '# September 18, 1966 !7 Chronicle Publisher ALLIN H. JOHNSON Executive Editor MIOHAIL A. PITT Circulation Manager 's troubles * deeply and heal slowly. >JAACP Executive Director d a faction supporting ely forcing Mrs. Wilson off 983, the public to-do may gs within continued. And ues to be questioned. y and vindictive," wrote el Payne in her syndicated ntrating more on self: out the mission of the " -v. . . ' s seems to be money. The ons Commission member ssorted benefits, including pensions. His predecessor, ade more than $50,000 anstateswoman among black d as the Washington corick press. id, and others have agreed, noi as account a Die as ne finances. tointed out in her column, \CP stipulates that he not h during the tenure of his or of two churches, one in ved deserved-flack for inhibitors at its convention usiness in South Africa ? a to its stance that calls for NAACP leaders that the turn down money from the cussions, the organization it a Fair Share agreement >re chain in the summer of tat no such agreement had i Charlotte to announce the that supposedly. averted a headquarters in Salisbury. i of the NAACP's malaise, anization was slow to emisidential campaign, all but for a black presidential e is a calendar denoting the igs. d -and announced -that-he? nt fingers. The key to the iport from those its serves our part to strengthen what nd fix what's broken. eaning every now and then, in how the organization iblicly how issues are api the organization is in its is ruled like an oligarchy, self and unilaterally making f allowing the rank-and-file mbers, to have more say in done. Imperfect though it as much now as it ever was. * \ On findine 1 NEW YORK - "That garbage you had on television entitled the shortage of black entrepreneurs, in which you had the white racist honky on, was an outrage, and it was an outrage to hear and see a room full of house negro's (sic) who agreed with your dumb rhetoric and his racist rhetoric. 'Racist whites and people of your ilk are always blaming tfce victims. Would it occur to you that racism is still -alive and well in this country? "By the way, it's dangerous for you to try and pit another black group against each other. I am referring to your rhetoric about the West Indian blacks and the blacks born in this country, and would it occur to you that West Indians, Koreans and other ethnic groups get loans from corporations and that they don't encounter racism and bisotrv like 1, -" / w the black born in racist America?" J.L.C. of the Bronx, N.Y., wrote that letter, long on hatred and half-truths, but short on logic and facts. He may even have felt better after he called the white man a "racist honky" for telling the truth and the rest of us "house negro's" for agreeing with him. But his emotionalism is neither instructive nor constructive. However, J.L.C.'s most erroneous assumptions are that Turner: A te The author la an asaociate profaaaor of aocialogy at Winaton-Salam State University. Tina Turner recently looked the "Today Show" camera in the eye and made the following pronouncement: "I've outgrown black audiences ... 1 can no longer sing of frustration and pain ... 1 just outgrew them." The voice-over was dubbed against Tina gyrating mike-tomike and belly-to-belly with Mick Jagger, to the mayhem of her admittedly "mostly white audience." After cleaning the grits, bacon and eggs, and syrup from the television screen, I sat to recollect myself and my thinking on the significance of Tina Turner having "outgrown black people and (their) suffering, pain >and frustrations.'* The ominous and foreboding form of Tina's turn lies in the symbolic realm of culture (American black culture, in this instance) where artisans such as she -- carriers of black heritage create the conditions that will ultimately destroy that culture. Certain black cultural formats, when commercialized to exploit maximum financial gain, may well .disappear just after they "cross over." This excess-development theory applies to something as simple as a piece of chalk. A stick of chalk, a half-inch thick and 6 inches long, coheres well, but in* crease its length to 12 inches and it will break under a very small fraction of the strain which the 6-inch stick can bear easily. It doesn't* take a mental V V ^ ight after th< TONY BROWN Syndicated Columnist blacks cannot succeed - in spite of racism - and that acknowledging the success of blacks from the Caribbean is divisive or an embarrassment. West Indians are black. They ?suffer from racism. Africans from Africa and Haitians from Haiti, the poorest country in the Western world, are black, and they suffer from racism. "African-Americans can eiu resistance and blamle everyt, problems and guarantee ou> misery, or we can face realit\ self-doubt that racism has bi Yet both groups have a higher average per capita household income than the blacks bom in America. Rather than blaming racism exclusively for our prdblems, it would be more helpful to admit that other factors are also responsible for black American under achievement. West Indians, Africans and Haitians do not overachieve to embarrass native AfricanAmericans. They do it to survive, and they use their culture (and pride in it) to do so. eny turn'er ft QUEST COLUMN By WILLIAM TURNER heavyweight to know that the piece of chalk will reach its greatest length just before it hr#alrc iinH?r We rtiun wiwwnvl MtlUVi HO U n II TT Vlgllli Tina ought to study the medieval church to note that it flowered out to its most luxurious richness (abbeys, cathedrals and ( mw< ^ HrarH J WlMvmmi / f \\ l|;?w ^v^rv fnrm nf ci <;a w t v* j * vt w i vn^viui T v | beauteous elegance) just before the Reformation. And the old regime of France culminated very shortly before the Revolution. The logic of history may tell black Americans - particularly artists, musicians, publicists, writers, journalists, intellectuals and others who form and guide (black) public opinion/culture that it is the cultural signals they send that largely maintain and transmit to future generations the . i1* ^ J 1 e uarKness . As far back as 1900, West Indians, about 4 percent of the black population, owned 20 percent of New York's black businesses. Several families would pool (and still do) their capital in a network ("susu") and start new businesses. By 1980, the self-employment rate among West Indians was 60 percent higher than among other~ blacks. And the median income today is 10 percent higher than that of American whites. They're also better educated than whites. her choQse the path of least king and everybody for our r continued destruction and v and free ourselves from the dilt into our psyche." It is no accident that Marcus Garvey - whose virtues were thrift, hard work and racial pride - was a Jamaican-born West Indian. While West Indians play a disproportionately influential role in black America, they quietly distinguish themselves from poverty movements. Essentially, they rely on a success-oriented culture to obviate much of racism's impact. Groups with little ethnic identity in a culturally pluralistic socie- . Please see page A5 ir the worse essence of black lifeways. The values this group of blacks creates and transmits (like cue cards to the public waiting for what is proper to think, say and do) form the basis of the culture at any particular point in history. So, when Tina Turner "outgrows" the very audience she "grew up" on ... the will of blacks to maintain and transmit imnortant asnects nf what moV? IfiOT \ '/W pww/J *V* us unique will diminish proportionately. Maybe I am stuck in a time warp, but I refuse to accept the common assumptions of 4'success, " ''ambition" and "assimilation" in American life and culture. Black people in America need not accept the idea that self-obliteration of their cultural ways is the highest goal to which they dare aspire. Tina Turner may be poorer if Please see page A9 r'CHILDWATCH Keeping moms . out of 'dumps' * By MARIAN W. EOELMAN ; Syndicjittd Columnist . , WASHINGTON - This year, ' in California, a pregnant woman in labor was refused care at two private hospitals because they \ believed her to be uninsured. Although a fetal heart monitor J detected irregularities in her / baby's heartbeat, these hospitals . "dumped" this woman on the county hospital rather than risk- , ing not being paid. At the county hospital, the baby was stillborn.! /. Stories like this continue to emerge in the 1980s despite a growing public consensus that maternity care is essentials the , best possible outcome of a/, woman's pregnancy. The In-, stitute of Medicine has stressed that a planned delivery in an ap- ^ propriate setting is vital to the, # health of both the mother and in- . _ *. ^ fant. Why, then, are cases like that., of the California mother still far from unique in our wealthy na-:, tion? The answer is that our maternity care financing apparatus*; works poorly for many women in America, and not at all ror > others. Under our patchwork system, ! the biggest deciding factor of ? whether a woman gets adequate care (or any care at all) is still > whether she has insurance or how ; much money she has. 'j In general, maternity services in the United States are a com- ; modity purchased in the ; marketplace, just as one might : buy groceries or a television. J However, maternity care is much ] more expensive than most items ; on a family's shopping list: in : 1985, it cost about $3,200 for an ? ( uncomplicated hospital delivery and $5,000 for care involving a^ Caesarean delivery.' '' Most American women, excepts \ the most affluent; cannot afford? 4o pay for these services out of their own pockets. They need., health insurance coverage to . finance their maternity care. This, means that many preg-t nant women enter the hospital. door - if they are lucky and are admitted - with no way to pay. < In 1982, nearly 40 percent of all hospital discharges involving "self-pay" or "no-charge" pa-, tients were related to obstetricaL care. In some parts of the country, pregnant women do not even at\ tempt tp gain hospital admission for delivery because they know, they1will be turned away. Instead, they stay home to deliver. For some uninsured women* lack of money also means cutting, corners on prenatal care. In 1983, only 61 percent of the infants born to black women received prenatal care in the first three months of the mother's pregnancy Several studies demonstrate "that the primary barrier pregnant?? women face in obtaining prenatal care is an inability to afford the service. Medicaid, our nation's public health financing system, might be expected to help make sure that poor uninsured women get the coverage they need, But Medicaid4 too has some major flaws, including extremely low financial eligibility levels that exclude all but the very poorest of the poor and regulations that effectively exclude many pregnant teens; who are at high risk of poor birth outcome. Even among those women who do qualify, many face difficulties in finding a physician who wifr take Medicaid and in getting the range and quality of services they need. Our maternity care financing' system needs an overhaul, and now is a good time. The past few months have seen a strong resurgence of interest in improving maternal and child health on the part of many governors and both Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Pitas* IN page A5 . >t ?

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