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
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