Newspapers / Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.) / June 25, 1992, edition 1 / Page 4
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Winston-Salem Chronicle "The Twin City's Award-Winning Weekly" Established in 1974 Ernest H. Pitt ? Ndubisi Egemonye Editor/Publisher Co-Founder Member in good standing with: ? North Carelnt Audit Bureau Amal9?T?itd ? PuWihM AMoewtion P rMi A? fliaton Of Circulations Inc. Editorial County Budget Several county commissioners held themselves up in rooms, (blatantly circumventing the open meetings law that requires them not to gather in a majority and discuss budget), and feverishly worked out a shame less plan to save wealthy Gutless, spineless county commission' ers ere balenclng the budget on the becks of the poor. taxpayers a few bucks by cutting services to the poor. They simply didn't have the backbone to raise taxes a measly 3.S cents or four cents to suf ficiently fund programs that are, in fact, at the heart of our chances to be a thriving community. It makes no sense to cut services at the Reynolds Health Center as a result, minor health problems will go un tended, get worse, and require serious, more costly treatment. It makes no sense to cut 75 (essential) jobs, send I ing working taxpayers to the unemployment lines. How can we cut a quarter-million dollars from the school budget when our children are so far from reach ing their potential? These commissioners want to cut library services for handicapped, elderly, homebound and minority neighborhoods. Why? Because they are the least likely to complain. And, apparently political considerations outweigh human needs. Who complains loudest? Wealthy taxpayers who SCTR9m*bQUt paying m p*r<year (les? ^ 1? v- ?- ? ? - - % * than a dollar a week)t they are the same pdople who^ enjoy the finest things that money can buy, who waste more food and money each month than many citizens see all year. What business wants to locate in a town with high unemployment, students whose education is sadly suf fering, people in critical need of health care, people who have been denied access to the local library? Social responsibility Too many of America's largest corporations have found the perfect camouflage for the absence of black managers in their ranks and the lack of advertising dol lars spent with the black press: the answer is public relations programs. The most popular program is to team up with an important but under-funded black orga nization (all that come to mind qualify), dangle a few thousand dollars in front of them, and blan ket the country with happy press releases and 8 x 10 glossy photographs of black leaders with management. But where are the black managers? Where is the commitment to cultural diversity? Of course, some corporations blindly send out release after release of white faces just promoted to the ranks of management: they don't even pretend to care about cultural diversity. They will certainly go the way of the dinosaur. The Aunt Jemima brand has formed an alliance with a national black group to sponsor a pro gram honoring black female community leaders this summer. This kind of partnership is utterly distasteful. Because of the Aunt Jemima brand, Quaker Oats is the leading manufacturer of pancake and waffle mixes, syrups and frozen breakfast entrees for the consumer and food service industry. How much of that multi-million dollar industry benefits the black community, whose pride and dignity is undermined by the big, black mamma on the label? How many black executives does Quaker Oats employ? What is their affirmative action record? CEOs have got to put their minds to fully integrat ing their ranks. It is a poor leader who refuses to look ahead, who chooses to ignore the signs of the times. Corporations need culturally diverse management, not more public relations programs. Readers says suggest action, don't demand it To tbt Editor: Yours is the only paper that I read carefully cover to cover (with the exception of the sports pages, which 1 don't read in any paper). 1 always learn from it, and I believe it gives to those of us who get it and read it regularly a better understands -? ing of the whole community. Fm writing with a suggestion. In the issue of Thursday, June 11, there was the following headline "Citizens demand review boan}." It seems to me a bad-luttjit that every body has to demand everything they want. The word gets everyofafs back up before they have a chance to find out what is demanded. This is not just a local problem. 1 find the word "demand" used excessively in newspapers, speech es, and television all over the coun try. To start out with such a strong word puts people's teeth on edge and gets their back up. Usually their reaction is "I'm damned if HI do it" I feel that the less frequent use of the word, "demand" and the more frequent use of such words as "sug gest,* "request," and "urge" might make it easier for us to get those * things which we desire and which, in most instances, justice "demands." Gordon Hants Yes to review board lb the Editor: Today, June 15, 1992, the board of Aldermen motioned for a Police Review Board. Many innocent vie- . tiras have been mistreated because of speculation of their character. I was very happy, but crying inside when Chief George A. Sweat went on television denying any wrongdo ing. I have a 39-year-old husband who, along with others, has to suf fer injuries sustained by his men! My husband is not the only one who has been mistreated, but any of ? *1 60 ID IMF BAIL? mwthb' PKINCB r, UVB? INTHBPAlACeZ BBS CHRONICLE MAI LB AG Our Readers Speak Out the other victims who are innocent has to face this same situation. Saying, "I'm sorry" does not repair the emotional stress that we as members of each of the family victims are facing and I myself have made my feelings known and I can't close this letter thanking the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for making all things possible. As Ephesians 6:12 says, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of ^he darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." We need to put on the whole armor of God! Give honor to God for the Police Review Board! Debra C. Hunter Thanks to volunteers To the Editor: On behalf of the graduation seniors of the Class of 1992 and the corporate sponsors of Project Grad uation, we would like to thank the volunteers who participated in Pro ject Graduation 1992. Almost 300 individuals worked until 5:30 a.m. on June 5 in wet conditions to setup an excellent alcohol and drug free celebration for the senior class of 1992. Over $40,000 in food and door prizes were contributed to ensure that Pro ject Graduation was "the only place to be." The SAFE Initiative is an effort which finds the public and private sectors of our community working together to provide healthy and fun filled alternatives to alcohol and drug use. Congratulations to the seniors of the class of 1992. John Holleman Chairman Safe Initiative Selbert M.Wood President/CEO Step One Substance Abuse Services Is Jackson using Clinton/Souljah flap to back Perot? Thanks to Sister Souljah we blacks at the same time,, Clinton " now know why JesseJackson.wUl h may have inadvertently served never wear the crown of Martin yjacl^n'S bwn political ambitions. Luther King Jr. And we also have And although the news media have explicit evidence that Gov.. Bill almost exclusively focused on Jack Clinton, who is drawing only one in son's oversized ego and penchant to five white voters, can Willie Horton destroy his party's presidential l Syndicated Columnist TONY BROWN with the best of the Republicans. It all began with the rapper's pur ported view in The Washington Post that there are no good white people and her suggestion that blacks kill white people. Clinton, although correct in his criticism of her remarks, waited a month before he expressed his outrage to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coali tion. However, while serving his own political interests by appealing to the Reagan Democrats and the white middle class by projecting that he can control Jesse Jackson, Democratic interest groups, and choices, they miss, in my opinion, what his real motive is in prolong ing his most recent hassle with Clinton: to use the Sister Souljah flap as an excuse to endorse Ross Perot. Clinton's opportunism and the perception that Jackson has been exploited and passed over for the vice presidential slot simply give him the rationale to do what is rumored he had planned to do for some time ? join H. Ross Perot's campaign for president One of Jackson's supporters, a New York Daily News columnist named Juan Gonzalez, along with Harlem Rep. Charles R angel, may be test driving the possibility of an August endorsement of Perot^y Jackson, whose -pro aim iiy served as curses to the last two Democratic presidential nominees and most recently to Jerry Brown in New York. Gonzalez wrote this week that he had privately met with Jackson and what was "previously unthink able. ..gambling with Ross Perot...suddenly becomes possible." Jackson, indicating that Perot is a viable alternative, deferred to Rangel's statement that he may vote for Perot Of course, none of these non-whites have mentioned that Perot himself stands accused of having proposed in 1988 that the Dallas neighborhoods housing the people who look like Gonzalez and Jackson be cordoned off by police and invaded by SWAT teams and infrared-equipped helicopters in what would likely be an unconstitu tional assault But Jackson, who exercises a paternalistic grip over the black community's politics, can't be expected to let a little thing like Ross Perot's allegedly dangerous and possibly racist ideas get in the way of his personal ambitions any more so than he can denounce Sis ter SouljahVittffttffmatofy fctttarics if it interferes With his political ambitions. In a sense, Clinton is simply filling a vacuum created by black leaders who refuse to speak condemn hate when practiced by David Duke. Blaming Clinton sim ply becomes a convenient highway to Perot's huge campaign outlays. Clinton's use of Souljah's words to embarrass Jackson, and Clinton's tactical motives in demonstrating his independence from Jackson, and his incessant demand notwithstanding, Clinton is morally right in condemning what he believed was an exhorta tion to a murder spree against white people. One would be hard pressed to imagine Martin Luther King denouncing anyone who denounced someone he or she believed advo cated murder. Instead, Jackson accused Clinton of "bad judgment" and said Souljah had been "misun derstood," although a tape recording showed her remarks to be hateful when she made them. This is one reason Jackson will never wear King's moral crown. Lessons of Los Angeles The lessons of the Los Angeles disorder are disappearing into a haze of politicized rhetoric. But Americans can't forget those terrible days of disorder ? they must show they have learned some basic lessons from what happened, including: ?Racism lives America thought passing some laws and issuing some executive orders wiped out 400 years of racism. It didn't Overt racism just gave way to equally effective, but some subtle, practices that marginal ized African-Americans and their communities. After years of prattle about how America has become a colorblind society,' the verdict acquitting Rodney King's attackers should convince even the most con servative optimists that racism lives. ?Justice Is not equal The Rodney King case is just an obvious example of how the criminal justice system is permeated with inequality. A Justice Depart ment busy fighting affirmative action needs to get busy helping local police departments and courts dispense equal justice. ? Racial inequality is growing The Los Angeles outburst reflected growing racial inequality. Blacks, for example, make 60% less than whites; our poverty rates are three times hitgher, our unemploy ment rates, two-and-a-half times the rates for whites. And the gap is growing as the economy changes. ? Riots focus attention Our nation was blind to the pain and anger welling up in the poorest inner city communities. It took a cataclysmic upheaval to expose racial tensions that should have been easily visible. But most Americans didn't notice ? only after the riots did the politicians wake up to the urban crisis, and an Administration in its fourth year of office frantically began to pull together an inadequate domestic agenda. ? Government has to be part of the solution The roots of the L.A. disorders fading into lie in the brutal shredding of the social safety net In effect, govern ment broke the social contract that binds us together in a common soci ety by turning its back on the poor, and now it must restore that con tract by confronting urban poverty. A government that bailed out the savings and loan industry and political haze campaigns that replace dependency with political clout Economically, the annual $300 billion in black purchasing power should be used to support black businesses and finance community economic initiatives. Socially, our communities need to organize to reinforce positive val TO BE EQUAL By JOHN E. JACOB mounted a Desert Storm has the resources and the capacity to imple ment a Marshall Plan for America. ? Black empowerment The major lessons of L.A. for African-Americans is the need to organize and use our tremendous latent power. Politically, we need to mount massive voter registration ues and drive out the drug dealers and criminals who prey on them. An empowered community must guide the rebuilding of riot-torn areas, to ensuret the community helps shape programs that will not simply restore a demoralizing envi ronment, but create a new, more workable one.
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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June 25, 1992, edition 1
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