FORUM Welfare Reform: The New, Raw, and Real Deal Upfront Slavery . That was the title of the autobiography of Booker T. Washington, the 19th century's greatest spokesman behind the call for social uplift of newly-freed slaves. To h:m, this was America ? where the individual, rooted in a spirit of self-help and industrious ness ? could take advantage of many opportunities that existed, in spite of racism. In fact, to Booker T., a mule-like trudge through the racism would end in a glorious display of achievement, proving to the African Amer LIFT EVERY VOICE By Dr. WILLIAM H. TURNER icans their self worth; and, to his white fellow citizens, it would dispel the widely-held belief that blacks were lazy and had become depen dant on hand-outs from slavemasters and kindly whites. Now we are faced with a new twist on Booker T's vision. Peter Kilborn of the New York Times calls it Up From Welfare : how the Contract With America might be the driving force behind efforts to e^ourage, inspire, induce and prod the seven million Americans who benefit from AFDC ? the principal welfare program ? into work and lilies of self-sufficiency. The form of the welfare system, as concerns African Americans ? principally women would propel these head of welfare households into the Great American Middle Class. Too many welfare recipients are seen as having come to expect and accept government handouts. They are shiftless and lazy. They won't take the jobs that are available so that they to can join the middle class. Sounds great. Few of the many people who don't understand why those mired in poverty don't simply get out and work do not realize that the economy is not like it was in th^days of Mr. Washington. In fact, those of us who are highly-educated and with technicakskilis may not know that the hourly wages are the stingiest since th^ welfare system, as we know it, came in with FDR's New Deal. How many of us from smug suburban homes with green lawns and picket fences stood in line last year in NYC with the 15 black women heads of household chasing a single $4.25 an hour job in a fast-food restaurant? A year later, 75% of them in that line still don't have a job. How much do we know about the labor market that is glutted with people who are better qualified than most welfare recipients? How many people in good-paying trades such as plumbers, electricians, and construction workers? who sneer at idle black men? were themselves steered into their jobs by apprenticeship programs? Now the Republi can Congress, through the Contract With America, is hell bent to close down affirmative action programs that goad employers to hire the very Booker T. Washington people that most Americans think make up the bulk of the welfare dole: blacks and women. . ? < What is more, think next time you drive past a public housing complex, that the people there are physically quite far from where the jobs are! "A welfare recipient, if they wanted to, could find a job by sunset," but, the ? jobs are outside the urban core. For the many for whom commuting and the drop-off at the day-care is a way of life, there are many more who lack trans I portation and are too unschooled in the culture of work to get and hold a job. It is very hard for people to do what they never had an opportunity to do and can't get there to be around those from whom they could learn how to do it. Many of us who commute each day spend more on gasoline, lunch, and dry cleaning than is to be earned by those who would fill our tanks, wash our cars, serve our meals, bathe our loved ones at the hospitals and convalescent centers, clean and guard our offices and hotel rooms and pick our veggies. These jobs ? most of which are part time ? are held by the working poor who are paid less than $7 an hour. Virtually all low-wage jobs are temporary or part time and nearly two in ten of those who hold these jobs work less than 30 hours a week. And, these poor souls must still depend in part of public assistance such as food stamps and subsidized housing. With the rate of inflation, such workers could buy 25% more with similar earnings twenty years ago. For women, marriage has always been the best alternative to welfare; but, for the average poor African American women, the wages of the few available men they could many have fallen lower than theirs! These men are more likely to be high school dropouts and tainted by infractions with the law. Even so, Booker T. would be happy to know that in spite of what the framers of the Contract With America are saying, many welfare recipients do try to make it by working. Btrtr for what we Jmow about the difference between the reality and the myths, two-thirds who do go to work return to the rolls within three years. 30 hours a week brings in about $900 a month, without any benefits. Take $200 for child care, $150 for transportation, leaving about $550 for everything else. Such folk, like those of us trying to lower out earnings and taxes equations, are not fools. They can get $375 a month from AFDC, up to $325 in food, stamps for a family of three, free health care through Medicaid, and assistance for housing, heat, and transportation. Who needs a high school diploma or a low-paying job to figure which is a Raw Deal, a New Deal, or the Real Deal? In today's world, lawmakers might do better to figure out ways to provide welfare recipients job training so that they will qualify for tolerable jobs, with child and health care. (Dr. William H. Turner is a regular freelance columnist for the Chronicle). This may be the last column 1*11 write for some time about the Coalition on African American Education's proposal for "high quality, Afrocentric" schooling in Winston-Salem as soon as possible. It is the last column because I've been writing for over a month as to what this means. We appreciate the Chronicle's coverage .because the daily "newspaper" failed to even give us the courtesy of an interview for almost five months. And when they did cover an Afrocentric educator, on April 20, they put "Afrocentric" in quotation marks depicting skep ticism and cynicism that anyone can understand the word. You'll notice they didn't put "magnet zone" in quotation marks when they headlined the school systems proposal. We refuse to believe that "the learning curve on Afrocentrism is so laige iMneahs either everything to everyone or nothing to anyone." Instead, the Coalition believe it has defined Afrocentrism for expres- - sion in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County public schools and in the columns over the last several weeks. You'll recall we've written of "unconscious Afrocentrism" mean ing high expectation of students, strong administrative leadership, strict teacher/principal discipline and schools as institutional presences that center a community. We've also discussed "Conscious Afrocentrism" including valuing Africa through the Ethiopian, Egyptian, Ghanaian, Malican, and Songhayan civilizations, an African American history of resistance to oppression, understanding different Black learning styles and other recently published data on African American students, hav ing school buildings, classrooms, flags, songs, culture and teaching styles reflective of the history and inheritance of Black folk. Finally, conscious Afrocentrism would create a very strong com munity advisory group to the principal and faculty of these schools with the notion that "it takes a whole village to raise one child." All of us who are well educated and middle class need not only to talk about schools, we need to volunteer in these schools. Indeed, whatever the level of education or unemployment all parents and all persons of good will can be volunteer because everyone has something to offer. If my own two children are able to get a chance to be educated at these schools, I would love for them to; but whether they are or not, I will be a volunteer at these schools. This is not something the organized Black Community is asking iinii'kinirr the school system to do for us. This is something the organized Black Community is asking the school system to partner with us as we take back the primary responsibility for educating our children. A strong community advisory group would also be in the business of raising money. Currently, the three county wide magnet Elementary Schools, the Downtown School, Kimberly Park and Moore's, have some of the lowest percentage of poor children. Consequently, a very socio-eco nomically elite group of parents raise high significant sums of money (in Moore's case, more than the $70,000 of my cnurches annual bud get). Does anyone believe the P.T.A. at say, the proposed Diggs School or Forest Park is capable of such amounts of cash? How else will they compete for computer technology and the like unless folks whose chil dren either don't attend or are grown, help raise dollars? Everyone who works in these schools as professionals, should undergo annual mandatory racial/cultural sensitivity training, that is administratively monitored. At least 60 percent of the teaching faculty should be Black with perhaps an African American principal and a non- African American assistant principal. Black educators don't auto matically or always know how to work with all Black children, because some of them are so "middle class" they look down their noses at poor folk of any race. 1 know by my 1 ,082 mile drive through Trenton, NJ; Philadelphia, Pa; and Washington, DC , last week, as well as by meeting Ray Johnson, principal of Paul Roberson Academy in Detroit that Afrocentric , high quality curriculum instruction and learn ing cannot only meet all state educational requirements, they can greatly surpass them. (Rev. Carlton Eversley is pastor of Dellabrook Presbyterian Church). QUEST COLUMNIST By REV. CARLTON EVERSLEY Bridal Gown Liquidation Sale (Closing Kernersvilie Store) 50% to 80% Oil Must Sell To Make Room For New Stock __ I sr(i Tu\?*